Chapter Text
One
Ten gil, a strange rock - The fraud - The quick exchange before the solar - Argument in the church - One hard shove - "My friend"
It was broad daylight, and he had means of defending himself. How dangerous could Ul’dah truly be? He knew to keep from the backroads, and Alphinaud was confident his lack of experience navigating the merchant city was more than made-up for by his common sense and the strength of his name.
He was in Ul’dah proper for the remembrance service to be preformed in the coming days. For the present moment, he was in the Sapphire Exchange to look for a gift for his mother. …and perhaps, partially, because he’d developed a small appetite for window shopping.
A small little bauble caught his passing interest and right as Alphinaud came to a stop to get a closer look a hard jostle to his side nipped that potential transaction in the bud— much to this peddler’s dismay. By the look of the elezen’s clothes, if he could wheedle more than just that trinket into his pockets he could’ve been set for life. But as for what had nearly upended the Sharlayan…
Alphinaud gave a small, startled shout and braced himself against the shop stall as he was nearly sent to the ground. He was more silver and embroidered silk than he was meat and bones. He turned his head and caught orange.
An adolescent, scraggly-furred miqo’te, blundering his way through the marketplace. He moved to shove something into his pocket and right as Alphinaud looked back, so did he.
“Whoops. Wasn’t looking.” It was a half-hearted apology. In the span of a second this exchange took place, his unbrushed tail flicked Alphinaud’s knee and the youth carried on ahead.
“I-I beg your—” Now, it had (allegedly) been an accident, but the force of the collision and how insincere the apology was left the elezen wondering if he should be offended or the one apologizing. He blinked. Dazed. Something… something felt amiss. Alphinaud watched him disappear into the throng of commerce. The miqo’te took one final look back at him and Alphinaud spies a sliver of piercing green. Something about this glance was different because immediately after, he bolted.
Alphinaud reached down for his coin purse. It was open, and not by his hand.
Did he…? Somehow, despite standing in the middle of the thievery capital of Eorzea, Alphinaud Leveilleur was in shock. Someone had robbed him. Him! He took a disbelieving step forward.
“St-Stop… Stop! That miqo’te is a thief!” and he broke out into a jog, and very soon after that as close to a sprint as he could manage, slipping past hyurs and taking care not to trample lalafels. Had nobody heard him?! The throng seemed to be conspiring against him, laughing and slowly crossing his path and Alphinaud scoffed in frustration and he doesn’t apologize once for his erratic movement, darting into peoples’ way and brushing against them, nudging them away.
It was as if the boy had vanished into thin air and he was running after miasma, though the one thing in the elezen’s favor was his thief’s bright and eye-catching red tunic. He merely had to race after the shock of ruby. Once he broke through the crowd Alphinaud surged back into a sprint and he raced through a turn. A bolt of orange and red catches his eye again and it disappeared into a large crack in the wall. And it really was a crack; a gap between two sandstone buildings that only a young, living-by-the-skin-of-his-teeth miqo’te could squeeze through.
Or, perhaps, an elezen who hadn’t yet hit his growth spurt.
Alphinaud braced himself against the wall and stepped over several rotting wooden boxes without a second thought, climbing into the gap. It was completely, utterly dark, mercifully cold on account of the shade and carried a worrying stench of mold. Sharp in contrast to the molten, savory heat of Thanalan. A whiff of a rotting mouse or scorpid would’ve been more comforting. Anyplace being uninhabited in Ul’dah— overcrowded, clamoring, cacophonous Ul’dah— was unnerving.
He could manage the gap, albeit barely. Alphinaud was heaving, still catching his breath from the run and the air was sour on his tongue. Stone scraped against him and he had to turn to his side to make further progress. Something inside the youth shriveled up and whimpered in disgust as a spider’s web broke on the tip of his ear. Glorious, now his skin would be crawling with phantom insects for the remainder of the day. If something had got onto him, he’d have no idea.
By Alphinaud’s own estimation the other end of the crevice had deposited him at Pearl Lane, which a colorful local had told him was the place to be if he needed his head detached from his shoulders. Business wasn’t conducted behind a stall or marketboard listing where— it was propped up unsuspiciously against walls and hushed without meeting your glance, everywhere, out in the open and unseen like poisonous gas.
It would explain the homicide rate, at least. You either developed an immunity, quick, or kissed the pavement before you’d realized your misstep. But Alphinaud wouldn’t be here long. It was a fluke that he’d even been flung into this situation, and it would not happen again. He shuddered and shook himself of dirt and grime upon returning to the baking sun and he squinted his eyes.
The lane was completely abandoned, forwards and backwards, and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. There were eyes all over him. Alphinaud didn’t see a single soul, but he knew his arrival had been noticed. It hit him like a wall.
He didn’t move a single ilm from the crevice which bore him there. In fact, he kept a hand splayed against the wall right by the crack as if it was wiser than he and would disappear the first chance it got. No orange and red, no lead, he had nothing. The elezen let slump his shoulders in dejection. A petty thief had made a fool of Sharlayan’s elite.
It finally occurred to him that he hadn’t the slightest idea how much had been stolen from him. Alphinaud only knew that his coin purse was firmly closed and secured one moment, and opened the next. He took with him three hundred gil to the Exchange today. He reached for his coin purse and discovered that it indeed felt lighter… but not by much.
Alphinaud had counted, in his purse now, two-hundred and ninety gil.
Many would call Alphinaud Leveilleur a fool for bracing the Sapphire Exchange for the second time that day, one among them being himself with the gift of hindsight.
In the hours following the pickpocketing, Alphinaud had decided it was a fluke. How unlikely would it be to get robbed twice in one day? This wasn’t to say that the elezen wasn’t on his guard. Pickpocket him once, shame on you. Pickpocket him twice…
What was worth venturing out into the thick of the city at the brink of night? His earring. Somewhere, during the chaos of the chase, Alphinaud’s earring had come loose. The ten gil was nothing. That he’d even been pickpocketed was humiliating. That he would potentially leave the city in disarray, that his sister would immediately notice the missing accessory and he’d have to tell her the story of him sprinting through the market, through that horrible little crevice, all for nothing..
His pace quickened. Cold desert air stung his shame-reddened cheeks. If it was still there and hadn’t already been scooped up and pawned off, it’d be in that hole in the wall. Sound logic. Now, there was just one problem. It was quickly getting dark, and Alphinaud soon realized that his crevice was not the only crevice along that side of the street. Not only could this take longer that he’d like if he was unlucky, but would he risk drawing attention to himself by summoning his carbuncle as a source of light?
He’d found a crevice and passed right through and no sparkle shone out to him, no metal bounced against his shoe, and he emerged on the other side back into that empty expanse with naught to show for it. Alphinaud brushes himself of cobwebs and other muck and turns to head back through the gap.
He felt as if he was being watched.
“Would you look at that.” A voice rasped. Alphinaud whirled around. A band of hyurs and one roegadyn had materialized from nowhere like shadows scraped from the stone. The tallest hyur with a deep scar snaking across his jaw stepped further into the moonlight. “How much did those threads set you back, boy? Or did yer old man pick em’ out for ya?”
Dull, heavy laughter trickled through the Lane like thrown stones. Alphinaud began taking steps backwards, back the way he’d gone. “I… wasn’t aware this… ‘road’ was occupied. I’ll be leaving, now—” His back hit the wall. The crevice. Gloved hands splayed against the sandstone and he felt his heart begin to race. He’d rather not like to be crammed into that small, enclosed space with these characters about.
“Aw, where y’goin’? We ain’t scared you off that quick, have we?”
“S’a bit rude to scamper off when y’elders are speakin to ya,” The roegadyn piped up, and the others nodded, looking to each other. They slowly advanced.
“We’re understandable folk, so we’ll just be fixin’ for an apology. You can manage that, can’t ya, yer lordship?”
Alphinaud let out a breath and stared at the wall. “My apologies for walking the city at night… though it’d be perfectly within my rights to do so.” and someone kissed their teeth slowly. They grew closer. Alphinaud reached an arm behind himself and his arm lingered, feeling the cool air of the crevice and his fingers brushed his grimoire. He did not want this to come to blows.
“He’s got a mouth on ‘im.”
“Let’s carve it out.” Steel glittered in the moonlight. Alphinaud made for his grimoire, but just as he did, just as the man brandished his blade and leapt for him, footsteps thundered down the lane and something small and furious tackled the tall hyur. Shouts and cusses ripped through the alley. The two hit the ground and the figure began raining fists upon him, beating heavy and thudding into his gut.
In the dim light, he catches a glimpse of orange fur, a tail poofed to pinecone. It’s when the miqo’te (come to his aid, hopefully) is flung off and sent skidding into the wall, when the others all draw their blades and steel knuckles and descend upon him that Alphinaud regains himself.
“Ge-get— Fuck off me!” The miqo'te— young, he can hear— lets out a hiss, and he’s on the ground quickly, and boots are assailing him on all sides, into his ribs, his face, and—
Teal, brilliant teal, emerald magic explodes through the street and a man is sent tumbling, his blade clattering onto the stones. He reaches for his rear as if he’d been dropped ass-first into a pit of fire. Another burst, Alphinaud whips his hand through his grimoire and with a thrust forth of his book, something doesn’t emerge roaring, but squeaking.
A small, blue creature with ears as big as its body leaps out from the ether, materialized from a ball of light and it races towards the other three. It looked like a rodent.
“A bloody carbuncle!” The roe didn’t know whether to laugh, or— he had one second to react, it raced towards him and the others and then promptly exploded and they’re sent into a heap on the ground, collapsing next to the beaten boy.
Alphinaud stepped closer and he saw the whites of their eyes in the dark, wide and fearful and he watched as they left behind their blades and scampered off into the dark.
“....didn—didn’t know there was… four of ‘em…” That young voice spoke up again, rasping. Alphinaud turned, and he smelled iron. The miqo’te is clutching his side and he’s trying to sit up.
“Are you alright?!” He raced to him and kneeled, and the boy swats his hand away from the wound.
“Don’t touch it, don’t touch it, it fucking hurts!” He hissed, and the elezen is swiping through his grimoire.
“I can heal you, unless you’d prefer to bleed out in this dingy alleyway?” Twelve help him, this man had no sense, but he’d wished he’d bit his tongue just this once. Alphinaud is able to get a look and he feels a pang of guilt. He’d taken a stabbing for him. His eyes flicker upwards and he catches a glimpse of green before he’s avoiding his gaze, turning away, grimacing. Green. Green, and orange, and Alphinaud looks down. Ruby red tunic.
He almost forgets everything. It was the same miqo’te who’d robbed him earlier. Was it coincidence that cast him as his savior? Alphinaud’s mind thrums as he holds his palm out and he feels his own aether leaving him and seeping into this boy’s body. He hears the sharp inhale, and then the steady exhale of the hurt lessening. He could confront him now, he could get his stolen gil back, measly sum as it was, and he could…
It replays in his mind again, the ferocity, how he’d come barreling down the alley and, even with his small size, sent the leading hyur to the ground and given him just about as good as he’d gotten. Thud. Crack. Alphinaud could’ve been gravely hurt and he’d risked himself for the very man he’d stolen from, who’d no doubt recognize him and turn him in.
All for ten gil. Alphinaud closed his eyes, and once the wound was knit closed about as firmly as his own aether could make it, he rises to his feet. “...I must thank you,” he said as he did, “If it wasn’t for you, I dread to imagine what would’ve befallen me.”
He watches him brace himself against the wall and haul himself up. He had the eyes of a Seeker, yet no dark markings beneath his eyes. Strange. “If I knew you had a ‘buncle maybe I would’ve….” the boy trails off and looks away. He glowers. “...whatever. You’re welcome. I bet you want your gil back.”
Alphinaud opened his mouth to speak, to say ‘no’, but the miqo’te was faster. “Well, too bad, I already spent it.” He was lurching towards his unwounded side, no doubt it still hurt. No aether could patch someone up completely. “Would’ve spent this too, but…” He growls something to himself, and then kicks his shoe and something metallic scrapes and dinks against the stones and skips to Alphinaud’s feet. He looks down. It’s his earring. “Found it. Recognized it. Giving it back now.”
When he bends down to take it and then looks up again the boy was gone. He feels a flash of disappointment, even of concern, he would’ve offered to escort him home, but… alas. Alphinaud could only hope he’d arrive home to his parents safely. As for himself… he looked down at his carbuncle, freshly returned from its earlier self-destruction. It looks up, blinking tiny coal eyes.
He gave an exhausted smile. “Let us return to the Quicksand without any further incident, shall we?”
schffff. schffff. Johnny wasn’t limping, not quite, but godsdamn did his side still smart. His shoes dragged against the stone and he bit back instinctive, stinging regret. He really, really wouldn't've done that if he’d seen the other two. No, he would’ve just stood there and watched that other kid get shanked after robbing him to pay for his lunch, that’s exactly what he would’ve done. Fucking hell. He needed to loose his conscience and fast.
He wasn’t even thinking about the earring, though he would in the morning when his stomach rumbled, fuck that earring. He could’ve gotten started on a security deposit for a place of his own with that thing. What, does he think Nald’ll bless him for trying to be a good person? That doesn’t happen. The entire Syndicate would die in their sleep that very night if it was so.
Something catches his eye and he stops. Something blue and long. He’d nearly tripped over it. Johnny groans as he lowers himself down and takes it in his hand. It was a rock, some sort of crystal, and it was heavy and it was the most brilliant blue he’d seen, bluer than that elezen’s eyes and he had some damn peepers on him. He turns it over in his hand. It’s so smooth, like solid silk. He’s holding a piece of the cloudless Thanalan sky in his hand.
Fuck that earring! This was getting him his own place, and two months’ rent besides!
II
His hands, from within his gauntlets, felt uncomfortably warm as if held before a roaring flame. All of him does. He’s sweating. He pulled a hand out from one of his gauntlets and flexed the fingers, he sees bruised and bleeding knuckles. His hand is shaking. He looked back to the corpse, leathery and horned and lying there like a fetid, eroding mountain range, squat and black as charcoal.
Johnny remembers nothing. He could’ve been convinced someone else swooped in and did it except for the fact that he felt like he just ran three burning malms. He caught a glimpse of his singed tail. He shambled several paces away, he passed by dark shuddering shrubs and rock partly metamorphized, misshapen and dotted with black hornblende like scorch marks. He saw bodies, bodies of Brass Blades and Amalj’aa motionless in the scalding sand and dirt. Everything is cracking and smoldering and dead.
His ungloved hand reaches up and he pings his linkpearl. He swallows dryly. “Min–Miner— ..Minfilia?” her voice, nervous but hopeful, came over the frequency. Johnny doesn’t answer for a few seconds, staring out into the eclipsed night, the black shapes of the gorge, “Ifrit is, uh… Ifrit is dead.” His head is spinning and his mouth is dry. Johnny turned back to stare at the corpse again, as if right as its death was declared it’d stand right back up, as if this cosmic mistake would be picked out and set right like a domino fallen out of place.
He knew better, though. Nobody was out there watching him, watching over him or keeping score. There never was. Johnny was an empty room with a box of dominoes spilling out onto the floor with no rhyme or reason other than the two primal forces of nature; gravity and Ul’dahn economy. They fall where they may. Nobody came to pick them up, nobody wrote anything down. There were thousands of rooms just like it.
“Oh, that’s wonderful! … but, are you alright? Are you wounded? You sound…” Minfilia picked up on it, on something in his voice, another issue pressing, and if she wasn’t adept at digging that kind of thing out from a man’s speech she wouldn’t have been the Accident. Anti— The— …whatever she was. It started with an ‘An’ and had multiple cymbals.
It was a good question, too. Maybe he’d peer at himself and discover he’d actually died five minutes prior. “I ‘unno, I can’t tell, I’m kinda…” Johnny looked down at himself. Cuts, bruises, worryingly red blotches of skin that screamed when a hot gust of air hit it. His voice cracked, “well, I’m standing.” and that was the only genuine truth, known in absoluteness to himself, that the boy could give. All else was speculation.
He can hear her motherly smile and the weight off her shoulders when she says “ I knew you could do it, Johnny. Please, return to the Waking Sands so I may thank you in-person.”
And when he gets there he doesn’t know what to say. He put on his best smile and nodded and someone shook his hand, another gave him a good clap on the back (he remembers this being Thancred) and, mercifully, Minfilia did most of the talking.
When one by one the others left and they’re alone, Minfilia gives him one last smile, a smile as if she’s fondly proud of him, and bade him to rest and it’s the first time someone’s suggested that to him. He wouldn't've had the word for it but it felt antithetical. There was always rent to pay and food to be bought and something that needed replacing. But he’d been given leave to sleep here, at the Waking Sands, and to his surprise in according with what he was paid everything at the Scions’ quartermaster in that far room was priced reasonably. Hells, some of it was just given to him for nothing! It was a horrible way to run a business.
Johnny peered about at the sandstone arches and oil lamps as the door to the solar swung shut behind him. The Scion guarding the door, a lalafellin woman, nodded and gave him a smile.
Either this wasn’t a business, or it was a very strange kind of one that he hadn’t encountered yet.
III
The next time he sees that elezen, he’s returning from the maws of Toto-Rak, and it’s sudden and it leaves him frustratingly tongue-tied. First, the Maws.
Toto-Rak had been disgusting. Toto-Rak had destroyed his clothes, his appetite, and his hair.
Thank the Twelve, something recognizeable. Go here, kill these things, maybe save this poor bastard from thieves or ransomers or the wildlife. Toto-Rak had been a step or two above that, Johnny recognized he’d become some sort of halfwitted diplomat to the Sylphs and the rescue of their Elder had ‘political implications’ and then, at the deepest crevice of the Thousand Maws, another one of those guys appeared.
There was also a giant scorpion but that was normal. The man in the black robe wasn’t. Him speaking in some freakish language and Johnny actually understanding him wasn’t normal either, chalk that up as another one of those ‘talents’ Minfilia had sniffed out of him.
‘Lahabrea’. He didn’t ‘find him’ so much as he decided to appear . And if he actually wanted him dead he should’ve done it himself instead of throwing a giant bug at him. Giant bug extermination had been his biggest employment before joining up with the Scions, believe it or not. Thanalan had some nasty, nasty fuckers skittering about, ones that’d eat you whole.
But back at the Waking Sands… Johnny came up the main hallway, hauling his pack of supplies and right as he’s gotten the solar in his sights the door swings open. It’s the blue elezen from the alleyway. The two boys pause— one only momentarily— at the sight of each other.
His blues were locked on him. Intense and searching, as if he could wring answers from Johnny’s physical form alone. Johnny wanted to look away and pretend he’d never even seen him but it was too late for that, so he held the stare and remained where he was, several yards back, dufflebag over his shoulder.
The moment passed. Alphinaud stepped closer and he sighed at him, “I see you’ve found employment,” and the elezen nodded as he passed him. It was a simple statement. It was an insult. It was objectively true. Johnny swallowed back several expletives. He’d had employment. He’d had several at once. This pampered prince didn’t know shit about cost of living. Johnny shot him a glare.
“I see you’ve – …” Johnny looked Alphinaud up and down, searching for something, any sort of ammunition but the words don’t come. His face goes red, “...whatever.” And with hunched shoulders he began again, walking fast and shucking his dufflebag further up his shoulder and he passed by him and once did, Alphinaud turned back and watched Johnny enter the solar. It’s only once he had his back to him that he does this.
One thing rang through his mind like a pulse, repeating; ‘what is he doing here?’. It brought an entire field of implications the Sharlayan in all honestly did not want to contend with. But contend with him he did, as he was taught, as it was drilled into him, be not blind to the truth, and so Alphinaud took the step forwards and started again down the hall.
He took inventory, pieces falling like rocks from a landslide. One of the Scions, or several, had judged his worth and found him competent. He had the Echo. He would be seeing more of him very, very soon. Without thinking, a small hand darts down and he checks his coin purse. He feels it. It’s closed.
Alphinaud remembered the silver glint of his earring on the cobbled sandstones, the awful scrape as Johnny had kicked it over. ‘found it. recognized it. giving it back now.’ His fingers splayed around the purse and he took it in his hand. He remembered the rush of orange, of blades clattering to the cobbles and hard blows and he remembered the stench of blood. He remembered him curled up against the wall, the look he’d given him.
A thief was a thief, he wanted to tell himself, but he knew that wasn’t true. It’d make him a hypocrite; he knew how Thancred and his grandfather had met. A strange churning sensation sank in his gut and he released the coin purse and passed through a set of doors.
There was more to this miqo’te than appearances suggested, and Alphinaud contented himself with leaving it at that. At the very least, he let himself be glad for him. Working with the Scions would be good for his social mobility.
If he lasted.
IV
The church doors swung open. Johnny turned and squinted against the light pouring in.
Alphinaud stood at the threshold eclipsing the desert sun, small shadowed figure slender and silver. One step, another, and color passes into him. The wood doors slowly closed. There’s a brief heartbeat where the boys are looking at each other, as if everything changed now that ‘he’ was here, but then it’s gone and he’s looking to Marques.
“Hmph. I fondly hoped that I might be the first to speak with you… Would that I had been so fortunate.” and it’s as if the elezen received some cosmic message or warning, because he looked back to Johnny, who, before the elezen could say anything further, blurted out a
“Fucking hells, at least you’re still alive.” Johnny rested a hand on his hip and stood unartfully lurched to the side, tail soundlessly tapping against the side of an old pew. He was covered in grime, covered in dirt and looked as if he’d just escaped from a collapsing mineshaft. Dark red lines of coagulated blood. The slayer of Titan. One of few surviving Scions.
Alphinaud blinked and made quite the face; as if he’d bit into a La Noscean lemon. “...yes,” he began, heavy with poorly hidden distaste. Precisely for lack of trying. “While you were catering to the Company of Buffoons’ every whim, I was off researching our feathered foe… if you were wondering as to my absence.”
And in turn, something in the tone of his voice— condescending, know it all — rubbed against him and without thinking, Johnny retorted, “Yeah, I walk into a room of my dead co-workers and I think — ‘hey, where’s Alphinaud?’” His voice took a mock confused lilt at the end, eyes rolling contemptuously, and Alphinaud flared and took a step forward it was at this point that the priest intervened.
“Children, children, please — this is a sacred place!” He looked between the two boys, creased hands held out as if to calm them. “Do not let what you’ve suffered today drive you apart. There has been too much!” and they both turned and looked to him, one indignant but acquiescent and the other as if he’d been caught by a schoolmaster— head hunched and avoiding his gaze (nevermind that Johnny had never been to school; supplement this for an orphan matron if you wish).
Alphinaud let loose a heavy sigh. “...as for my purpose here…” he began again, a mote of annoyance still lingering, “I have come in search of a legend— the greatest engineer of our time. Master Cid Garlond— I have come for you.” and the miqo’te squints and follows Alphinaud’s gaze, turning, turning… his eyes set on Marques. An ear twitches as the gears turn. The robed man held a hand to his temples and turned away.
“The amneesac? ” He asked, jabbing a dusty thumb at him. Alphinaud continued as if he hadn’t spoken and Johnny made another interesting face at him, like a sour little coal-mining child. And as Alphinaud addressed ‘Cid’ again, the man groaned as if some spell was being cast on him and he shook his head. The priest came to his side and laid a hand on his shoulder. He looked to the young elezen.
“I fear you are mistaken, young man— this is a poor soul, one of countless who’ve suffered at Carteneau. I trust you mean no ill, but your words seem to—”
“No, wait, he… he’s familiar…” ‘Cid’ rose his head and studied Alphinaud intently, eyes squinted in deep, deep strain. Johnny looked at him, and from his spot as a youth, much shorter, he spotted a pair of goggles beneath his hood and the lad rose his brows. Maybe Alphinaud was onto something. And indeed he was, for at that, the priest left momentarily and returned with a box and a steel hammer. He watched as Cid took it into his hand, knowing and unknowing and turned it over and felt the weight settle as it should.
It was at that point that Alphinaud said a lot of things; many, and all at once, and a portion of it slipped off the miqo’te’s mind like butter but one thing stuck, one thing brought him out and pinned him to the wall and that was Garuda. And by his reckoning, she’d be the strongest thus far. The boy’s ears twitched as he worked not to have them fold back in cowardice and as his tail swished; it wasn’t unlikely that those in attendance mistook the motion for battle-readiness.
He’d have to do it again. He hadn’t even gotten a break after Titan and already he’d have to do it again. Johnny was beginning to think he’d have to keep doing it, doing… this, not just investigating crystal theft or beating up Amal’jaa or essentially pest control but felling Gods and yes he’d done it twice before now but he still didn’t know how.
They were going to find out. Sooner or later, the Scions ( fuck , what was left of them) were going to find out he was a fraud. He had the Echo no doubt, and two fists good for punching but they were treating him like he was something more than that and he knew, for a fact, that he wasn’t; knew as sure as he’d came into this world with a tail.
“...and herein lies an opportunity,” and Alphinaud glanced at him, straight at him, “Were we somehow to defeat Garuda, it would serve as a warning to the other beast tribes that even their mightiest gods can be felled.” Johnny nodded quickly, if not to get Alphinaud to stop looking at him. He felt as if he was running on track being laid down right before him, and he didn’t know how much track he had left in his pocket. One of these times he wasn’t going to make it back.
Alphinaud leveled his gaze at Cid next. “If we are to face our foe, we must first circumvent the tempest that shields her sanctuary. And for that, we need an airship─ your airship, Cid."
“I have… an airship?”
Alphinaud sighed again. “Yes, Cid, you do. Your very own airship.” He said it slower this time. He clearly didn't like repeating himself, and for Johnny, this kicked again at an unseen nerve and he wasn’t even the one being talked to.
He made a small noise first which got Alphinaud’s attention, and then he gestured to Cid. “He’s still clearly missin’ shit up there, lay off him.” and Alphinaud paled. It wasn’t clear if he’d taken the point or if it was pure shock from being spoken to in such a manner.
“Please, your language…” the priest muttered hoarsely. One of Johnny’s ears twitched in his direction, and his tail gave a swish.
“...Perhaps I haven’t properly explained how dire our circumstances. Or, perhaps, I find this more likely; you haven’t paid attention. I did not say that the Ixal mean to summon Garuda— I said that they have .”
“I heard you! I heard you also talking to him as if he’s stupid!”
The priest made an agonized wail and all in attendance whipped towards him, his fists were at his temples. He exhaled loudly and then made a praying motion. His eyes shut. “I am sorry. I will… I will have to ask you three to leave, and please finish this conversation outside. I find I can take no more of this.”
Alphinaud looked at Johnny. Johnny looked right back at him, and in two quick motions the young men turned on their heels and marched out and the doors swung behind them. The priest laid a hand on Cid again, and the two shared a look before he reached for his heavy box and lumbered forth, shouldering through the doors. And when he did…
“I don’t think he’s stupid, did you not hear me earlier when I spoke of him as a legend? I may be beginning to think of someone else as such, however.”
“You’ve got a lotta nerve sayin’ that to me.” Johnny muttered, and the air seemed to crackle with something, something heavy and warning and it was a good thing that the doors opened just then.
Cid, hulking and towering above them both, hunched over his box and frowned. “Don’t… don’t fight for my sake, please…” and he looked to Johnny, “I really didn’t take offense to it.” and with that, Alphinaud rose his chin at the miqo’te, who only growled.
“Thank you, Cid. Unfortunately, while I was able to locate you, I’m afraid I didn’t prove as fortuitous when it came to your airship.”
“The Ennerprize?” Johnny piped up, ears up straight. “Or is that some different one?” And both heads turned to look at him.
They spoke at once.
“Precisely it.”
“That… yes, that’s it…!”
And Johnny looked between them and decided to address Cid, “I always kept hearing at the orph—... uh, place I grew up about this giant, cool airship that flew overhead and into Coerthas. Lots of people saw it. …Said they saw it, at least.” He paused at the end and brought up a hand to tug at an ear.
Alphinaud, despite not being spoken to, answered. “If that is true— the ship must’ve passed overhead of the North Shroud,” he leaned into their ‘conversation’, finger pointed to the sky. “I would have our next destination as Fallgourd Float, the closest settlement Gridania has to Coerthas.” and he looked to them both. Cid nodded. He looked to Johnny, and despite all of the last few minutes, everything seemed to have drained out of him and he nodded and it didn’t escape Alphinaud’s notice how fast he’d collected himself. It was as if nothing had happened between them.
…Good.
‘perhaps he can be worked with after all,’ the youth thought.
V
Blinding white. A massive, blue rune, another weird rock.
He was on the ground. Johnny groaned and rolled onto his side, then onto his knees and he inadvertently made it to standing, wobbling legs besides. He rubbed his eyes until they stung.
“Are you alright?! Speak to me!” He turned, still blinking the light from his eyes and he saw Alphinaud racing across the frosted courtyard. Seeing him standing, he hears the wave of relief, and then the smile. What a smile. Johnny’s hands lower to his sides and he’s not hearing anything Alphinaud is saying.
He looked happy to see him. Genuinely! The upturn of his lips actually reached his eyes and they shone, and his brow was just faintly pinched in that fondness of concern and now he had to stop, Johnny wondered if he’d hit his head, or if that freaky rune had done something to him.
“Twelve be praised! I feared that you were….” He didn’t finish that sentence. Alphinaud closed his eyes, and when he opened them…
it was gone.
“I see now why the others rated your performance so highly! While you were caught in the midst of that aetheric bubble with the dragon, I was all but certain my next mission would be to find a new champion.” The words had hardly left his mouth.
Johnny shoved at him, hard, and he snarled and Alphinaud went tumbling back and the miqo’te had already whirled around and started for the airship, he didn’t look to see if the other boy had fallen or regained his footing or not.
Alphinaud hadn’t fallen though just barely, and not without staring at him, gaping, blues wide open in shock with the briefest flicker of hurt. Pale hands went to his chest, where he still felt Johnny’s hands against him and he watched him board. He stood there, but he’d follow after a minute.
“...I fear I've done something to upset him.” Alphinaud finally spoke, breath leaving him in vanishing plumes of frost, wind streaking across his cheeks. The airship creaked.
Cid very briefly craned his head back to peer at Johnny. He chewed his lip for a moment and busied himself with the wheel. “...what’d you say to ‘em? I didn’t hear.”
“I said… I said I was glad he was unharmed.” There’s a pause, and Cid said nothing, but looked to Alphinaud as if he expected more. The boy continued. “...and that I was relieved I wouldn’t have to find a replacement.” and as he repeated himself here, he trails off and his gaze shifted to the clouds rushing by and his own words taste like mush as they leave his lips.
“Ah.” Cid said. “There you are.”
“It was the truth,” and yet, Alphinaud persisted. “It truly was a worry I harbored! He’s quickly becoming quite the asset, almost irreplaceable, and by the time Minfilia would’ve found another of such talents—”
“Alphinaud,” he stopped him. “Listen to what you’re saying, lad. Your problem’s right there in front of you.” and the boy stared, blinking his long lashes and Cid sighed.
He lowered his voice. “You’re treatin’ him like a damn spanner. A wrench.” Cid glanced from the horizon and back to the boy, who looked thoughtful, a hand raised to his chin. “For gods’ sakes. Don’t you care one bit for him?”
Alphinaud’s head whipped up, and his fair brow creased. “Of course I do. Without him, we would be—”
“As a person. ” He interrupted. Now the elezen quieted down for a time. Cid gave another sigh and figured his point lost. Or, rather, the ill-point proven— the boy truly didn’t care.
The boy actually stammered, sounded unsure. “That… should hardly matter…” He began, unsteadily, and Cid shook his head.
“If you don’t even care about him, Alphinaud, you’ve got a much larger problem on your hands than what you’ve said to him. I can tell you that.”
Alphinaud turned and looked back at Johnny, and just as he did so he saw the miqo’te look away from him. He’d been leant against a wooden beam, tail wrapped around it, and his expression was sour and brooding as the great winds swept and played with his hair. His ears were back. Clearly some sort of apology was in order but he wasn’t so far-gone as to be ignorant of proper apologies requiring a change of action, an assurance of behavior not being repeated but it wasn’t quite hammered home yet what he’d done wrong.
Yes, he’d spoken to him as if he was ‘help’, an ‘employee’. Because that is what he was. An employee in a very dangerous line of work and it would’ve been dreadfully unfortunate if anything had befallen him. He wasn’t heartless. Alphinaud looked back ahead and his chest swelled with a stressful air. He wouldn’t apologize, not yet, not until he understood. He wouldn’t do this prematurely.
But did he like him. Did he like him? ‘As a person’. Were circumstances different, and Johnny was not under hi— the Scions’ employ, would he…?
The answer doesn’t come to Alphinaud immediately, nor does it arrive hale and whole. All he gets is a slow, meager scrap.
Crunching snow, blond orange at his peripheral. Alphinaud turned and just as he did, a warm glass vial is shoved into his chest and he scrambled to take ahold of it, looking from Johnny to the vial and back to him. He blinked quickly and recognition trickled in, it was red, and so, so warm in his hands, delightfully so.
“This is—... a warming elixir? You—”
Johnny wasn’t looking at him. “Just take it. Don’t make it weird.” He tugged on one of his furred ears. “Drink it before you freeze to death out here. I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking, wearing…” He turned his head and glanced down to Alphinaud’s torso, to where he had skin showing. “...wearing…”
He huffed loudly and looked away again. Johnny shook his head and made to leave, shoes cracking into the skin of snow. He made it three paces before peering back and jabbing a finger at the elezen, who was dumbstruck. “Drink it.”
He found that he’d… like to. Perhaps…
It’d felt as if slowly a layer was being peeled back, and the more it went the more Alphinaud was becoming awfully curious as to what was underneath. Not wholly unpleasant. Johnny’s scowling, petulant face infiltrated his mind’s eye and another question presented itself.
If Johnny didn’t seem to care for him, why would he be upset about what he’d said? He concluded it was a question best asked directly, as fraught as it may be.
Ultimately it was a conversation that wouldn’t occur for a very, very long time.
VI
This must’ve been it, the part where he was finally going to eat shit and die, Johnny thought.
“No, no… thi-this is all wrong…” Alphinaud stammered, looking up, blue eyes roving terrified over hulking crag and rock, over splitting, volcanic scale, over the newly-reborn Titan and Ifrit. Besting Garuda on her own had been challenging enough, but this was… this was simply…
Alphinaud was backing up, away, but not fast enough. Johnny was a brick wall, taut like a wire, tail thick with alarm but he took one darting glance to his left and he could see it, see that the elezen was paralyzed with fear, with plans ruined, whatever went on in that snowy head and Johnny, on the other hand, didn’t think at all. He just acted.
The ground disappeared from beneath the elezen’s boots and in one fluid movement he was flung over Johnny’s shoulder like a sack of popotoes or laundry, and even encumbered as he was the miqo’te booked it, one arm around his middle and the other behind his knees, and maybe Alphinaud was screaming in abject terror, he wouldn’t remember, but he does remember hands knotting in the back of his jacket, clinging to him because his life depended on it. Everything was a blur for them both.
They’re on the airship. It’s taking off. Alphinaud is back on his feet again and his hair is ruined and his clothes are all in disarray and Johnny is winded, he’s panting and he’s dropped down to sitting against a wooden beam and wrapped an arm around it as the great ship leaned into the air at a harsh angle. Alphinaud held onto the same beam and he blinked as if in a daze and finally glanced down. There’s a color to his cheeks.
The ship lurched again and Alphinaid yelped and wrapped both of his arms around the beam and he felt Johnny’s wrist wrap around his ankle. He looks down again, he looks up, a look is exchanged, ‘I’ve got you’ . Alphinaud’s eyes fluttered and once the ship leveled out he reaches to start tucking his hair back into its braid and straightening his silver pieces.
He waited until Johnny rose to his feet again to say something. “I—... thank you . I don’t know what had come over me, or what I was thinking…” He gazed off into the distance for a moment, and he looked concerned with himself, frustrated. “I believe— I believe the sight of all three primals had—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Johnny muttered, quiet and not defeated, but exhausted. “Just keep your head on straight next time. You’re light, but you’re the same size as me. I’m not an ant. ”
Cid barked a laugh, tense and strained from the wheel. Johnny shot a grin at him, and at that moment Alphinaud considered that Johnny could look remarkably charming when he wanted to, it was a grin, confident and quick that made something in his stomach flutter about and it confused him. Perhaps he was still embarrassed about needing to be rescued, that was it. And there was nothing wrong with him finding another boy charming. It was strictly an observation, a compliment.
Green eyes flicked over, that grin still there, and Alphinaud felt heat prickle the back of his neck. Then something crashed and boomed loudly, the entire ship rocks again and the boys clung to the wooden beam. “What was that?!” Alphinaud shouted, and Johnny shrieked and pointed down.
Two of the primals were gone, Ifrit and Titan, and Johnny had just witnessed a terrible, gargantuan machine catch a punch from Titan as if it was nothing, lift him clean into the air and devour him, there was no other word for it. Completely and utterly consumed, and the beast, the machine, it thrummed with its golden earth-aspected aether and up on the airship they could feel the power coming off of it like waves, the ship bobbed and Cid labored to steady it.
“AM I KILLING THAT THING?” Johnny roared, voice cracking. They watched as it took Garuda in its claws, plucked her straight out of the sky, and its jaws opened wide and it…
“Twelve have mercy! What chance have we against such an ungodly creation?!” Alphinaud cried from over Johnny’s shoulder. Johnny watched it take off and fly away while the elezen turned to Cid, “and who was that armored devil? ” and the answer to this the miqo’te wasn’t paying attention to.
He was watching it, the Ultima Weapon, grow smaller and smaller in the sky (it was still horrifyingly big) and he wasn’t moving, he was a stick of dynamite stuck one second from exploding, he was expired firesand, he wanted to unleash everything he had on it right now because if he was going to die to that thing he wanted to get it over with.
“...Johnny?” and he finally looked over, blinking dumbly. Later, he’d recognize this as the first time Alphinaud had ever used his name. He watches his blues drift down as if in thought, and then a hand is laid on his shoulder. Oh. He must’ve looked awful. It’s laid there with all the weight of someone who made the deliberate, calculated decision to put it there. It’s stiff.
“Before you’re fit to go up against that… thing, we must needs learn all we can. I wouldn’t have you facing it blind and unawares.” Johnny can see him searching, trying for some reaction out of him, and the miqo’te just stares back, high winds tossing his short hair and he looked distant. Shell-shocked. At the silence, Cid briefly craned his neck to peer at the two, brow furrowed.
“If it can be built, it can be destroyed,” Cid attempted, and though as an engineer he was the most authoritative voice on that ship even he sounded unsure. Alphinaud’s hand briefly trailed down to Johnny’s forearm before he took it back.
“Let us make for Vesper Bay. We stand no chance without rebuilding the Scions.” The wheel is sent to spinning and the ship reeled to the side in a steep but steady turn. He’s confident with his path now, he had his next step and with a smile he looked back to Johnny and to his relief, the life had started to return to him. He had a hand on the wooden beam and was still looking at nothing in particular, but when Alphinaud turned to him Johnny met his gaze and the elezen knew he was actually seeing him.
“All is not yet lost, my friend,” he comforted. Johnny blinked slowly and after a long moment, he gave him a weak, strained smile of his own and Alphinaud felt warm. It was not a warmth someone felt for one of their tools, or their subordinate. It was the warmth one felt when they've eased another’s burden, even minutely; it was the warmth one felt giving genuinely and in earnest and receiving even a crumb in return.
It was the warmth of layers being pulled back deep, revealing the raw and true flesh beneath.