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It was quiet inside the barren cell, save for the sounds of water dripping in the corner and Fordola's grunts of exertion as she trained. Even those were fairly quiet; she had no interest in attracting the attention of her guard.
Fordola growled under her breath as she heard the heavy cell door being unlocked. As she got to her feet and turned to meet her intruder, she rolled her eyes with a heavy sigh.
"Hello again, Fordola," Arenvald greeted her in his normal irritatingly cheerful manner. "I've brought you lunch."
"Why?" she asked with a sneer.
"Because it's afternoon and I thought you might be hungry," he explained, holding out a sandwich.
"No, you oaf, why are you here?" Fordola clarified, crossing her arms and glancing at the food in his outstretched hand. "That sandwich is awfully small."
Arenvald stared at her for a moment before looking down at his own hand. "Well, it's... I mean..."
"It's what?" Fordola prodded, trying her best to hide her amusement. She knew exactly what had happened.
"Fine, I got hungry on the way over." The boy was blushing, and it took all of Fordola's discipline to keep herself from smiling in satisfaction.
Fordola snatched the remaining sandwich out of his hand and unwrapped it, making a face at the blatant bite mark at its end. She shrugged lightly before taking a bite herself. "Didn't bring your pet Warrior of Light with you this time?"
"You know I don't need an excuse to visit," Arenvald countered, his arms crossed. It almost looked like he was pouting.
"We both know that's a lie," she returned, her mouth half full of bread. "What do you want, Ala Mhigan?"
He was silent for a moment, but finally Arenvald relented. "There was something about what you said the other day that bothered me," he admitted. "About... you know, your Echo."
Oh, that. Fordola felt her jaw clench in annoyance as she was reminded of the "gift" that fool of a Garlean scientist had forced upon her. "I don't know what your Echo is like," she finally told him, "but this... thing I have is a curse, not a gift."
Arenvald crossed his arms and looked at her. "Tell me."
"Why?" she countered with her usual sneer. "So you can pity me and look at me like I'm broken?"
"You're not broken, Fordola," he returned with a hint of annoyance. "No more than any of the rest of us."
"Then what do you care?" Fordola spat. "You keep coming here and I keep telling you where to stick your righteous concern, and you just keep coming. Why?"
"I was terrified the first time," Arenvald explained. "Happened when I was just a boy. Thought I was losing my mind, though after the second time I got bitter. If this gift I suddenly had could help me avoid trouble, why hadn't it helped me back home?"
Arenvald's eyes flicked upward, almost imperceptibly, but Fordola caught it. She didn't know what had happened to him, but the fact that Arenvald was part Garlean was no secret. After all, the boy couldn't help but announce it to the world himself at every opportunity. Fordola might not know the details, but she could take a guess at how that and his ever-present face paint might be connected.
"And what do you think mine is like?" she finally asked him. "You, what, have a convenient vision every now and again? See something to help you down the line? That Garlean bastard ruined me. I see everything. Everyone's pain, everyone's anguish, just is if it were my own. And I caused it."
"I... I had no idea it was that bad."
"And even when I'm not seeing it, I feel... whispers in the back of my mind," she continued turning away from him and looking down at the cell floor. "You once said I would give up everything to get what I want... and you were right. But this bloody curse is the price, and it wasn't worth it."
"And you said ideals didn't motivate you," Arenvald reminded her, "but I distinctly recall you saying you wanted to make the dead's sacrifice worth it by doing some good with your gi— Er, with your Echo."
"What, did you take notes or something?" Fordola asked under her breath. Gods, could he be annoying. "You still haven't explained why you keep coming here."
Arenvald was silent for a moment before he finally answered. "Because you deserve to have someone who cares."
Fordola hoped it was dark enough in the cell that he couldn't see the blush in her cheeks. "You can't just decide to care about someone, you fool."
"Maybe not," he replied with a chuckle. "I think part of it is that you and I both got a raw deal in Ala Mhigo during the occupation. When I think about you, I think... it could have been me. It was only luck we ended up walking different paths."
"What's your point?"
"You know, as much as you pretend to hate everyone and everything, I know you've got a good heart underneath it all," Arenvald told her. "Don't bother trying to claim you don't. I've seen you fight, and I've seen you risk your life for people who'd just as soon watch you hang for what you've done. True villains don't do that."
"You're irritating, you know that?" Fordola got back down on the floor with a roll of her eyes and resumed her sit-ups.
"I know you try to be cruel to me so I'll stop coming back," he told her, crouching down on the floor next to her, "but I'm just as stubborn as you are. And I know you're not beyond redemption."
"...damn Ala Mhigans."
"That's right," Arenvald agreed with a nod and a grin. "We are Ala Mhigans, and we don't give up."
"You're a fool," Fordola grumbled as she continued her training. Arenvald shook his head, still smiling, before getting to his feet and heading to leave. "See you next week, Lentinus."
As he heard her words, Arenvald stopped just short of the door. He stood there for a long moment, then finally continued out of the cell.
Fordola smiled to herself as he disappeared. She'd never ever admit it to him — or to anyone, for that matter — but maybe he wasn't so bad after all. And maybe he was right. Maybe there was hope for her.