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Chapter Text

[. Child’s Play .]

Chapter 1 - Puzzles

“What are you thinking of?” Clive asked, unbidden. 

Eyes still closed, feigning sleep even knowing he would never fall for the ruse, Jill sighed the sigh of a woman all-too-satisfied. 

“You. Always.”

She could sense a smile in his small hum of contentment. 

Calloused fingers reached out to brush away sweat-soaked bangs from her forehead. It was all she could do to keep from cooing, burying her cheek deeper into the pillow of the Northreach Inn’s bed they occupied, the air hazy with the perfume of their lovemaking alongside that of the snow daisies.

The garland she had woven was prominently laid out in the center of the suite’s table, the staff having been given strict instructions not to touch, as though her silly craft were some gilded trophy worthy of reverence. 

The man was ridiculous with what he considered ‘treasures’. 

Oh, how she loved him for it. 

In that moment, she felt as languid as a kitten in a sunbeam, reaching her arms and legs in a glorious stretch to reanimate the body he had so recently rendered boneless. 

Forget Origin. Forget Ultima. Forget saving the world. 

She dispatched a silent prayer that they could just stay like this, deliciously entangled, forever. 

“I’ve heard back from Mid,” he continued, nerves too galvanized by the future they had drafted in the meadow to allow her respite. “The Enterprise can be ours for as long as we need. To find a new home. Together.”

At this, her eyes snapped open. 

The vision she had shared of traveling beyond the Twins — of settling somewhere where she could stretch her wings — was meant to be a mere dream. Here he was, less than a day later, already formulating plans to see it to fruition. 

A fantasy made real.

Her heart swelled with such affection, with pure, unadulterated hope, that she launched herself upon him. In her zeal, she hadn’t realized he was precariously perched on the bed’s edge to allow her the majority of the mattress, and they both ended up toppling to the ground. The floorboards shook with such vigor that their goblets sloshed wine all over the nightstand. 

“Shh!” he chastised through an exaggerated wince, for she was laughing like a bandit in an unguarded treasury. “What of the staff and Joshua?”

Glancing at the wall between their rooms, Jill struggled to keep her giggles in check. This proved to be impossible. “As if they had not already drawn conclusions when you dragged me up the staircase. What happened to your famous patience, my Lord?”

 At this, his stormy blue eyes grew steely. Jill stopped laughing then, pressing both palms against his bare chest to lean back and create some distance. Her thighs still straddled his waist, the twisted sheets doing little to protect their modesty, had they had any remaining. 

“Clive?” she asked, with newfound concern, scanning his expression for some hint. “It is your turn. What are you thinking of?”

“I am thinking…” One of those large, scarred hands that had brought her so much pleasure with their audacity, this time wove into the hair behind her ear, as tenderly as if she were a newborn lamb. Jill turned to press a kiss into his palm. Waiting. After an eternity of a minute, swallowing thickly, he continued. “I do not want to be patient anymore. As soon as we are free, I want you. In every way that both Gods and Men define devotion. That is, if you wish for the same, Lady…Rosfield?”

She had to bite back an instinctual chuckle at his questioning tone. For wasn’t it obvious?

She was his as he was hers. 

Body and soul and sword and hearth.

Whether Warrick or Rosfield or Cid or Wyvern or Ifrit or Mythos, they were connected by nameless bonds stronger than any ceremonies or paper. They were best friends. They were lovers. They were family. 

They were two hearts beating as one. 

In answer, she leaned down to seal their lips. Though this was likely the hundredth time they had kissed in the weeks since the Shadow Coast shipwreck, still it felt as exhilarating as the first. When his hand wandered from her hair, to her lower back, pressing her hips to his, letting her feel the rigidity of his ardor, she knew she was a fallen woman.

And thus, with another night of senseless passion, did a new journey truly begin.     

Compendium of Rosarian Verse

The rills run red with brave men’s blood

And to the talons flow in flood

Then out to sea

But those same souls whose souls are touched

By the flames Phoenix claws are clutched

And ne’er shall die

So dry thine eyes, thy groom is gone

But in thy babe his light lives on

And so shall he

The Hideaway, Year of the Realm 878

After Origin’s Fall

The pieces were misshaped, many bent or water stained. 

Tangible entertainment such as puzzles were rare in the Hideaway and usually too damaged to be worth the hassle of trying to guess whatever image the artist aimed to imitate.  

“It must be Drake’s Breath,” Aimee insisted, finger tracing the outline of what was, maybe once, a bright orange shard. “Or perhaps…a carrot?”

“This is boring ,” Arthur complained, pushing away from the table with a scoff. “Why can’t we play Outlaw versus Imperials? You know that’s my favorite.”

“Because!” another child, Josselin, hissed, glancing over his shoulder at the many adults milling about the Ale Hall, still sporting matching expressions of dismay.

It had been several days since their leader, Cid, alongside his brother had flown to Origin on a dragon’s wings, like the bravest of heroes that they undoubtedly were. The men had been successful in their mission. The skies were clearer than they’d been in months, free of both primogenesis’ smog and the crystal’s terrifying shadow. 

Yet still, no one dared to celebrate. The grim reality of the matter was just starting to sink in. 

Cid the Outlaw — otherwise known as the thought-to-be-invincible Clive Rosfield— would not be coming back. 

Impersonating him would not be appropriate. Not for a long while, if ever. 

“Oh.” Slinking back into his seat, Arthur lip quivered as he crossed his arms over his chest. 

All three children grew solemn for a minute. Fondly, they remembered the many times that selfless man had helped them rebuild a machine they semi-accidentally broke, avoiding their tutor, Shirleigh’s, oh-so-tiresome disciplinary measures. Not to mention the handfuls of exotic sweeties he often brought from the furthest reaches of Storm, with names like ‘dragon’s beard’ (thin sugar floss wrapped around a package of candied nuts) or ‘shoopuf trunks’ (coils of sticky blue licorice that could be unraveled and reshaped). 

Most of all, they would always remember, with heart-clenching clarity, that they would have been long dead had he not plucked them from the streets or slave markets. 

It was thanks to Cid and Cid alone (all renditions of him) that they had a home where they could play and explore without the looming threat of a lash, forced to produce magic until their fingers turned to stone and shattered.

They would miss him. 

“A new game then,” Aimee suggested just as the silence started to grow frosty. In a grand gesture, she swept the puzzle remnants aside, destroying whatever they had managed to build thus far. “Let’s play…Inventor! I heard Mid built a new filter she thinks is a dud. I bet she’d give it to us.”

“Yeah!” The boys leapt to their feet, fists raised in the air. This was their second favorite game, after all: dismantling. 

Per their guardians rule, at first they set about clearing the table of the old, failed game. 

No one noticed the piece that had fallen and wedged itself between a crack in the floorboards. Its absence would not be mourned. The image, the fantasy, was ruined anyway. 

What did it matter, in the grand scheme of things, that it remained incomplete?

Midadol Telamon

Lead Engineer  

“I swear, I-I have not seen the woman eat a fuckin’ crumb in, like… weeks !” Mid sputtered before downing another hearty gulp of ale. 

Their resident engineer was in her cups again, as she had often been in the fortnight post Clive’s disappearance, choosing to spend the majority of daylight hours in either her dungeon or bunk, sunlight rarely touching her skin. 

None at the Hideaway dared chastise her for this. They all had their own ways of grieving. 

Tonight especially, it was not her that Cid’s inner-circle was concerned about. Mid was still working, still inventing and building. 

Jill Warrick, however…

Jill haunted the airship’s skeleton as if she were its original, Fallen ghost. 

She appeared in the halls rarely and only from the corner of people’s eyes, her long, loosened shift billowing behind her like wings, for she never bothered with accessories like corsets, belts or weapons anymore. 

It was downright unsettling to witness. 

“Give ‘er time.” Gav insisted, taking a hearty gulp of his own drink. He rarely indulged nowadays, still struggling to shoulder Cid’s mantle and one day become someone the little uns’ could look up to half as much as they had him. Edda’s son needed a proper father figure and, fuck it, he would work tirelessly to somehow turn this bag of rocks into a platinum-tier example. “We all saw that goodbye. Woman was a hair’s breadth away from living a damned fairy tale. Can’t be surprised that it’s taking more time to get ‘er bearings than the rest of us.”

In tandem, they looked up at the doors to Clive’s chamber, grimacing at the obvious glow of candlelight between the planks even at this late hour. 

Jill hadn’t been sleeping either. 

Dammit. 

“I…I’m worried,” Mid dared to admit, twisting the flagon between her hands and staring into its depth as if expecting solutions to float to the surface. “Somethen’s off. This is more than just about Clive. I-I can smell it.”

“So you’re the one with the nose now, eh?” Gav chuckled, thumping her on the back. “What makes you so sure?”

Mid stared up at the doors again. Glared at them, more like. Mentally, she ripped them off their hinges to reveal what was beneath the surface. To see and discover what made the place and its newly solo resident tick . 

She stared and stared and stared until her brain started to throb, before sighing and leaning her forehead on the table. “I don’t knowwwww. Not yet. But I will! Mark me words!”

“Sure ya will, darlin’”. Another thump on the back, another swig of ale. 

Jill would be alright. 

The woman had been to hell and back. On multiple occasions. Each time, she returned stronger than the last. 

She just needed time. 

They were all praying that all she needed was time. 

Tarja

Head Physicker

As the candles whittled down to stubs, Tarja was still reviewing her notes in the infirmary. Though there was evidence that those plagued by the crystal’s curse were not deteriorating since magic had been expelled from the world, she still held back any premature celebration. For there was no sign of them rehabilitating either. 

Leaning her elbows on the desktop, she took a moment to massage her temples.

Things had to get better in time. They would get better. 

If not…then how could those brave mens’ sacrifice be worth the price?

She was pulled from this dire reverie by the creak of the door opening. 

“Who’s there?” She spat over her shoulder, annoyed at the interruption when she had been firm about the infirmary's schedule.

“Oh! My apologies, Tarja.”

At the familiar voice, the physicker gasped, spinning around in her chair to confirm. 

“Jill,” she greeted in surprise. 

She had not seen the woman for nearly a month, locked up as she had been in Clive’s chambers, frantically scribbling correspondence, helping bring the world to sorts in the only way she could stomach. Despite what they had to assume were the most difficult days of her life, Jill appeared invigorated as she entered the infirmary and closed the door behind her softly, as if worried the sound of the latch would wake the entire Hideaway. 

“I assumed you’d be in the bunks at this hour.” Lady Warrick wrung her hands together, clearly nervous. “I desire only a bottle of your seaward tonic and I’ll be on my way.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Tarja went to fetch it without thinking. However, as she pulled the bottle from the cabinet, only then did the strangeness of the request begin to gnaw at her. 

“This is a potent anti-nausea medicine,” she reminded the woman, not that she had doubt of her awareness. “As both your friend and physician, I must inquire…are you alright?”

“No.” The response was instant, and yet Jill smiled, eyes glassy and cheeks flushing an even brighter shade of rose. “But I will be. Just need to get some rest. Is that not what you are always telling me?”

“Yes, but-”

“I thank you for your kindness, Tarja.” Jill reached for the bottle, yanking it from her hands with an uncharacteristic harshness before backing up towards the door.

Realizing she had no choice, that this broken woman would always do whatever she felt she had to do regardless of a professional’s instruction, the physicker nodded. 

Clive’s disappearance was old enough to have begun festering. She trusted that Jill was trying her best to heal in whatever ways she could handle. 

“Take care of yourself, Lady Warrick.”

Grinning unnaturally, those icy gray-blue eyes shimmering, Jill nodded. Then, in a blink, she was gone. 

Falling heavily back into her desk chair, Tarja pulled her patient and stores logbook closer to record the withdrawal. 

Per both her notes and memory, Jill had never before requested seaward tonic. Stomach like a steel trap, that one had. She probably only knew of the medicine’s existence due to Otto’s dependence whenever he was forced to cross the lake on the infamously unsteady skiff. 

Strange. 

There was no time to dwell on it. Lady Warrick had always been a puzzle, one that she had once considered solved. But ever since she and Clive had returned from Waloed, a strange new tension brewed during their every appointment, growing more and more bitter with each visit. The Lady would accept the herbs offered, acknowledging that they were necessary should she wish to explore certain aspects of her relationship and thanking her, but with an air of exasperation. 

Tarja wanted to be invasive. She wanted to kick down the door to Clive’s chambers, tie the woman to the bed and examine every inch of her. To ensure she was healthy, that she was surviving this most excruciating of wounds. 

Tonight was not that night. 

There were medicines to grind, apprentices to train, experiments to review and patients to care for. 

Whatever was happening with Jill Warrick would have to wait. 

Otto

Chief Steward

Six weeks had passed since the Rosfields jumped the gangplank and there was still no sign of them. At this point, Otto and his team of scouts were mostly aiming to find a body. Or even a leather-clad limb left behind by scavengers. Anything to dispel this dreaded limbo of uncertainty. With a groan, he stumbled off the skiff after yet another fruitless expedition along with some pick-up quests, hands on his knees as he tried to quell the bile rising in his throat. 

Tarja had been completely out of stock of the seaward tonic she usually gifted him for such journeys. 

Curses to whoever had beaten him to the punch. 

“Otto!” Jill was rushing towards him across the docks, having headed for the lift the moment she saw the boat on the horizon from Clive’s balcony, where she spent the majority of her hours. 

Gods, this was the worst part. 

The having to tell that beautiful, broken woman that he found nothing, not even a promising footprint. Again.

He attempted to delay the inevitable.  

“Jill! Fancy seeing you up and about. Are you well?”

“Well enough,” she insisted with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. “Have you my cloth, perchance?” 

He could have sworn he saw a flash of a wince as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, but didn’t dare interrogate. Jill liked to keep to herself these days, constantly brushing off the inquiries as to her state. The least Otto felt he could do was respect her wishes for privacy as she mourned. 

“This for you, eh?” Turning to the boat, he plucked out several bolts of fabric from the bow’s storage. They were mostly simple cottons of various colors, the topmost decorated with what he would consider a childish print of daisies. Nothing like the white linen and thick, cerulean leather of her usual dress. Not that she wore the full, corseted and buckled ensemble much anymore. 

He couldn’t help it. The curiosity was burning too fiercely. Besides, maybe this was a sign of her healing. 

Maybe she’d talk to him. Of all people. 

For Clive’s sake, he had to try. 

“Care to tell me what you're up to with this lot? Some project for the little uns’, perhaps new quilts?”

“Something like that.” 

There was no elaboration. 

Otto chose not to press. Something in her gaze was still off, as if she were looking through and not at him. Frankly, it was more than a little jarring. 

She wasn’t ready. 

“Happy I could be of service, my Lady.” He bowed, low. It was apparently the exact wrong thing to say or do, or perhaps he simply had bad timing, for she inhaled sharply and staggered back a few steps, almost as if hit by an arrow to the sternum. 

“Jill!”

“I am fine,” she insisted, shooting a hand out to stop him from getting closer as she recouped, teeth gritted, eyes clenched shut. “I’m…fine.”  

It took everything in him to stay rooted to the spot and let her carry herself over whatever crest she was climbing. Clive wouldn’t have been so timid. He would have scooped her — or any one in such a state, including Goetz — up over his shoulder to carry directly to the infirmary and insist they take care. 

But Otto wasn’t Clive. No one ever would be. 

At that point, it was impossible to hide the moisture gathering in his eyes, clotheslined by the realization that he had lost not one, but two Cids. Two of the bravest and most selfless men he had ever known and who deserved to be here, laughing and drinking ale and living with their families, blood or otherwise. 

“Shit…” Hastily, he wiped his eyes. Too late. Jill had seen and something in her softened. Not enough to completely dissolve the barrier she had erected around herself, but making it slightly less opaque. “Forgive me. This old man’s grown soft.”

“There is no need for forgiveness.” Having recovered from her spell, Jill hesitantly approached, as if cornering a wounded chimera. His breath sputtered when her hand fell upon his shoulder. “Thank you, Otto. For everything.” 

To his knowledge, she hadn’t touched anyone since the day Origin fell. Not any of the children seeking comfort, not the Ale Hall cooks whenever they tried to force a meal into her hands, no one. She accepted commiseration only from Torgal and even that was rare, the hound more often seen sleeping outside her door, guarding it, than inside the chambers. Perhaps she worried her ennui would rub off on the beast.   

Otto was honored that she seemed to be pushing through her phobia to offer him solace. That his ‘patheticism’ had inspired a sliver of the woman they once knew to shine through the blight of despair. 

Perhaps he wasn’t so useless after all. 

“If he’s out there, we’ll find him," he promised, patting the top of her hand. “I swear it.”

“I have no doubt.” The shadow of a smile graced her pale, trembling lips. 

Then she was gone, slipping from his fingers like melting ice, bolts of cloth tucked under her arm as she marched back to the lift with a hurried air, as if the daylight burned.  

Her movements were… strange, he noticed. Jill had always borne exceptional grace, barely making a sound as she dashed across the floorboards that were known to groan their discontent when anyone else deigned to disturb them. Now she seemed, for lack of a better word, unsteady. As if her balance had atrophied and her steps had grown heavier in the weeks spent alone in Clive’s chambers. 

Shaking his head, Otto decided not to dwell on it. The woman probably rarely slept, as everyone knew she barely ate. Of course she’d be off kilter. 

“I sure hope you’re out there, Clive,” Otto whispered to the lake. “For her sake.”

Gav

Scout (or Cid III, depending on who you ask)

The second he saw Jill descending the stairs from Clive’s chambers (no one would stop calling them that), Gav nearly bit clean through his spoon. Not only because it had been seven weeks since the Rosfields infiltrated Origin and he had only caught the rare glimpse as proof that she still resided in the Hideaway, but mostly because of what she was wearing. 

Her dress was new. New and red.

“What the ffffffuuuuuck?” he muttered, perhaps a bit too loudly. Eyes the color of glaciers fixed to where he sat. Before he knew it, she was making her way over. 

As Lady Warrick gingerly lowered into the seat across the table, his tongue seemed to grow too large for his mouth while he shamelessly stared. Not only was the material red but it was cut to fall off her shoulders, exposing her décolletage much like the Sabrequian courtesans. However, no laced leather corset cinched her waist. The material was left loose with nothing but a simple, black ribbon tied below her breasts and black leggings beneath it all, silver hair gathered on one side in a thick, single braid. To his surprise and delight, her rapier was on hand again. However, it was affixed via some new sheath contraption that resembled more of an archer’s quiver, belted around her shoulder and chest rather than her hips.

She looked like a goddamn Rosarian, warrior princess of old. 

Most importantly, she looked healthy. Robust and rosy-cheeked. 

He thanked the Gods. He and the others had been mere days away from staging an intervention, all of them sensing that Clive’s spirit — should he currently exist in spirit — would forever haunt them should they allow her to disintegrate from grief beneath their noses. 

“You can stop gaping now, Gav,” Jill teased, leaning her bare forearms on the tabletop. “Tis a dress, not the skins of our enemies.”

Reaching up, Gav made an exaggerated show of snapping his jaw shut. 

She laughed at that and something in his chest ballooned with pride. 

He had missed her. 

It was too soon to talk about Clive or anything near that sensitive topic, so he instead did what he did best: sniff out and explore safer routes. 

“Swanky threads,” he complimented, raising his water goblet in a toast. “Of course, a dress is no more than a pile of cloth until a bea-yuuuu-tiful woman slips into it.”

As he expected, the Lady shook her head, chuckling at his ridiculousness. “And mead is just mead until a Gav drinks it. Then it becomes a license to be inappropriate.”

“Me? Inappropriate?” He scoffed. “Fuck no! Never!”

They shared another laugh then. It felt good, after so many weeks. 

Dare they dream that she was healing? That she could find a way to live and, perhaps, even be happy in this world without the man she had had every intention of spending the end of her days with?

Could any of them?

“For the record,” she began, finger tracing a carved curse word one of the little un’ had etched into the wood. Not that any of them would admit it. “I was finding my old dress a little too constricting in this season’s heat. Not to mention, white had always been difficult to keep unbloodied.”

“Won’t be a problem now!” Gav gestured to the puffed sleeves that ended at her elbow. “Red suits you.” 

“Hmm. Thank you.”  

 They fell into a silence that was half familiar and cozy, half uncomfortable and tense. The subject of the new clothes now exhausted, Gav struggled to find another path — any path — of conversation that did not revolve around the person they lost and left a gaping hole in this place. Like a ship missing its rudder. 

Thankfully, Jill seemed to have a purpose in coming out of hiding. 

“I was…curious.” Leaning closer, she peered into the wooden bowl set before him. “Your meal. May I ask what it is?”

“O’course. Yvan dug up some old, northern soup recipe that uses — get this — behemoth blood as a base! You’d think, from the smell, it’d taste like piss ‘n’ tar, but-”

“May I try some?” 

Gav sputtered, unsure how to react. As far as anyone knew, Jill had been surviving off the odd slice of bread and pressed Martelle apple juice for the past several weeks. That this horror-show, of all things, would entice her to revisit the Tub and Crown’s experiments was…strange. 

Still, after a few seconds to digest the request, he recognized the adulterated hunger in her eyes. Even had he been starving, he would not have denied her his last crumb. 

“By all means!” He had barely finished pushing the bowl and spoon across the table that she was already digging in. 

“Mmph.” She moaned in a way that bordered on obscene after taking her first, generous mouthful, a bit of black sludge dribbling down her chin. “Delissciouushh!”

“Huh. Well in that case…Oi!” As Jill raised a second spoonful to her lips, Gav shot out of his seat to gesture frantically at Molly manning the counter. “Another bowl of nightmare stew over here! Quick as a kitten’s fart, eh!”

“Fuck off, Gav! Come get it your damn-“ the cauldron keeper cut herself off upon seeing with whom he shared the table. “R-right. In a jiffy, yeah!”

Jill consumed not only the rest of his portion, but a full second bowl. And a third after that. Upon delivering it, Molly sat with them a while, yammering on about the next week’s menu and what other North-sourced meals, though intimidating, they’d be willing to give a go. Gav was more than willing to fetch the ingredient from the furthest corner of the Twins if necessary.

Sky was, apparently, the limit in the quest of getting Jill to eat again. 

Even if the Hideaway would have to suffer a full month straight of behemoth blood soup on the menu.

Later, having excused himself to use the facilities, Gav took the opportunity to observe his friend eating, chatting and even laughing with the other residents. Her cheeks had grown even more flushed as the evening wore on, though she had denied multiple flagons of ale or mead offered. 

“See that Clive?” he whispered, blinking rapidly to expel the gathering tears. “She’s a survivor.”

Slowly, surely, the pieces of Jill were coming back together. 

Edda

Waloedian Refugee, New Mother

Though it had taken a few months, Edda was finally starting to think of the Hideaway as home. Not some temporary camp she’d been forced into out of desperation. She had been allotted her own room, furniture, even clothes of higher quality than anything her small village could produce, and the residents were quick to offer aid whenever she desired anything from a needle to a set of encyclopedias. 

‘Uncle Gav’ was, sometimes, a little too enthusiastic when it came to her and her babe’s well being. However, she knew it was with the best intentions and he was always quick to retreat whenever she requested space. 

His attention was…sweet. Definitely appreciated. Perhaps even adorable.

He cradled and catered to her beautiful little boy, Arden, whenever there was opportunity, gifting her a much needed break from the exhausting, seemingly infinite cycle of changing nappies, feeding and sleeping. Her husband’s violent mutation to akashic and subsequent death was still too fresh to consider a new partner. However, with every passing day, as her son grew and strengthened, her reluctance thinned. 

Maybe. Someday. 

A knock came at her door. 

“Come in!”  she said heartilly, glad that there was not a single person on this entire airship she would want to deny. 

This guest, however, was not one that had ever entered her chambers before. 

Jill Warrick — the Dominant of Shiva and kindred widow — opened the door a crack to peer in and whisper: “Is he asleep?”

“N-no, My Lady!” Swallowing an onset of nerves, she shuffled down the bench to make room. “He’s as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever, should you want to see?”

The Lady entered, her smile present but unstable, closing the door behind her before making her way to the offered seat. 

Before them was the cradle holding Arden, which she was rocking back and forth with her foot. Dangling above hung a mobile of a moon and stars cut from polished tin that Blackthorne had installed a few days prior. At this, Jill poked tentatively, making the miniature celestial body spin. Arden trilled his amusement at the sparkle. 

“He is beautiful,” Jill complimented, staring into the cradle, stone-faced. 

“Aye.” Reaching to brush a finger down his cheek, Edda's grin stretched to near painful proportions. “I am a lucky one. We both are. Had I not him, I may not have found reason to live in this world.”

Beside her, Jill inhaled sharply. The refugee immediately slapped a hand to her mouth in mortification. 

“I-I am sorry. I did not mean-”

“No. No, it is alright.” Jill faced her to show that she was indeed smiling, though her eyes unavoidably sparkled with unshed tears. “I came here…because I had a question.”

Edda nodded. Anything for the woman who had helped her family survive. “Of course. If I can answer, I will try.”

“I appreciate that. I wanted to know…How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

Jill took a deep breath, closing her eyes before continuing. “Survive. Long enough to birth this child, even with your husband, your partner, gone. After having lost everything? ”

At this, Edda blushed, looking down at her bundle of joy to inspire the words as he cooed and giggled at his mobile which scattered prismatic rainbows across his skin. 

“I am no warrior like you,” she confessed with the slightest shame. “I hid. I ate scraps. I drank muddy rainwater. This was my choice. I could not fight. I could not run. Even those times I truly wanted my suffering and fear to end, I had no knife sharp enough to-”

With a stuttered breath, she cut herself off, refusing to drown in such volatile memory. 

Jill allowed her a precious minute to recoup.

“No matter. We survived thanks to Cid, Gav and the Hideaway. I will forever be grateful.”

Abruptly, she clasped Jill’s hand, clenching tightly as she leaned close and forced their eyes to meet. “You are strong, Lady Jill,” she whispered fiercely, squeezing so hard it was on the cusp of pain. “You must recognize that.”

“I…” Jill’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly for a while, unsure of what to say. If anything needed to be said. Instead, she just looked down at her lap and let the tears trail down her cheeks. 

This was the first time she had let herself cry since Metia's star had extinguished from the sky. The release was immeasurably intense. Like a breath of fresh air after months locked in a humid dungeon. She, of all people, had much experience with such delicious relief.

“Here. You must hold him.” Without waiting for an answer, Edda reached into the cradle to pull up the writhing, cooing bundle of blankets that was the young Arden. 

“Oh, no. No, thank you.” Jill sniffed and wiped her nose on her red sleeve. “I-I am in no state to-”

“I insist.” 

Without any more ado, Jill had no choice but to accept the body being forced until her arms. Edda seemed adamant enough that she would have dropped her son to the floor before letting Jill escape this inevitability. 

With a sigh, she steadied her shoulder to accept the burden, only to quickly realize how light the babe was. Surprisingly so. Almost the same size and weight as Torgal the puppy had been, but far less squirmy. Arden’s fingers reached out to tangle in the end of her braid and pulled, just a little, oo-ing and aw-ing, apparently fascinated by the silvery strands. 

Jill was just as awestruck. His fingers were so small, so delicate, she feared moving her head in case those in her hair snapped off. 

Apropos of nothing, while her guest was still entranced and tears started to dry on her cheeks, Edda began to sing. 

“The rills run red with brave men’s blood

And to the talons flow in flood

Then out to sea”

Her voice, with that soft, Waloedian accent, made the words blur together, converting the poem into soothing a lullaby. Arden must have agreed, for he expelled a yawn and his eyelids fluttered. 

This was a Rosarian poem. Jill remembered it well. The refugee must have found it in the pile of practice, children’s literature Tomes had loaned her, stacked high in the corner of the room.

“But those same souls whose souls are touched

By the flames Phoenix claws are clutched

And ne’er shall die

So dry thine eyes, thy groom is gone

But in thy babe his light lives on

And so shall he”

Hypnotized as she was, Jill hardly noticed when Edda leaned over, pressing the tip of one finger to the babe’s chin. 

“See that little cleft?” she asked, tapping the spot in question. “His father had the exact same one. The shape and color of his eyes, too. Often, when I look at ‘im, I can see my darlin’ husband’s face…”

Jill swallowed the lump in her throat, grateful that Arden seemed to have fallen asleep as she was too terrified to move. 

“You…You are very brave, Edda,” she whispered, reveling in the surprise surge of affection welling within her when all she had felt for weeks was numbness or pain. “In your shoes, I do not think I could have-”

“No one can say what they would or would not have done in such cruel times,” she insisted, reaching to release a now unconscious Arden from her arms and return his slumbering form to the cradle. “I had choices. I chose to survive along with my child.”

Closing her eyes, Jill could not help but scoff. 

Clive had sacrificed himself to give the world freedom of choice and here she was, stuck as if swimming Morbol’s tar. Unable to veer one way or another. 

“You have options, Jill,” Edda interrupted her wallowing, rocking the cradle with her foot again. “People will understand that you must forge your own destiny. And if they don’t, they can — how does Gav say? — go fuck themselves? ”

Hearing her swear with such a gentle, girlish voice, had Jill bursting into giggles and Edda followed suit. Loud enough that Arden whined his protests at the noise. They waited for him to settle before speaking again. 

“Whatever one decides.” Edda grabbed her hand once more, staring into her eyes with such blatant sympathy that Jill felt its burn. “You are not alone. Just as I came to realize that I was not alone. Make your choice. And try to be happy. Please.”

A kiss was pressed to both sets of knuckles then. The woman was so sweet, so endearing, that it infused Jill with a hope she hadn’t experienced since the day Origin fell. 

“Thank you, dearest Edda,” she said, pressing a quick kiss to her crown. “This has been most enlightening.”

With a final squeeze of hands and an internal, silent vow to visit her and the babe more often, Jill stood and made toward the exit. 

“Tis’ a girl, so you know,” Edda announced without a trace of dubiety, smirking when Jill froze in her tracks. Her hand stuck to the doorknob, as if hit by the perma-frost spell she so often used to inflict on fiends. “My people…we have a nose for such things.”

The knob started to rattle. Jill had to clasp her shaking wrist with the opposite hand to get it to stop making such a ruckus. She felt the corner of her lip twitch. Once. Twice. The mere glimpse of a true smile. 

Then, with a nod of acknowledgement, she departed. 

It was time to decide what her future would look like; a puzzle more complex than any she had attempted before.

Regardless of the many pieces that were broken or stained and one — a very important one — lost with the aether, one thing was certain: she would find beauty in the blessing of choice.

Chapter Text

[. Child’s Play .]

Chapter 2 - Hide and Seek

Prior to Origin’s Fall

Clive stalked across the entire breadth of his chambers only to hit a wall, clench his fists, spin around and retrace the steps. He completed this pointless roundabout four times before Jill, sitting on the edge of the bed, groaned her exasperation. 

“Would you please calm down,” she insisted through her teeth, raising two fingers to her temple where the headache still pounded. “I am fine.”

“You traveled to Waloed last week.” Unable to process her request, he continued pacing, jaw growing ever more clenched with each step. “Yesterday, we hunted a dragon. Remember?”

”I remember. I was there.” 

“And you are certain?”

At this, she had to sit on her hands to keep from throwing up in the air, patience as thin as the threadbare sheets, through no fault of his. “Yes.” 

“You should have told me sooner. As soon as you suspected. I would not have… Fuck… ” Another crossing of the room, the floorboards groaning underfoot. This time, when he got to the wall, he punched it so hard his fist went through the wood. She bristled then, not out of fear but out of concern. 

He was not taking the news well. 

She had known he wouldn’t. Thus why she had held back from confessing for so long. Until she was absolutely sure it was true. 

Two moon cycles had come and gone without blood. If that were not evidence enough, on top of the near-debilitating nausea and exhaustion which made it difficult to do anything more than stare at the lake most days, Isabelle’s test had cinched it. The Dame and her ladies had a distasteful but apparently accurate method involving sacks of barley and wheat, as such concerns were common for those employed by the Veil.

That very morning, Jill had awoken to discover both grains had exploded into germination. 

In another life, another world, seeing those little green sprouts would have been cause for celebration. 

Not today. Not here and not now. 

This had not been part of their plan. 

Clive, Dion and Joshua intended to infiltrate Origin within mere hours, as soon as the sun kissed the horizon. Despite the trios' many assurances that they would be alright, that they would return to their loved ones, there were few things less certain in this cruel world. 

Jill had selected to announce her delicate situation at this delicate time not for any nefarious reasons, especially not in the hopes that he would abandon the mission. Quite the opposite. She told him because she had to and, she hoped, it would give him reason to keep standing — keep fighting — as Ultima did his best to break his will. 

“I’m not going,” Clive declared, wincing as he removed and shook out his hand, splinters raining upon the floor like confetti. “I-I’ll send Gav. Dorys. Anyone else. I cannot leave you like-”

“No.” She stood from the bed then, decisively striding over and pushing him by the shoulder, forcing him to look at her. “As much as it pains me to admit, this is your fight, Clive. You need to see it through to the end.”

His fingers crawled around her waist in sync with the tears sliding down his cheeks. Clive had never been one to shy away from crying when he felt overwhelmed. This situation was the epitome of overwhelming. 

Clenching the fabric of her dress, he let his head fall upon her shoulder, pulling her close, desperate in his need to keep her warm. Keep her safe. 

For Tarja had warned Jill and Jill had informed him, in no uncertain terms. The curse had long since infiltrated her liver, right lung and was dangerously close to her heart, among other flesh, to the point that the organs struggled to function on the most rudimentary levels. She should not consider natural children. Ever. The danger, the physical stress, was too great a risk. It was supposed to be nigh impossible to conceive at all. Perhaps, secretly, this had been one of his many inspirations to rid the world of magic. In hopes that they could live happily, healthily, one day. That she could have her heart’s every desire, no matter how seemingly preposterous.   

What had they done? They were such fools. 

He should have known — remembered — that Fate was never kind to the Rosfields. 

“I’m s-sorry. I’m so very sorry.” 

“Clive, please.” Tearing away from his harsh grip, she placed her hands on his neck, craning it up to force him up to meet her eyes once more. “Please do not think of all the things that could go wrong in the next day or weeks or months. I cannot handle you, of all people, becoming pessimistic.”

“Right.” Sniffing, he tried so very hard to shoo away the sorrow brewing within. He had to be strong. For her. For them.

What’s done is done. 

No way to move but forward and try to defy destiny from another angle. 

“Besides,” blinking away the tears gathering in her own lashes, she flashed a shaky smile. “Let us pretend, just for a moment, that we had been dealt different cards. In another life, in other circumstances, this revelation of mine…would…” she struggled to get the last part out, the words getting stuck in her throat like a crusty piece of bread. “Would you have been…happy?”

The look she was giving him — that desperate look — nearly broke his heart all over. 

Thus, he dug deep, past the fear, beyond the shadows of sure suffering and doubt, and soon found a speck of light at the bottom of it all. He concentrated on that speck. Let it glow and burn more and more brightly until there was little else in his field of vision. 

Before he knew it, he too was smiling. Genuinely.

“A baby, Jill.” His forehead fell against hers, hoping to transfer all the glorious, fantastical images from his head. Ones of a humble cottage in fields of flowers, puppies and children running amok. Free as the birds in the sky. “Yours and mine. Tis…a dream come true.” 

At least it would have been, had they a legitimate chance of survival. 

Jill, choosing to marinate within this fantasy a few moments more, dug her fingers into his shoulders and took a deep, soul-cleansing breath. “It is, isn’t it? Gods , you would be a wonderful father.”

“You think so?” 

“Of course!” Of this she was adamant. “I’ve seen you with Aimee, Arthur and Josselin. How you read to, teach and engage with them. It is quite endearing. I confess, I often imagined you would be the same with our own.”

“I could teach her the sword, too.” Clive was similarly drowning in the illusion of a happier household of Rosfields. Where the term ‘reject’ would never be uttered without the (idle) threat of a soapy mouth washing and every member was unabashedly loved. “If she wanted, of course.”

“She?” A giggle escaped as Jill raised a hand to brush some wayward, ebony hair from his brow. “You believe it to be a girl?”

Instinctively, his hand reached to settle on her stomach, drawing a palm across with reverence. For reasons that were inexplicable, he didn’t just think it was. He somehow knew. It was as obvious as if asked the color of an orange. 

“Hanna,” he whispered, not really sure how or why the name jumped to the tip of his tongue so easily. “I’d like to…consider naming her Hanna. If you approve?”

At this point, Jill’s once rapturous expression abruptly shifted. Some immense pulse of pressure hit, as though a bomb had been set off within the confines of her skull. In giving it a name, let alone a gender, the realization that there was almost no chance this little one would ever see the light of day had her struggling to get air into her ruined lungs. Everything was burning. 

It wasn’t fair. 

“Jill!” When her knees buckled from the agony, he was there to catch her, of course. 

Clive swept an arm under her knees and carried her to the bed as if she weighed no more than a feather. All the while she shuddered and ground her teeth, trying her damndest not to scream. 

 “It is alright.” He climbed in beside her and held her tightly from behind with one arm, the other stroking her head to try and quell the shaking. “I am here. Let it out. I am here.”

Not long after, when she could not hold it in a moment longer, Jill did scream. 

Just the once. After this, she would bear the pain silently. As always. 

A lengthy, cacophonous expulsion of grief and ultimate frustration was expelled, only half muffled by pressing her face into the pillow. It didn't stop there. Like the opening of a dam, Jill's scream had morphed in a series of broken, relentless sobs which wracked her whole body.  

Clive made no attempts to shush or otherwise calm her. He let her seek relief with the one tool at her disposal, trusting that any Hideaway residents unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity would understand and leave them be. 

Tomorrow, he would depart for Origin. 

Tomorrow, maybe, the world would be a completely different place. One in which they had a chance.

The sun had fully set by the time her breathing started to regulate, having exhausted herself from the fit. Only when she was on the cusp of drifting off did Clive dare broach the subject. He could not leave until he had some assurance that, no matter the results of this battle, someone else would be aware of the situation and look out for them.  

“We should inform Tarja,” he suggested gently, placing a kiss behind her ear in the hopes of getting the message to stick.

Upon receiving no response, he tried to sit up with the intention of summoning the physicker, when a pale hand slapped over his and held firm.

“No,” she insisted, her voice gravel-like from overuse, allowing no room for debate. “Chances are that Hanna is not long for this world. When it happens, I…I desire no audience.”

“Jill…”

“This is my choice.” She spun around on the mattress to fix him with those chilling, glacier-colored eyes. “Please respect it.”

Choices. Choices. Godsdamn choices. 

Despite every cell screaming at him to do otherwise, he accepted her decision with a slow nod. Needing to trust that if she ever was truly in need of aid, she would seek it, and that he would be there to hold her hand throughout. 

It didn’t matter whether the choice was right or wrong. Only that it was her own. 

“Alright,” he acquiesced, threading his fingers through her hair, trying and somewhat succeeding in distracting them both. “Whatever you think is best.”

“Thank you.” Her fingertips settled as gently as snowflakes upon his cheek. “My dearest Clive.”

The worry plaguing him was like a knife twisting in his gut. Tonight, however, he willed it away in a deep breath and instead focused on memorizing the image of her in his bed. 

Jill Warrick had always been beautiful. In the moonlight, she was downright stunning. 

He doubted Greagor herself had ever appeared as divine as his Lady did just then, wearing only a loose shift slipping off one shoulder, cheeks tinted-rose, hair fanned around her like a silver halo. If he squinted, he could swear her skin was glowing .  

How he wanted to soothe her. In whatever ways he could. Make her forget the world and all its horrifying terms. Everything except his name for a glorious minute of ecstasy.  

As if reading his mind, similarly desperate, Jill reached for him. She grabbed the ties of his tunic and yanked, forcing nearly his entire weight on top of her, pressing deeply into the mattress. He had a brief flash of uncertainty, worried that he would somehow exacerbate the situation, but it all flew from his head when her tongue slipped between his lips. 

Jill was very skilled with her tongue. Almost more so than with her blade. 

He never stood a chance.

Their final night together was spent mostly in rapture. She claimed his body hungrily once, twice, four times with mere dozing between sessions. Such rigorous activity was probably not the wisest decision prior to a battle on which rested the Fate of the world. Regardless, each time she roused him via wicked fingers climbing his thigh, he would not dare resist. He could not resist. 

This was what he was fighting for, after all: a life where they could live and love on their own terms. 

Whether those terms included a family or not, only time would tell. 

But he would battle till his dying breath to have that choice…

Four months post Origin’s Fall

Gav returned to the Hideaway at the hour of ‘who the fuck knows’.  

No flame was alight except for the docking bay torch, kept as a beacon to lead stragglers like him home from across the blighted lake. 

At least this mission had been successful.  

Upon his shoulder, he hoisted the crate of gysahl greens that the newly freed bearers of Eastpool had cultivated from seed. Despite the creeping Blight that had barely stopped at their doorstep and, though no longer spreading, didn’t seem to want to retreat either, the crop was hearty. Enough that the village wished to share their bounty with their saviors. This, on top of delivering Mid’s plans for a new water filtration system to Martha’s rest, had taken but three days. Still, it felt like a lifetime. 

Strange though it may be, he missed Edda and Arden something fierce. More than he missed the ale he had decided to no longer touch except on rare, special occasions. 

Things were changing, that was true. As Clive had foresaw, it wasn’t all rainbows and kitten whiskers. Without the convenience of magic, there was much suffering, people struggling to keep their meats from rotting and their homes warm enough to survive the season without the blessing of crystals or bearers. 

However, roads were at least safe and clear of akashic, the journey between villages to trade now a pleasant stroll where it had once been a nightmare, with a survival rate akin to entering a dragon’s nesting grounds donning a suit of bloody steaks. Homes once abandoned and burned were being re-built by bearers whose masters had had no choice but to set free. 

He could only hope that others would see what he saw, and soon realize they collectively were headed towards a more beautiful and just world. The world Clive had dreamed of. 

Eventually…

After taking the lift, Gav headed straight towards the Tub and Crown on his tiptoes, not wanting to wake anyone. He gave a brief rub on the head to Torgal guarding the entrance, the frost wolf yawning his approval of the intruder, and had just turned the corner into the kitchen when a body popped out from the shadows. 

“Greagor’s fat teats!” The crate of greens tumbled from his shoulder, scattering across the floorboards as he drew his sword. 

“Gav! Shh. It is I. Jill.”

“J-Jill!” The sword was promptly sheathed though, admittedly, it took a few tries for his shaking hands to get it back in the scabbard. “Fucking ‘ell, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Apologies. I was merely…” she trailed off. As his eyes acclimatized to the darkness, he saw in her hands a platter. A very loaded serving platter, towering with what must have been at least one of every comestible the Hideaway had in stock, including a full roasted chicken. 

Gav had to bite back a laugh. 

In the weeks since she had consumed an entire pot of the behemoth blood soup in one sitting, Jill’s lack-of-appetite seemed to have reversed with a vengeance. As if it were making up for the weeks lost. 

Molly the cauldron keeper had been complaining recently, thinking she was losing her mind, that she often could not find items — everything from jars of pickled ginger to giant slabs of meat — she had sworn she had taken stock of.

Mystery solved. 

Jill’s gaze shifted to the side, clearly ashamed, knuckles white where they held the platter in a death grip. 

“Hey. No worries hun, eh? My lips are sealed.” He made a zipping motion across his mouth to emphasize this and, though her lips twitched in a smile, Jill remained tense. 

“I am sorry. I-I do not know what is wrong with me,” she said, chuckling awkwardly. “Every night, at this time, I awake simply… ravenous and I cannot-” she trailed off again, shaking her head. “No matter. Please be assured that I will speak with the staff tomorrow and ensure their stocks are replenished at my own expense.”

The moonlight had since bled through the windows, allowing Gav a rare glimpse at her figure. She was wearing one of Clive’s old, black tunics, the fabric slightly more fitted than the flowing, ruffled red dress she donned during the day. Beneath it, he couldn’t help but notice how much rounder she had become, hips and chest wider and more lush than ever before.

So she had put on a few. They all had their vices in grief and there were much unhealthier ways to cope. Besides, it suited her. 

“Well,” Gav said, hands on his hips as a charade disciplinarian. “As the Hideaways newest Cid-”

“Didn’t Tarja and Otto decide that you’d all share-”

“I hereby declare,” he interrupted, not wanting to get sucked into that debate for the hundredth time, “that the Lady can help herself to whatever she desires. I think it’s great that you’re putting a little more meat on those bones!”

At this, Jill cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head, embarrassment thoroughly dispelled by irritation. “You think it wise to comment on a woman’s size, Gav?”

“N-No!” He had the good sense to adamantly deny, half expecting to be blasted into an icy grave based on the expression she was donning. “I just meant you look…fuller.”

“Fuller?” She repeated with a menacing edge.

Apparently, that adjective was not any less offensive. 

“Healthy!” He tried as a last resort. “I mean…your hair.” He gestured to her head, desperate to shift focus. Automatically, she patted down the long, silver braid cascading over one shoulder all the way down to her hip.

“What of it?”

“It’s, like, thicker. Shinier. Your skin, too.” Once he had started listing the changes, he couldn’t stop. For it was all true. True and strange. “You practically glow. It’s…" ‘unnerving’ was the word he wanted to use, but instead he wisely settled upon the more innocuous “neat?” 

Pulling at the tunic's hem with her free hand, Jill glanced everywhere but his face, a blush furiously burning in her cheeks. “Thank you, I suppose,” she muttered, barely audible beneath the chirp of cicadas which had recently nested in the gardens. 

Gav let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

No icy grave tonight. This time, at least. 

 “Aye. How about I help you bring that upstairs and we can all get to bed before anyone says anything else stupid, eh?” He reached for the platter in her hands but she dodged, stumbling back a few steps. Her balance was off, too. 

“No need. I can handle it.” 

“You sure? Edda once told me I had quite a talent for catering to her nutty, late night cravings of pickles and nougat-'' The words got caught between his teeth as he more thoroughly examined her selection. It was meant to be a joke, comparing her new, late-night snacking habit to Edda in the latest stages of her pregnancy. That was until he noticed that her choices included very similar and, perhaps to some, even stranger choices. The chicken, pickles and nougat, yes, but also radishes covered in chili flakes and…was that chunks of raw steak?

“Good night, Gav,” she said sternly, whisking past him before he could recover from his surprise. 

For a long while, he could do nothing but blink stupidly as he ran through and processed the last few months of her behavior. 

The new, looser clothes. 

The exhaustion. 

The eating. 

The withdrawal from society.

It couldn’t be…

Could it?

Watching her retreat up the stairs to Clive’s chambers, he noticed for the first time how she was forced to shift her from weight side to side more than usual, more of a subtle waddle than a walk. It was a unique gait for an otherwise lithe woman. One that he was all too familiar with in the weeks he had acted as Edda’s keeper. 

“Well, bugger me with a broomstick…”

He couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to put the pieces together, for it now seemed so painfully obvious. 

Clive, you filthy, amazing bastard. 

“I knew it!” Mid was the first to exclaim after Gav presented his theory, complete with a list of anecdotal evidence, to the other Hideaway leaders. 

Jill Warrick was pregnant. Very pregnant. 

It had taken a large, experienced group of full-grown adults a ridiculous amount of time to come to this obvious conclusion.  

“You did not,” Gav countered Mid’s exclamation, refusing to let her claim any of the glory.

“Well I told ya something was off, didn’ I?” 

“You may as well ‘ave told us the lake is black, for all the good that did!”

“Why would she not say anything?” Otta chimed in, head bowed where he sat, hands clasped between his knees. “This…this is wonderful news, if it's true. Would certainly explain a lot.”

“Perhaps she is ashamed,” Vivian Ninetails suggested brusquely. “She is unmarried. For centuries, nobel women of the High Houses have gone through great pains to conceal such incidents. Or perhaps the father is not who you assume.”

“Like Jill would give a damn about any ‘noble’ standards.” Gav waved away that ridiculous theory. “And you’d be daft to believe any man but Clive would be allowed to live just for thinking of getting her in such a state. It must be something else. She’s…afraid of something.” 

At this point, Tarja, who had been standing silently against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest, let out a lengthy sigh of resignation.

“What you on about?” Mid asked, fists digging into her hips in her typical, defiant stance. “If you know somethin’, spit it out!”  

“Physicker-Patient privilege, Mid,” Tarja spat back with her eyes closed, clearly in the depths of some intense self-reflection. “But I will say this: this is not good news and no one should treat it as such.”

They all sputtered at that, Otto, Mid and Gav all swearing and carrying on, trying to force the information out of her through sheer volume. Not that they expected the woman to budge. 

 It was Vivian, as if in hopes of redemption for her previous assumptions, who managed to crack her silence. Similarly educated and iron-willed, it was logic and fact that made such a woman see sense. “Per Rosarian law, such privilege does not extend when a life is hanging in the balance, correct? One would even argue that, from both a moral and a lawful viewpoint, that these guardians have a right to be made aware of the state of their ward.”

‘Twas a very loose reasoning, with more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. Jill was not a ward of Rosaria anymore and, even if she had been, they were not its leaders just because a Rosfields had once been theirs. Still, as the priority was seeing Jill get through this safely, Tarja knew she’d need all the help she could get and therefore chose to loosen her otherwise watertight standards. 

Jill’s life may very well depend on it. 

“In a rotten nutshell: the curse’s ravagement will make it impossible to bring this child to term,” she announced without any sugar coating, making eye contact with each as she revealed this devastating reality. “Jill is aware of this. She knows one or both of them will not make it to the end. We need, as a unit, to keep close watch and be ready for the inevitable. My surgery will be prepared for when the time comes.”

“N-No…” Mid stumbled back, as if shot in the gut, holding a hand to her stomach to suppress its churning. “No! She’s…she’s doin’ fine! You all saw, didn’tcha?”

“I admit, I would not have expected her to get this far. She must be at least four months along. That alone is a miracle.” 

“Six months. I bet my good eye,” Gav corrected, pointing a finger at the collateral in question. “She’s getting pretty big under all dem skirts. And I’m sure each and every one of us is painfully aware of when they started their carryin’ on.”

Everyone in the room either coughed or chuckled or rolled their eyes. In the days post the Enterprise’s maiden voyage, all had some mortifying tale of hearing or seeing something they should not have. Luxuries such as soundproofing, shutters and locks had not been a priority in the Hideaway until Clive and Jill had finally succumbed to one another after five years of pining. 

After a few moments of calculation, Tarja shook her head. “No. That is simply not possible. I’ve seen too many cases, less extreme cases, that never made it past the first trimester.”

“So apparently we can kill a God, shatter every last mother crystal, rid the world of magic, but we cannot ensure this little un’ comes out safe and sound?” Gav argued with a sudden passion, channeling Clive in his limitless faith that they could challenge Fate. “Isn’t that what we do? Make the impossible possible? She’s so close!” 

“Gav…” Tarja warned, fire in her stare. “Do not dare muster false hope. The sooner she accepts the truth, the easier and safer it will be.”

 “Or. OR!” Running to the table in the center of the Map room, he tugged over a blank piece of parchment and quill and frantically began scribbling. “We take charge. We make sure she has everything she needs and more to give them the best shot.”

“She won’t like us butting our noses in,” Otto reminded. “The woman is strict in her privacy. None of us can imagine the agony she’s been through these past few moons.”

“So your suggestion is do absolutely nothing then, eh? We just…let the last of Clive slip away? Again?”

“I didn’t say that,” he growled, offended by the implication. “Just that we have to tread delicately.”

“We will.” Gav’s hand flew over the page as he wrote, enlisting almost everyone in the Hideaway, dispersing the tasks so as not to rouse suspicion. “I’m nothing if not fuckin’ delicate.”

Jill Warrick never liked games. 

She did not appreciate how much luck was involved or that many had a penchant for cheating. Games, like life, were rarely fair. 

In recent days, it seemed the entire Hideaway was functioning under a new set of rules, trading in whispers that she was never privy to. 

It made her feel more alone than ever. 

As she picked at her meal in the Ale Hall — behemoth blood soup having become a favorite that, strangely, Molly and Yvan now kept in stock and hot at all times — Jill could feel Tarja’s eyes burning into her back from across the room. 

The physicker had recently become relentless in her requests that Jill come in for a check-up and see how far the curse had spread or, perhaps, relented. All of which Jill would brush off with a friendly but clearly untrue: “I feel fine and am extremely busy. I will stop by when I find a spare moment.”

They both knew it was a lie. Still, Tarja would merely sigh and accept, her respect for Jill overwhelming all else. “As you wish, Lady Warrick. I’ll be ready. Anytime you need.”

It was good to hear. She may indeed need her, in the end, as the further along she got the more messy things were sure to be. 

“Hey there, Jill!” The grotesque thoughts were interrupted when the Hideaway’s seamstress sashayed up to her table. “Thought I’d find you here.”

“Good afternoon, Hortense.” Jill lowered her spoon back into the soup, suddenly not very hungry as those fluttering kicks that often assaulted her stomach had increased with a vengeance. “How can I help you?”

“Oh, nothing. I just happened to find myself with an extra sack of chocobo feathers and I thought you may appreciate a new pillow! Ta-dah!” From behind her back, she produced the gift in question.

The item was indeed beautiful for something so rudimentary. Thickly stuffed and encased in silk; a fabric Jill was very much aware was rare and off extreme expense. It made her breath catch in her throat. 

“Hortense…it is lovely but I-I could not possibly accept-”

“Too late! Can't give it to anyone else cause it’s already initialed. See?” She pointed to the letters J.W. Stitched onto the edge in glittering silver thread, accentuated with a little snowflake. Seeing it made Jill’s eyes prickle again. Probably for the tenth time that morning. Twas’ ridiculous how quick she was to tear-up lately. 

“Thank you,” she muttered as it was slid into her hands. The material was indeed impossibly soft and something inside her melted at the mere thought of how perfect her next nap would be thanks to it. 

“Think nothing of it. Cheerio!” 

As she watched her walk away, Jill’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

Glancing about the room, she noticed many had their gaze on her only to quickly look away when they noticed her attention. 

Something was afoot. 

Thankfully, she did not have the energy to care. 

The pillow became the first of multiple items of ‘convenience’ she had been gifted over the next several weeks. 

The Botanist, Cormac, happened to have an overgrown crop of valerian and asked for her help testing if a tea brewed from its roots could assist with deeper slumber. He had been sure to insist it was safe for even the little ones to consume. 

When she asked “if you have tested enough to know it is safe, how are you not already aware of its effects?” To which he sputtered and practically ran away, claiming to have heard one of his assistants calling.

Cormac had always been a strange fellow, so she thought nothing of it at first. The tea was indeed soothing and had since become a nightly staple. 

A few days after that, she was resting in a chaise lounge the carpenter had built and insisted was too scratched to sell (so, really, the Hideaway was doing him a favor by taking it off his hands). 

The exceptionally cozy seat had been positioned in a beam of sunlight on the back deck and was, mysteriously, always available around the time she took her supper. She soon formed a habit of reading out there in the afternoons when the mere act of standing started to become tiresome. During one of those lazy sessions, Harpocrates arrived to show her a book; an old Rosarian verse compendium which she recognized as Clive’s favorite as a child. Epic tales of Gods and Men. 

Cid II had built his own personal collection over the years that was shelved in his chambers beside his wall of treasured memories. She had read them all, multiple times. This one, however, had eluded his many searches. 

“I merely stumbled upon it, buried in one of the many stacks I hadn’t had a chance to document until now,” the historian informed her with a smile. “I understand he had been searching for it?”

“Yes.” Jill allowed the heavy red-leather tome to be slid into her lap over the blanket one of the children, Aimee, had draped over her when the winds grew chilly. Sadly though, when she opened it, the text was revealed to be in an old Founder’s language that she, as a Northern outsider, had never been taught. Her brow furrowed in inescapable disappointment. 

“I would be happy to read it to you. If you’d like?” 

She looked up at him to deny, as she always tended to do, but something in the old man’s soft expression made her bite her tongue. She had a distinct feeling that, in letting him, she would be doing him the favor.

“Yes. Please,” she acquiesced, leaning back into her heavenly chair and closing her eyes against the sunlight, reveling in the warmth on her cheeks. “That would be lovely, Harpocrates.” 

Thus, a new routine began. 

She would lay in the sun and he would read her a story or four until she dozed off or the bell for supper rang. 

In those moments, she would dream the most beautiful dreams: ones of a man with irises of stormy blue animatedly reading the same words to a little girl whose wide-eyed gaze was a perfect reflection of his. 

Often, she awoke with her cheeks wet from tears. Harpocrates, of course, never commented.

Five months post Origin’s Fall

Jill adjusted the new, black dress Hortense had made her (she had insisted. Again.) upon her shoulders and sighed. She tried retying the ribbon under her breast another way. Tried rotating the ruffled skirt. Still, according to her reflection in the murky glass, nothing was in any way hiding the now prominent roundness of her stomach.  

“Shit…”

Not that it mattered. Hiding her situation had become more of a habit than anything. Like donning armor in the midst of a battlefield. In recent days, like a cold creeping up one symptom at a time, the reasons for the Hideaway residents’ extremely generous attention had become painfully obvious.

Everyone knew. 

On another, higher level of ridiculousness, she knew that they knew, and they knew that she knew that they knew. 

Still, no one said anything. 

She was grateful. Admittedly, the support, the kindness and barely contained excitement, their shared, unfounded hope, that maybe — maybe — she’d be an exception to the plight of every woman in a similar stage of the crystal curse’s creep, was…comforting.

 Their combined optimism was enough to rouse her from bed on the days she wanted to do no more than wallow and waste away. It kept her eating. Kept her moving and shamelessly resting. Kept her praying and hoping and wishing, even while expecting the worst. 

“We’re almost there, Hanna,” she whispered, staring at her reflection with grim determination, as she did prior to any fight where the odds were dire. 

It was only then that she realized she had grown accustomed to using that name in her head when referring to the wiggling strangeness in her belly. With every day they grew, the wee thing became more and more of a tangible being in her mind. 

Jill had even gone so far as to use the fabric she had purchased on impulse — one adorned in a pattern of snow daisies — to sew a little bonnet. At first, it had just been a reason to keep her hands busy, but then the item grew a life of its own. She had placed upon Clive’s Wall of Memories, encircled by the garland she had woven for him all those months ago which, inexplicably, continued to look as fresh as the day she had picked it. 

A love that could never fade. 

I'm trying, Clive…

I've been trying so hard, for so long, to keep you alive. But...I can't...

Something shifted in the air then, interrupting her thoughts. It was as if the room had suddenly flooded with aether. 

Her vision swam and bile rose in her throat like that one time she had overindulged in drink.

Abandoning the mirror, Jill spun and stumbled over to Clive’s collection. With each step, her heartbeat grew in volume, thrumming in ears louder than the drums of war. Her breathing grew shallow, her fear paralyzing. It was as though her head was being forced onto the chopping block by Kupka’s executioners all over again. 

With shaking fingers, she grasped the edge of the shelf when the first wave of pain hit her like a punch to the gut. She crumpled to her knees. Fighting the instinct to swallow the scream, she let it out. Just outside the door, Torgal barked the alarm as he had been trained to do. 

A parade of frantic yelling and footsteps followed instantly.

But Fate had already claimed its prize.    

“I-I’m sorry…”

The last thing she saw before her vision turned black was that garland of daisies and its little, matching bonnet.

Chapter Text

[. Child’s Play .]

Chapter 3 - Solitaire

The moonlight was beautiful, Clive thought.

Painfully so. 

He could hear the waves crashing upon his feet, could see the waters lapping at his stone-tipped fingers, surely icy considering he had been flung further north than ever before. Yet he felt nothing. 

He couldn’t move. 

His body was broken in every way a man’s could be. 

He would not be returning to the Hideaway. To Jill. 

But that did not matter. At that moment, he was happy. 

Magic had been expelled. He had kept this one promise. Not the one whispered to Jill in their final moment which (if he were being honest) had been a falsehood meant to calm her until the inevitable. He had known that the likelihood of him coming back was meager at best. In this case, he was referring to another, secret promise. 

The one made to their daughter. To Hanna. 

As Jill had slumbered their previous evening together, he whispered it to her belly. This was their little secret. 

“You will live, little one,” he had said, brushing his fingers oh-so-gently over where she lived, careful not to wake her mother. “You and I, we are not of the stock that let others’ cards define our path. 

“I will rid this world of curses. I will do everything in my power to clear your way, to give you a chance. You need only fight. We will both fight and we will win.”

He leaned forward to kiss the delicate skin, needing to make the physical connection, failing to consider that the scratch of his whiskered chin may end up rousing Jill until it was too late. She shifted a little, mumbling something incoherent, but otherwise remained deep in slumber, thoroughly exhausted by their activity over the last several hours. 

Clive grinned, leaning a cheek against her abdomen like a pillow, holding his family close. “I promise.”

He could see it. The future they so longed for. A humble cottage in a bountiful land he did not recognize, a little girl with dark but silver-streaked hair and storm-blue eyes, rolling in the gardens with her canine best friend. The picture was glorious, even though it did not include him. 

“Can you see it too?” Clive asked, consciousness having returned to the moonlight bathed beach. The numbness spread up his legs, his arms and eventually wrapped around his heart, slowing it to an unsustainable crawl. “Jill?”

…

Present Day

Jill blinked one eye open. Then the other. Only to snap them shut as the blinding lantern light seared her retinas. She winced, loudly enough that it spurred a flurry of noise and activity. 

“Greagor’s gash, she’s waking up!” Someone shouted, likely Gav. “What do I- How can I- Fuck. Tarjaaaa!!”

Had his voice always been that piercingly high ?

“I’m alright,” she assured the room, waving concerns away as though they were bloodflies. She tried to sit up only to immediately fall back as an intense pain shot through her abdomen, as though she had been skewered with a hot poker. Her hands flew to the area to discover that, instead of the firm bulge she had grown accustomed to, there was naught but loose skin and bandages. 

Hanna was gone. 

She had known this was coming; had expected it in the many months since her condition had become obvious and she confessed it to Clive. Still, it was humiliating to realize that no amount of practice could have adequately prepared for such agony.

She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes burned and her throat turned raw. 

Dark spots danced in her vision as she tried to keep it together. 

She was alive. That had to be enough. 

Founder, why was she still alive while they were not?

What she wouldn’t give to join them and, at last, find peace…

“H-hey…Jill, it’s okay! It’ll be okay. We-”

“Get out, Gav.” Tarja roughly pushed him aside to take the place at the bedside, grabbing her hand half to monitor her pulse, half to offer comfort. “Breathe, Jill. You have to breathe.”

She was trying. Gods, was she trying. But the tears wouldn’t stop, her lungs burned with the effort of trying to get air. She gritted her teeth and tried and tried and tried. For her friends, for all the sacrifices they made, she had to at least try to survive this. 

“I…can’t-”

“We have good news, but I need you to calm down first. With me, alright? In…” She took a deep inhale for a count of five. Jill tried her best to follow along though it was rough and stuttered. At least for the first iteration. 

An exhale for five, four, three, two, one. Then a second round. 

By the fifth rotation, their hands clenched in a death grip, Jill felt herself being slowly, steadily, pulled away from the brink. 

“There you are. Come back to us. You’re going to be fine.”

At this, Jill snorted, exceedingly aware that ‘fine’ would not be an applicable adjective to her mind nor body. Not for a long while, if ever.

Tarja, after taking a few seconds to arrange her thoughts, deigned to speak. “I was wrong, Jill,” she admitted, lowering her gaze in shame. “How I wish I hadn’t frightened you so with my assumptions. You did it. I should have never doubted that you, of all people, could do it.”

“D-did what?”

“Make way! Make way! Get the fuck away from the door, Gav!” Mid came barreling through the entry before Tarja could provide an answer, backing inside the room while dragging some sort of mechanized cart. “The Hideaway’s newest royalty arrives in their carriage!”

Jill tried to sit up, daring to hope, but the pain had her grimacing and falling back again. 

“Now, now. Slow and steady, please. I shall be rather upset if you squander all the effort I spent stitching you up.” Tarja pulled some extra cushions stored under the bed frame for this very reason and helped them pad Jill’s back against the wall, slowly shifting her into a sitting position. Jill meanwhile, kept desperately looking over the physicker’s shoulder, Mid’s beaming smile spurring more questions than answers. 

“Oooo let her see, already!”

“We’re getting there, Mid. This will all be for naught if her insides spill onto the carpet.”

“What is it? What is happening ? Where is-” That’s when she saw it. An impossibly small hand reaching for the heavens, as if trying to grasp the moon before falling back. 

Mid’s contraption. There was a baby in there. 

She almost lost her breath for a second time. 

This couldn’t be real. It had been much too early. The odds of survival were…

“I present to you, Lady Warrick, our most illustrious legacies! Ta-dah!” Mid gestured emphatically to the cart and only then did Jill notice that it was covered in glass with strange, copper tubing linked to humming tanks beneath. It looked not unlike a miniature, more complex version of the enterprise, equipped with technology she would probably never comprehend. “Well, suppose I should acknowledge that Tarja consulted. Most of the Hideaway ‘elped, actually.  Ya see, little ‘uns who arrive too early gots four problems: no heat regulation, weak lungs, prone to infection and difficulty feeding. So, I figured, if the botanist could produce some sort of vitamin and fat-rich formula and if Owain and Blackthorne could fashion some mini, semi-stretchy piping, and I built a containment unit with an ample flow of-”

“All signs point to them being perfectly healthy and independent, in time,” Tarja interrupted, knowing that Mid’s technical jargon was likely low on the list of Jill’s priorities. She squeezed her hand in a gesture of support. “Show her, Mid.”

“Right!” The cart was rolled to the bedside and, with a few dial twists and levers pulled, the whole contraption lowered in a hiss of steam, bringing the glass to Jill’s eye level. 

There, nestled in a soft, gold-embroidered blanket of red velvet, a bit of dark hair poking from beneath a daisy-bonnet, was the most impossibly small and beautiful child Jill had ever seen. Though she admittedly held a bit of bias. 

The fingers were so thin and translucent they reminded her of a bat’s wings, eyes clenched shut as they could not adjust to even the moonlight. 

None of that mattered. She was here. She was moving. 

It was a miracle. 

A shaking hand reached out to press against the glass, fresh tears flowing freely as a river down her cheeks. Happy tears, for once. 

“Hanna…” she whispered, heart nearly bursting with joy. 

Do you see her too, Clive?

We did it. 

“Hanna?” Mid repeated with a bit of a giggle. “Awwright. I’ve been calling ‘im Lil’ Walnut. Bit of an odd choice for a such strapping lad, but you are his mum, so-”

“It’s a boy?” Jill asked, eyes growing wide. 

This, of all the revelations, was somehow the strangest of all. So strange that she could not help but burst out laughing. 

A boy.

Clive had not selected a name for a boy. Both he and Edda had been so damn certain. 

Goes to show that you never know how things will pan out. That even that which was written in the stars could always be rearranged by a new perspective.

A few name options came to mind, following Clive’s lead of honoring those they had lost. Elwin or Rodney or maybe even Cid, though that one seemed to be in slightly too much circulation as of late. 

In the end, as she stared at the babe’s furrowed brow, an expression of disapproval that reminded her so much of Clive that it made her stomach twist, Jill decided that it was best to let go of the past. To remember was to be alive, yes. In this new world, they needed to start with a blank page.  

“Alexander,” she decided, smiling so wide it was bordering on painful. “His name will be Alexander, then.” 

Mid and Tarja shared a grin at that. 

“A fine name indeed. Finally! Hortense has prepared a whole damn wardrobe for the wee things. All that’s missing are the stitched initials. A.R. should we tell her? Alexander…Rosfield?”

“Mid…” Tarja growled in warning. “Now is not the time.”

“Yes.” At this, Jill did not hesitate. She did not care if someone may one day argue that, legally, she had no right to bestow her child with such a prominent title. It is not as though they intended to claim any lands. Alexander was a Rosfield by blood and that, more than anything, she wanted to honor. 

He was their treasure. Her light in the dark. 

Clive had come back to her, just as he had promised. Though in a different manner than expected. Thanks to the relentless love, passion and intelligence of the people she had the honor of calling family. 

As Alexander’s impossibly small fingers reached out to her from the other side of the glass, Jill Warrick vowed to never dare doubt again. 

“Awwllrighty. Alexander for babe number one. What about the other lad?”

“What other-”

A second cart was rolled in, this one managed by Edda, the tiny being inside wrapped in a blue velvet blanket, wailing loudly enough to wake the dead. “Sorry for the delay,” the Waloedian girl yelled above the noise. “Little lordling needed a cleaning before meeting mama. He’s a bit feistier than his brother, believe you me.”

Jill nearly fainted, breath caught in her throat as Mid again pulled the levers to bring this cart down to eye level too. “We kept them together at first, but Lil’ Peanut here wouldn’t leave Waln- I mean Alexander alone! Kept walloping ‘im in the noggin’ every time he tried to rest! Thankfully, I had just enough tubing left to-”

“Again, Mid. Not the time.” Tarja chuckled, inching the second cart a bit closer to Jill so that she didn’t have to strain her neck to see her sons. This boy was slightly bigger than the first and definitely more passionate , if only judging by his red face and shaking little fists. 

“There were… two of them?” She asked, gazing up, wide-eyed at the three women in disbelief. “Both are mine?”

“The Rosfield men do not do anything by halves, do they?” Edda said with a wink. 

“No wonder you got so big, eh? Sum of us feared you were gonna eat the Hideaway into bankruptcy!” Though Mid laughed, there was no avoiding the tears that sparkled in her eyes. “They’re fuckin’ gorgeous, aren’ they?”

“Are you talking about your invention or the babes?” Edda asked teasingly, elbowing the engineer in the ribs. 

“Why cannit be both?”

They all laughed at that, all save Jill, who was still struck dumb. This boy in the blue blanket, screeching as he was, had shaken off his cap, revealing a head of surprisingly thick, black hair, the tufts already curling at the edges. 

“Cassian,” she whispered, reminded of one of the boldest princes from Clive’s favorite storybook. “He will be Cassian Rosfield.”   

“Oooh, Cassian. Suits him well!” Edda agreed, pressing her nose to the glass affectionately. “I’ll let Hortense know.”

“Let’s all go see Hortense.” Tarja insisted, stretching her arms to usher the women out. “We’ll be back in a few minutes, Jill. You get acquainted with your family.” 

“My family…”

As soon as the door closed behind them, Jill slunk deeper into the pillows, whatever energy spurred from the revelation that not only was her baby alive, but there were two and male, had drained her. Alexander continued to look adorably studious in slumber, while Cassian cries relented to the odd whimper, bright blue eyes spinning around to take in his new surroundings.

Their existence was nothing less than a miracle. 

In what had felt like a blink of an eye, she had gone from being so incredibly alone, a single skiff on a raging sea, to a rambunctious family of three. 

It was difficult to believe this was real. That she had made it through such dark days. 

She at least now had confidence that, together, they could get through anything. Tantrums and scraped knees and loneliness and bloody battlefields. They would grow and be strong and live happily. She would make sure of it. 

Feeling exhaustion start to tug at her eyelids, Jill’s lips curled into a new, more peaceful grin. 

“Goodnight, my princes. My little snow daisies,” she whispered, kissing her fingertips before pressing them to each of the glass cases. 

Long live the brothers of House Rosfield. 

EPILOGUE

Seven years later

“Got you again, Uncle!”

“Aww fiddlesticks.” Slamming his cards to the table, Byron surrendered with a growl. “You are too good at this game, Cass. It is uncanny!”

“It's because he cheats,” Xander accused from where he sat on the bench, an open book in his lap. 

“I do not!” An old apple core was flung at his brother, missing entirely and flying out the open window just behind, into the blighted waters. 

Xander turned to Cassian with an expression of shocked disbelief. “You’re disgusting! That could have landed on one of father’s books!” 

“Oh, don’t be such a pansy. If I had wanted to hit you or them, I would have.”

“You are such a little brat!”

Before Byron could stop them, the two boys launched themselves at each other, rolling on the carpet in a tangle of flailing limbs and grunts. A few days prior, this may have prompted him to yank them apart and force apologies. He had since been educated by pretty much everyone in the Hideaway that it was much more efficient to let them tire themselves out. They never actually tried to hurt one another, after all. This was more of a test of wills. And by the Flames, those two ruffians had wills for days.

Thus, with a groan, he grabbed his goblet of mead to avoid it toppling when they inevitably hit the cards tables, and moved out of harm’s way to the desk near the apartment’s entrance. 

He had just settled into one of the chairs when the door opened. 

“Ah, Lady Warrick. Welcome home!” Byron raised his cup in a toast as she hung her heavy, blue cloak onto a hook by the door. 

Upon seeing one of her sons straddling the other, pummeling him with a cushion, she only sighed. 

“They’re at it again, I see.” 

“Seems to be every hour on the hour. More dependable than a clocktower,”

“I did warn you that they were a handful.” 

“They wouldn’t be Rosfields if they weren’t.” 

They shared a grin at that. “Mead?” Byron offered. 

“Please.” 

The fighting faded into the background as Byron procured a second goblet to fill and handed it over. They exchanged pleasantries regarding her trip to the mainland and the details on the boys’ studies. Half her drink had been consumed by the time Alexander and Cassian grew tired of their fruitless wrestling enough to acknowledge her presence. 

“Mother!” 

Both ran to her then, barreling into her arms with such force that she was nearly knocked from her chair. She laughed as she always did at their exuberance. 

“Hello, my precious little snow daisies.” 

 In tandem, they both pulled away, sporting identical expressions of disgust at the admittedly silly moniker. 

As different as they were, Cassian being an inch taller with a mop of wavy ebony hair, donning a red-leather jerkin while Xander preferred softer, blue tunics and kept his silver-streaked hair cropped short, there was no denying their close relation in their expressive features. 

Both were perfect replicas of Clive’s young face. Down to the scarred left cheek which they had inflicted upon each other with kitchen knives a few moons past. Purposefully.  

As furious as she had been at them for maiming themselves, biting back every curse word she knew as Rodrigue stitched them up in the infirmary, she could not deny the intended sweetness of the act. 

They had wanted to feel closer to their father; wanted to prove to themselves that they were not just token copies of a famous hero, but flesh and blood humans who had the misfortune of never having met the man. They wanted a taste of what Clive and Joshua Rosfield had sacrificed and remember that, no matter how intensely they argued and fought, they were brothers above all else.

“An oath” they had called it. 

After their teary-eyed explanation, Jill couldn’t find it in her to be mad anymore.

In the candlelight, after ensuring that the scars had indeed healed nicely, Jill patted them both on the cheeks. 

“You’ve both been good, I trust? Or do I need to negotiate reparations with Otto?”

“We’ve been good!” Cassian insisted, while Alexander chuckled beneath his hand. “No fires.”

“There was the one fire,” Lord Byron corrected. “In the Maps Room? Remember?”

“That was just a little one. It did not count.”

“I… do not want to know.” Absentmindedly picking a bit of lint off Xander’s tunic, Jill resigned herself to a brutal tongue lashing from Vivian. That was a problem for future Jill. She did not envy the woman. “It is late. Time for you to join the other children in the bunks.” 

“But we’re not tired!” To prove this, Cassian ran to the center of the room and performed a poorly executed cartwheel. He landed on his rump at his brother’s feet, groaning in both pain and embarrassment. 

“Must we have this same argument every single night?” Xander asked with an eye roll after helping his brother up, unknowingly repeating the exact words on the tip of Jill’s tongue. This seemed to happen more and more often lately. The boy was smart as a whip and just as manipulative sometimes. “We bid you goodnight. Mother. Uncle.”

They took turns kissing Jill’s cheek and pushing a fist to Byron’s chest before heading to the door. 

“Do you want me to accompany you? Perhaps read a story?” Jill could not help but offer, even knowing they would deny. 

Sure enough, they shook their heads in tandem. “We’re fine! So sleepy now, actually.” Cassian stretched his arms up in an exaggerated yawn. “See you on the morrow!” 

Before the door was even fully closed, the conspiratorial giggles and whispers began. 

“What do you think the odds are that they will actually end up in the bunks?” Byron asked, one eyebrow cocked. 

Jill shrugged. “As long as they don't sully Molly’s pantry again, which I doubt even they will have the guts to, I do not mind where they rest their heads. Every nook and cranny of the Hideaway is a safe place.”

“It is indeed.” 

With the twins gone, the room was bathed in a sudden, tense silence. 

Jill took another sip of her mead, preparing for the inevitable. 

Byron didn’t even attempt playing coy this time. 

“They should be in a proper school, Jill. I would argue that Alexander should be placed ahead even, as he is reading far above the norm for his age. And Cassian!” Clapping a hand to his heart, he did not bother to mask a burst of pride. “Such fire! So brave and-and daring. If he had a sword master to teach him how to channel that energy properly, why, he could-“

“My answer is the same.” Reaching for the bottle, Jill poured herself another serving. “This is our home. We will not abandon it.”

“This is a rotting husk .” Emphatically, he gestured to the floorboards which, admittedly, could use a good scrubbing to thin the mildew. “There is no longer any need for bearers to swim circles in blackened waters. Come to Porte Isolde where, every day, boats from undiscovered lands arrive. You’d be the perfect ambassador! Bring those few that remain. I can find each and every one homes and work and-”

“Byron, please.” With a terse breath, she stared at the old man with fire in her glacier-colored eyes, working hard to try to arrange her response into something concise and kind yet assertive. 

True, the Hideaway was growing quieter by the day as, one-by-one, residents found grander purposes in the farthest reaches of Valisthea. Tarja had long since departed to set up a school in Kanver to teach physicker medicines and other non-magic healing methods. Mid had a factory on the coast near Oriflamme which specialized in building devices to support, not destroy, human lives, such as the incubators that had allowed her sons to thrive despite arriving much too early. Gav and Edda, after getting married in a private ceremony right here in the Mess, decided to bring Arden back to Ash and help the rebuilding effort with those few survivors. Harpocrates had, sadly, passed away two years prior, peacefully in his bed, with a book clasped in his cold, gray hands. 

Of Cid’s original inner circle, only Otto and Vivian remained, along with a skeleton crew to run basic maintenance of the kitchens, childcare, gardens and other staples. Jill had a sneaking suspicion that they did so half because they had a similarly strange attachment to the place and half because they were simply following her example. 

“It’s been over seven years,” Byron said before she could gather her thoughts well enough to politely express them. “He wouldn’t have wanted you nor his children to waste away, gathering dust in this swamp.” 

Jill pressed her lips together, all concentration focused on not barking at him to leave her affairs alone. The impulse, she knew, was sourced more from self-preservation and fear than actual offense. 

Thus, instead of being firm this time, Jill dared to be honest. “What if he’s still out there?” she said quietly, very aware of how insane this all sounded but needing to get it out anyway. “What if he, by some miracle, stumbles back to us broken and bleeding and-and nobody is here to tend to him and he just…” 

She let the sentence dissolve as Byron’s expression grew more and more somber. He was looking at her like one would a mad beggar: eyes radiating concern and pity. How Jill Warrick hated pity. 

It was this expression that made her consider, for the first time seriously, that maybe it was time to move on. For her children. To give them the future they deserved. The one which Clive had sacrificed himself for.

“I’ll think about it,” she offered, gripping the stem of her goblet so hard that her knuckles turned white. In even considering such a drastic change, it felt like she was committing the ultimate betrayal. “But, as a reminder, concerning succession-“

“I know, I know.” Sighing but smiling, Byron fell back into his seat and slapped the armrests. “I don’t agree and I don’t understand, but I will respect your wishes.”

“They are not legal Rosfields,” she explained for what felt like and likely was the fiftieth time. “They have no claim to Rosaria. And even if they were, I do not want that burden foisted upon them.”

Founder knew, the weight had nearly crushed Joshua. 

“Who cares about the legalities? By the Flames, if I hear one whisper of anyone claiming those boys are anyone but Clive’s, I would-”

“People will whisper. I expect more than a few to shout. No matter. We can handle being called whores and bastards. I’ve been labeled worse.”

“We could always, you know, ‘find’ the marriage certificate?”

This offer had been made in the past by multiple parties on multiple occasions and each and every time, she would adamantly shake her head. If their adventures  had taught her anything, it was to accept the truth of who you were. Shamelessly. Not to mention, considering her many years as a slave to the Iron Kingdom’s backwards faith, she had long since lost her taste for ceremony. She did not need a piece of paper to prove that she and Clive had been committed to one another. 

Sensing this discussion was approaching an uncomfortable close, Byron relented, reaching across the desk to tap her forearm in support. 

She had promised to think on it. That was enough. For now. 

“Well, as I half expect to awaken only to discover my boots have been filled with pudding or some other nonsense, I best get some rest. Goodnight, my Lady.”

“Goodnight, Lord Byron. And thank you.”

With that, he took his leave towards the barracks, it being too late to catch the skiff back to the mainland. 

Alone in her chambers, Jill continued to fiddle with the goblet in her hands, twisting it in circles. Then, deciding that the hour was too far gone and her bones too weary from the days of travel to give Byron’s proposal adequate consideration, she moved to tidy up. 

Cass and Xander, as usual, had turned the place upside down. Those boys were a hurricane in human skin. 

No matter. She was grateful for the distraction as pillows were replaced onto benches, cards stacked and books returned to the shelves. 

She was just about to slide one heavy leather tome back in its place when the title caught her eye. It was the Compendium of Rosarian Verse that Harpocrates had read to her in the later days of her pregnancy. Smiling at the memory, missing the old man something fierce, she flipped through it on her lap while sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning into the candlelight. She did not consider herself fluent in the Founder’s language, but she had taught herself enough of the basics to recognize a familiar poem. 

The rills run red with brave men’s blood

And to the talons flow in flood

Then out to sea

But those same souls whose souls are touched

By the flames Phoenix claws are clutched

And ne’er shall die

So dry thine eyes, thy groom is gone

But in thy babe his light lives on

And so shall he

Jill both loved and hated that verse. Sometimes it brought her peace, a reminder that Clive was still with her in the form of two rambunctious sons. Just as often, it made her want to fling the book across the room, refusing to believe the author had experienced such an agony, for surely few could survive let alone write about it. 

This time it made her feel…alone. 

She was often alone lately, especially in the months since Cassian and Xander declared their preference for sleeping in the bunks with the other children as opposed to the small cots still lined up against the wall opposite her bed. She kept them there, just in case they chose to come back. If one had a nightmare or merely yearned for their mother’s presence. Xander had taken advantage only once, after he had fallen asleep reading, but the beds otherwise just took up space. 

She knew she should pack them away. Acknowledge the inevitable. 

They were growing up. Soon they would no longer need her at all, especially if brought to Byron’s estate where they’d have a retinue of servants available to assist with everything from chocobo riding to scrubbing behind their ears, not that she’d allow them to become so spoiled. They were hard enough to handle as it was.

The concept of such change was both terrifying and exciting. 

But it would not happen tonight. 

Sensing that sleep would elude her, her mind spinning too fiercely with the potential horrors and pleasures that awaited, Jill moved to the bench and started shuffling the deck of cards. 

Humming a gentle tune, she laid out a familiar pattern to play the one game she knew she could complete by herself. 

A black queen and red king appeared on the facing layer in the first round. How lucky. Delicately, she picked up the queen from her base and shifted her over three columns, until she was reunited with the king. Beneath was a red jack. Lucky again. He too was added to the family, then all three were relocated together onto the nearly cleared space. 

Her brow furrowed upon releasing the cards, glaring at the painted royal faces as if they had spat at her. 

Somehow, though she was following the rules, all seemed out of place. 

Just like that, she lost her appetite for the game. The cards were swept off the table in a rare expulsion of frustration, her breath heavy, collar feeling much too tight. 

She needed air. 

Heading to the balcony, she leaned over the balustrade, taking as deep gulps of the night as her lungs would allow, surprised to touch her cheek and finding it wet from tears. 

What was wrong with her?

She supposed, after a moment’s consideration, she was in mourning. Porte Isolde had not been the original plan. If they were to abandon Bennumere and live elsewhere, she had always expected it to be further. Beyond the Twins. A true fresh start. Where bloodlines had no ties to the land and they could be truly free. 

This was just another dead dream to add to the pile. 

Staring out into the sea, Jill tried to gain her bearings, ignoring the tears that seemed to be falling in relentless streams. How strange it would be to look out onto waters that were blue instead of black, to stand on marble instead of rotting wood eager to deliver splinters upon the slightest contact. More than this place, which admittedly had started to lose its luster with each subsequent departure, she would miss — like a piece of her heart — the flame kept alive by staying here. For leaving meant they were officially giving up. 

Clive was gone. 

She sensed the hope waning, reducing to a mere sputter of a spark that was failing to catch. 

She had to let it go. Let it die. 

For her family. She couldn’t move on until she stopped expecting it to burst back into vibrant, heated life apropos of nothing. 

Why wouldn’t it just die?

Then, just when the tears started to dry and she felt ready to bury him…

A light.

On the horizon. 

A tiny spec of a thing. Probably a candle in a lantern. 

Jill squinted. 

It was getting closer. She could see it swaying side to side, signaling its attachment to a skiff. Not their own, which was bobbing on the docks, but a new one. A different one. 

Hands clenching the railing so hard that the wood began to crack, she waited with breath held for more details to come into focus. Something shimmered then, the boat revealed to be not made of wood, but some sort of metal, its shape more of a triangle than the traditional, curved Valisthea ships. 

It was not of this realm. 

Though she recognized that its appearance should be cause for concern, something in her mind insisted that there was nothing to fear. With every inch closer it came, slicing through the water like scissors through fabric, the flame at its bow got brighter and brighter. Until she could see the silhouette of a single figure manning the rudder; a hooded man. 

Somehow, even though it made absolutely no sense, she knew. 

She knew as certainly as the sun would rise at dawn

In her desperation, Jill didn’t have the patience to bother using doors or stairs. She needed to get down there in as direct a manner as possible. At the far edge of the balcony, her boys had long ago carved handholds into the siding, thinking they could enter and exit the chambers with her being none the wiser. It was into these she kicked her foot, scrambling down the wall like a monkey and landing heavily on the lower level. 

The lift was immediately deemed too slow as well. For the boat was getting closer, nearly arriving, and she’d be damned if she wasn’t there when it hit the docks. There was a coil of rope next to Hortense’s sewing station, and this she threw over the edge in order to slide down. 

“Clive…”

She ran. She ran faster and harder than she ever had in her life, the old planks screeching their protests. 

The boat was almost there. Its single occupant seemed equally impatient and leapt several feet off the bow as soon as it was near enough, letting the small ship bounce against the pier. He too was running, apparently giving no mind that his mode of transportation had begun drifting away with the tides. 

It was still too dark to fully see, but when he pulled his hood back she noted a familiar outline of messy black hair and it nearly made her retch in such sickening elation. 

“Jill.”

It was his voice that cinched at. 

He was here.

He was alive. 

They crashed together somewhere at the midpoint, Jill laughing and crying so hard that it was difficult to breathe. 

In the darkness, she reached for his face, tracing the old scar of his brand, confirming the glow of familiar, stormy-blue irises overflowing with tears. His cloak was of a material she had never seen before; a strange, glossy silver that seemed to repel water, proving her most fantastical theory to be true. He had fallen somewhere far beyond the borders of Valisthea. Perhaps that was reason enough to forgive him for taking so long to get back to them. 

He too reached for her face, one thumb brushing the tears on her cheek while the other rested upon her shoulder as a strange, dead weight. It didn’t matter. 

He kissed her and it was as though no time had passed. His lips were warm and perfect, expelling the ice that had started to build around her heart. 

People said that Clive Rosfield had rid the world of magic. 

That was not true. 

The rules may have changed, the board may have widened, but one thing was for certain:

There, in his arms, Jill knew that magic still lingered.

From that moment on, she would never play alone again.