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Y’shtola takes a long pull of her mead and considers the small benefits of, for all the world knows, seeming blind.
Firstly, the over consideration many staff paid to her now certainly was nice from time to time, and she wouldn't pretend that having more doors held for her in the library when her hands were full of books wasn't quite the treat.
Secondly, and most relevant to her current circumstances, people tend to forgive certain social faux pas, or at least pretended not to notice them. Such as, for reason of pure example, staring intently at one member of your drinking party for the vast majority of your night out. Were she to, hypothetically, watch every tic and change in said companion’s aether, most would simply write it off as an unsighted woman looking in a random direction while listening to the jovial conversation surrounding her in the mostly empty bar, the privacy of the scions bought with a bag of coin and a kindly request to the proprietress.
The object of her scrutiny was currently laughing over drinks with her companions, her warm gaze watching as Alisaie tells another of her seemingly endless embarrassing tales of Alphinaud’s childhood, wearing the same easy smile she always wore. She looked to all the world the same as she had since she stumbled her way into this whole business of saving the worlds.
What Y’shtola could see, however, told a different story.
To Y’shtola’s eyes, she could tell the smile didn't fit quite right, the laughter wasn't coming easily, and the cheery and hapless girl she met those years ago was not the same woman sitting across the table from her today.
To Y’shtola’s eyes, her dear friend, the Warrior of Light, the Cheerful Hero Callalily Reiseux was hiding something, and it was something painful.
“...and he only just then realized his trousers were on backwards!”
The conclusion of the story and the mix of uproarious laughter and affronted protests dragged Y’shtola back to listening rather than simply watching. Many of the scions seemed content to let the night end on this high note, and began saying their farewells.
Y’shtola saw Callalily beginning to stand herself, and quickly stuck her leg out under the table to rest on the viera’s thigh, halting her motion and bringing a startled, then curious, look to her face. She slowly locked eyes with Y’shtola across the table, to which the miqo’te subtly mouthed, “Stay?”
Alisaie, as she donned her jacket, noticed the strange motion from her tall friend and asked, “Oh, you're staying then, Cal?”
Callalily wiped the peculiar expression from her face and put on her winning smile as she said, “I think Y’shtola and I are just going to have one more quiet drink.”
The emphasis she placed in the word “quiet” had Alisaie shooting a knowing look to Y’shtola, which was met with a placid nod, looking innocent to all the world.
Alisaie was certainly the closest of all of them to Callalily. The two had just clicked immediately, the white mage tempering much of Alisaie’s brashness. Of course, Y’shtola had gone straight to her when she began to worry for Callalily. Though she had also noticed some concerning behaviors, Alisaie felt that she should give the viera time to process whatever was eating her.
For once, Y’shtola was feeling significantly less patient than the young elezen.
Alisaie’s face hardened slightly, a somewhat pleading glance cast to Y’shtola followed by a sigh and a terse nod. She left with a simple, “have a good talk,” following after the rest of the crowd.
A moment of silence passes as the two scions take the measure of each other. Callalily wearing her typical pleasant smile couldn't hide the anxiety her aether was wracked with, not with her current companion.
The Warrior of Light, however, was never one to give up without a fight, “Have my longing glances and yearning sighs finally broken down your walls, my dear Y’shtola?” Her tone was mirthful, but it rang false.
“Unfortunately, they have not, not that you actually expect them to or even want them to. I think, especially now, being around someone you can't hide your feelings from might be a source of anxiety for you.”
Her smile dimmed to one of soft acceptance, “Perhaps. But I would never let that deprive me of your friendship, or your guidance, which I imagine is what brings us here.”
Y’shtola smiles compassionately, “Friendship, more than guidance. I have no advice to give, just some ears quite tuned to listening, and a person to whom you are not the Warrior of Light. To me, you will always be my friend first and foremost.”
Callalily's tall ears droop as her gaze falls. For a moment, Y’shtola is confused, even as she sees the woman’s aether become more tumultuous. She wonders briefly if she's angered her friend somehow, until she hears a small sniffle.
Y’shtola practically lunges across the table to rest her hand over Callalily's, “I do not mean to make you speak on anything you wish not to! Simply that you do have a shoulder to lean on, should you need or want it.”
Callalily looks up, her eyes wet with tears, but surprisingly, a genuine smile on her lips, “No, no. Thank you. Thank you, Y’shtola.”
She wipes her eyes and takes a centering breath, “I don't think I realized how much of a weight that title was. How much I feel like I have to be the Cheerful Hero that everyone looks up to.”
Her smile turns rueful, “I think it's hard because that is me. It's not like I'm putting on some performance or anything. Sometimes, though, it feels as though I'm not allowed to be else.”
Y’shtola slowly sits back, pulling her hand from its perch atop Callalily's own, “I understand, and I'm sure at least the other scions will as well.”
Callalily nods slowly, “I'm sure you're right. They've at least seen me at my low points. I think they just expect me to bounce back sooner than most.”
Y’shtola nods and then lets the silence sit for a moment before asking the question that had been eating at her, “As I said, you've no obligation to tell me should you not desire or simply not be ready, but it seems you’ve been struggling since Meteion and… and Zenos.” Callalily flinches at the name, “Do you want to speak on this? Would it help?”
Callalily heaves a deep sigh, “No… I mean, yes, yes, it would help,” her lips draw into a hard line, “I'm not sure if I can talk about Zenos yet.”
Y’shtola nods understandingly, “Meteion then. I understand how much pain that must have caused. You grew quite fond of the little bluebird quite quickly.”
Callalily leans back in her chair, looking to the ceiling, “I protect people. That's how I have to think about what I do,” her phrasing causes Y’shtola to tilt her head, perplexed. Something to ask later, to be certain. Callalily continues, “She had something that I felt more than anything I needed to protect, and I couldn't.”
“Something you had to protect?”
The viera’s gaze drops down, guilt clear in her eyes and aether, “Hope. It sounds so… perhaps cliche. But what is the point of having heroes if they don't make you believe in hope for tomorrow, if they don't give you faith that acting on that hope will be worth it.”
She laughs humorlessly, “I think that's why the ‘Cheerful Hero' moniker has caught so firmly. If I can smile through the end of days, surely there's something on the other side to fight for.”
Y'shtola grimaces, “You needn't bear the weight of every single person you couldn't save.”
Callalily fixes her with a disapproving stare, by which Y'shtola is briefly cowed, “How could one possibly throw herself into the path of danger without believing on some level that she's taken responsibility?”
She sighs, and leans forward, “That's not fair, but what if I could have saved her? Even at the end?”
Fixing her grip on her convictions, Y'shtola leans forward to meet her, “You cannot, cannot, allow yourself to drown in the possibilities of what is set in stone. You'll be your own end that way, and I… I will not watch that happen.”
Y'shtola huffs, “Besides, no one else was able to save the shards in the first place, who could have possibly done it better?”
Callalily’s eyes are fixed to her own hands, fidgeting with the mug in front of her, “Maybe someone stronger. Maybe fighting never needed to happen. The things she said, that we saw, those worlds upon worlds upon worlds…” She looks up, tears brimming in her eyes, “That broke me, for a time. Maybe someone who never wavered could have given her that hope back.”
Reaching across the table once more, Y'shtola takes the viera's hands, “Please be kind to my friend, who has seen and done so much. Ask yourself if you would expect anyone else in existence to see the end of every known world and not be shaken.”
Callalily locks her eyes to Y'shtola's, tears falling freely down her cheeks, a sad smile on her lips, “At the very end, I was so selfish. I wasn't thinking about saving anything. I just wanted my friends to stop hurting. That's why I sent you all away, that's why I finally killed Meteion. I'd already lost you all once, I couldn't do it again. And I had to put her out of her misery.”
The raw grief on Callalily's face was drawing tears to Y'shtola's own eyes, “Callalily, there's many words that can be used to describe what you did that day. I can quite assuredly say that ‘selfish’ is not one of them.”
Callalily’s lips quiver as she tries to find the words to respond. After a moment, she simply shakes her head, drawing her hands out from Y'shtola's to wipe her eyes, “I think… I think I need to tell you about Zenos.”
Y'shtola's eyes widen in surprise, but she quickly schools them back to availability and compassion, “Please don't feel obligated, today or ever. If it will help you, I'm here for you, always.”
Callalily seems almost not to have heard this, her eyes distant, as though looking through Y'shtola. Silence stretches for eons as she gathers her feelings. Her aether is rapidly fluctuating between feelings of grief and rage and something darker than those.
“There's a part of me that,” she pauses, pain evident in her eyes, “is shameful. A part that doesn't feel terribly heroic. A part that doesn't save worlds, but end them.”
Y’shtola watches tension building in the young white mage’s shoulders. Her aether is barbed wire now, warding off the comfort that Y’shtola deeply wants to give.
The white mage’s eyes rise sharply to meet her own, a deep conviction welling up in her gaze, “Zenos saw that part that no one else did. Everyone else sees a healer, a hero. But I am a killer.” She says the word with venom, “I've killed so many. All for the greater good, ostensibly, but those people are dead all the same, denied any chance to be better, and the capacity to kill them… to want to kill them is a part of me. He wanted that part, because he had it too, and I wanted it from him. I don't know if I thought I could kill it in both of us, or if the heroic bit of me was just too tired.”
The viera's ears droop, “Hells, maybe I just wanted to die in a fight and it felt like all of them might be behind me.”
At this, her aether becomes somber and murky, moving slowly like tar. Y'shtola, deciding that she can't just watch her friend like this, stands and circles around the table to sit next to Callalily. She pulls the morose taller woman close so that her head can rest on Y’shtola’s own shoulder, and now Callalily welcomes the comfort.
The viera murmurs, “He called me his friend, you know? For a long time I thought he was just a mad man,” she pauses, sighing, “But at the end I understood completely.”
Y'shtola begins calmingly running her fingers through the younger woman’s black and white hair as she prompts, “How so?”
She hesitates, uncertain whether to give form to this side of herself, uncertain if she could show that to Y’shtola, but ultimately speaks at barely a whisper, “What other word is there for someone who understands you, at least part of you, better than anyone else? I haven't just killed, I… I enjoyed it. Maybe not the death itself, but the fighting, the risk of death. Putting myself against seemingly impossible odds and giving my whole self to it.”
She looks up at Y'shtola, “Is that,” she hesitates a final time, “Am I broken? Is the only difference between me and Zenos that I fell into the scions and he didn't?”
Y’shtola wants to deny this, immediately and with fervor, but empty platitudes are not what her dear companion needs right now. A question of this weight deserves critical thought. She ponders it, rolling the idea around in her mind for a few minutes in silence, the only sounds in the empty bar their breathing and her fingers running through Callalily’s hair.
Eventually, she stops. She separates the two of them so that Callalily can look her in the eyes. Her aether bears an attitude of quiet, doomed acceptance. To Y'shtola's eyes, there is very little discernible difference between Callalily and a criminal on the gallows. Even now, a small, sad smile plays at her lips.
Y'shtola takes a deep breath.
“You are not broken.”
She affixes her gaze directly into Callalily's own, determined to show the truth she was speaking.
“You may be a killer. You may even enjoy it, or at least find some vicious glee in the fight.”
Callalily flinches at this, but does not look away.
“More than that, malms more than that, you are a protector. All you do, all you have done, every life you've taken, has been to make the world a better, safer place for those who are not strong enough to protect themselves.”
Callalily’s aether shifts, and it sings of reticent hope. Y'shtola charges on.
“Zenos may have been a victim of his circumstances, but he also killed wantonly, without purpose, without care. Callalily, were I to tell you to walk out into that street and murder an innocent, defenseless person, you would be aghast. Some may quail at the knowledge that you find joy in the violence, but none would ever doubt that you would never enact it without cause.”
The viera’s ears stand to their full stature, the burgeoning hope threatening to break through the dam of her fear.
“Further, all know the deep and abiding joy you find in helping people. In curing the sick, in feeding the hungry, in bringing justice to the forgotten. More than anything else, that is who you are.”
Y’shtola grasps Callalily’s shoulders. The young mage leans into the contact immediately, a transfixed gaze on her face.
“Neither of these parts of you erase the other, but one is far the greater aspect. I've known you and watched you for long enough to know that with absolute certainty.”
As her piece is said with finality, Y'shtola watches it sink into her friend. The hope she was fighting bursts through into overwhelming gratitude and love. She surges forward, hugging Y'shtola tightly, a bright, joyous, genuine smile on her lips.
She whispers, “Thank you, Y'shtola, for being my friend. If only all the world had someone who cares for them this much.”
Y'shtola smiles, and rubs small circles on the viera’s back before jesting lightly, “For now, one of me is quite enough. Some might say too much.”
Callalily laughs against her chest, “Only those without taste.”
They part and share a grin. Y’shtola is the first to stand, holding a hand out to Callalily, “Come now, if I know Alisaie, she's still waiting outside to ensure all went well.”
Callalily looks very briefly surprised, “Did you two plan this intervention?”
“No, and I imagine had it gone poorly I would find myself on the receiving end of that toothpick she carries. For now, however, I think you might find comfort in at least letting some of these walls down with her.”
Callalily nods with a hum of consideration.
As they walk to the door, a cheshire grin crosses Y'shtola's face as she speaks lightly, as though discussing something as mundane as the weather, “And should you be willing to put down the flame you carry for me, perhaps you two could finally find something else to discuss together too.”
Callalily stops dead, and Y'shtola mirrors her, not turning around so as to not reveal her trickster's grin, “Wait, what?”
Y'shtola begins walking again, humming a question back as though she didn't quite hear the inquiry.
As the pace of Callalily’s footsteps picks up suddenly, lighthearted exclamations about unfairness on her tongue, Y'shtola begins to run out as well. The pair burst into the street, filling the air with laughter and friendly shouting, startling a young elezen red mage leaning on the bar’s wall.
Y'shtola bids her farewells, and watches as the two walk off, their auras glowing fondly.
She sighs contentedly, instinctively looking up into the night sky, despite starlight failing to make itself known to her, and walks off into the night.
For now, all was well, and that was certainly enough.