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“Thancred’s lifestyle is a liability, Antecedent,” Alphinaud states, proudly and without apprehension.
It’s a collective meeting of the Scions, the kind of enterprising organization necessitated by their growing size and Minfilia’s place at the head of it. All active operations are discussed, and all concerns addressed. Usually, such concerns were regarding external influence and ever-shifting political climates. Alphinaud has waited until standard conversation concluded to bring his scrutiny to light.
Miniflia’s brow lifts in surprise at Alphinaud’s negative regard towards a fellow Scion. All eyes turn from her to Alphinaud, but he keeps his head high. Thancred’s posture remains its typical brand of impassive—shoulders slouched, mouth quirked—but his eyes are unusually cold. Alphinaud does not let the steeled narrowing of them derail him.
“Has there been an incident left undocumented?” Minfilia asks, looking to Thancred.
Thancred has nothing but a smile for her, as always. “A general air of debauchery, surely, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Such general airs are entirely of my consternation,” Alphinaud states. “We are a public and transparent organization, now. Our reputation is of actual concern.”
Thancred is double his age. Thancred is taller than him. He won’t always be, but until Alphinaud reaches his second Elezen growth Thancred has an easy head-and-a-half on him. Thancred is stronger than him. Thancred is faster than him. Thancred is better with a blade. Thancred is smarter than him, on paper, the Hyur’s patron-funded Archon marks a deep, needled purple beside his jugular. Alphinaud will not be intimidated.
“You’ve been drunk in the antechamber of the Stones no less than six times over the past moon, to my incomplete knowledge.” Alphinaud squares his shoulders. “That is unacceptable in a profession that may require your expertise at an emergency’s notice.”
“That’s what this is about?” Thancred says, deliberate—near mocking—in his neutrality. He seeks to frame Alphinaud as seeding undue discourse. He seeks to frame Alphinaud as a prude. He can orchestrate a conversation to his whim, Alphinaud knows, but Alphinaud too is trained in the art of wordcraft. Alphinaud will not allow another man to strip control of a debate from him, no matter how skilled he may be in charm or manipulation.
“That is what this is regarding, yes,” Alphinaud replies.
Thancred smiles at him, this time. “I understand.” His grin grows as he flashes it at the rest of the group. “I’ll be more covert in my drinking, then. I wouldn’t want to upset the young master’s sensibilities.”
Alphinaud’s tongue is sharp when he says, “And the whoring?”
There’s a collective widening of eyes, though Alphinaud assumes it is more from shock at his crude choice of word than the pointed finger at the trait they all know Thancred harbors. Alphinaud will not back down. It is a lower class word for a lower class man.
Thancred’s gaze darkens. Still, he jokes, “A vice, certainly,” and, “you might change your opinion on it when you’re older.”
Alphinaud does not flinch at the collective reminder he is but a child.
Alphinaud says, “I will not be mocked by a man who lies outside his race and inside his gender.”
“Oh?” Thancred is growing colder by the second. “This isn’t Sharlayan anymore, you know.”
Alphinaud is so very aware. Eorzea could well do with a lift to their current image, the one Thancred seemed all too eager to embrace.
“Urianger,” Alphinaud prompts, looking to their resident erudite, “is it not true that you maintain a list of Thancred’s known liaisons in case of security breach?”
It’s a delicate dance he maintains. Wedging anything in between Thancred and arguably his closest friend is a dangerous game, and ran the risk of exposing Alphinaud to accusations he is sowing discontent amidst their tight-knit group. It is a risk he is willing to take.
“‘Tis true such a registrar mayhaps exist,” Urianger says, careful. “However, you presume intent where none may well dwell. Mine purposes linger more in the realm of… the joy of accounting.”
This makes Thancred laugh, a subtle assurance that he holds no ill will towards his friend for his truth. Alphinaud expected this loyalty.
Alphinaud does not expect the next voice to speak up.
“Thancred is a man of the people.” Y’shtola enters the conversation with her usual short-toned composure. “He keeps a pulse on the rumblings of the underground as you do the upper echelons of society, Alphinaud. We’ve had many a valuable slip of information stem from, if you’ll excuse my echoed vocabulary, our dear compatriot’s ‘whoring.’”
Alphinaud did not anticipate Y'shtola to so strictly nor so immediately align herself with the other elder Scions. He had assumed she found Thancred incorrigible.
Alphinaud says, “I’m sure he could be just as accomplished without taking his shirt off."
Minfilia must sense that sides are forming. She has been quiet. Stiff, even, as she waited for Alphinaud and Thancred to settle this amongst themselves. She is an even-headed leader through chaos and peace alike—but she excels when they stand together as one, and seems somewhat lost amidst the obvious schism coming to light.
“We all have our roles to play,” she suggests, an appeasement that falls far too close to Thancred’s side for Alphinaud’s satisfaction.
“And an image to uphold,” Alphinaud responds.
“I said I’d be more discreet. Is that not enough for you?” Thancred asks.
“Sleeping with half of the Miqo'te in Ul’dah is not discreet.”
Alphinaud has singled out Miqo'te despite Thancred’s noted lack of preference when it came to partners, in effort to perchance turn Y’shtola against him. She appears unperturbed. Alphinaud grows irritated on several fronts.
Alphinaud says, “We are building something great, here. The time of drunken scholars and haphazard subterfuge is over. We no longer operate from the shadows.” Thancred listens, frustratingly polite. Alphinaud presses, “We are heroes, now. Act like it.”
Thancred tilts his body down to Alphinaud’s height just to say, “No.”
Alphinaud demands, boldly, “You will.”
“Not happening,” Thancred replies, “brat.”
A shudder runs through the Scions as it becomes apparent that this is no longer a discussion of propriety and is, in fact, an actual, unprecedented fight amongst them. Minfilia drops a rather nagging, “Thancred,” to which he has the decency to look mildly shamed. Y’shtola casts an unknowable glance at Urianger from their place behind their peer and friend. To Alphinaud’s shock, Alisaie—so often content to roll her eyes in the corner—nudges her shoulder almost imperceptibly against his own. She will usually take his side if the matter is grave enough, and he debates whether this counts, but her silent message is clear: back down.
Alphinaud sinks his teeth in and does not let go.
“You dishonor our grandfather’s funding of your time in Sharlayan, Thancred,” Alphinaud says. “Your place here amidst the Scions was under the implication of decency.”
Thancred is no longer holding up the pretense of charm. “Your grandfather never asked anything of me but to educate and employ myself. My place here is out of loyalty, not debt.”
“You would not be anywhere without our resources and our suppositions of respectable character,” Alphinaud says. Alisaie casts him a wary glance.
“You and your sister have no claim to his generosity,” Thancred snaps. “You are in no place to demand anything from me.”
“You would not be here without—”
Alisaie jams her elbow so deep into Alphinaud’s ribs it nearly doubles him over. He shoots her a scathing hot glare, but he has made his point. He has found the most vulnerable tendons weaving Thancred together, and summoned a knife. It is too late for her to meddle now.
“...Go on,” Thancred taunts.
“No,” Minfilia says, quickly, “no, that’s quite enough.” She states, directly at Thancred, “Thancred. Do not encourage nor affirm him.”
Alphinaud says, “I speak only my own truth.”
Thancred wrests himself back, head tilting up. He mutters, “Gods strike me down, I’m going to strangle this kid.”
“Easy,” Y’shtola cautions, unflustered but with ears tipped back in displeasure.
“Let us calm ourselves,” Minfilia says. She motions to all of them gathered in a room that seems all at once too small and too stuffy. “Alphinaud: you are right to feel the need to express any concern that may arise in our transition to a transparent organization. You are our most valued negotiator, capable of walking amongst elites in a way the rest of us cannot, and I will not ask you to ever hold your tongue. However,” she takes a breath, “I do ask that you refrain from demanding dues from fellow members that were never owed and, even if material, long paid in service to our cause.”
Alphinaud can sense her attention turning to Thancred, and does not wish to interrupt an imminent scolding. So, he relents, “Of course, Antecedent. I overstepped.”
He holds his head high as her commanding gaze finds its next target.
“Thancred,” Minfilia says, “do try a little harder to behave.”
Thancred’s smile is tight but he is, at times, like a heeled dog. He nods. “I will make an effort, Antecedent.”
It’s an empty promise. Like so many things trimming Thancred, shallow and constructed. Alphinaud has no idea if there is even a man beneath the constant facade. It does not matter. Minfilia’s shoulders are slumping, content with this childish sense of resolution. She relaxes. She places no guardrails, demands no tracking of progress, threatens no punishment for failure. She all but opens to paddock for Thancred to once again run free with the careless pleasure-chasing of an ungelded stallion.
Alphinaud, for all his efforts, has lost. It is clear Minfilia is willing to settle spirits and shuffle the issue along without true conclusion. If Thancred is a hound, Minfilia is an overgenerous owner—ever willing to coddle.
Even now, with ribs still bruised, Alphinaud cannot let the dust settle.
He rolls his eyes. “Oh, please.”
Everyone but Thancred looks to Alphinaud with apprehension, begging for their discomfort to be over and not strung onwards.
Alphinaud says, “Do not indulge him, Minfilia. He might mistake your temperance as an invitation.”
Minfilia startles like Alphinaud has never seen from her in the midst of war, but it is Thancred who truly reacts. His body goes perfectly rigid. His teeth bare themselves into a miserable grimace. Like an animal on the defensive, Alphinaud thinks, not wavering in the tip of his head upwards to meet Thancred’s furious eyeline.
“Alphinaud,” Alisaie says, suddenly, into the silence. Neither Alphinaud nor Thancred break the tension strung tight and brittle between them. There is a murderous flicker in Thancred’s blown pupils. There is a vicious, uncaring undercurrent to his posture.
Alphinaud knows Thancred wishes to strike him. No amount of funding nor education can tamp down a life steeped in violence. Thancred, at his deepest core, does not wish to fight his battles with words. Alphinaud knows this in his heart.
Y’shtola places a hand against Thancred’s chest, sensing what Alphinaud has already deduced. “Enough,” she says. “He is a child.”
Alphinaud is willing to be struck if it means he will win the argument. He has subjected himself to far worse for the thrill of victory. He has a three in five probability of being punched, and a two in five of Thancred merely wrenching himself from Y’shtola’s touch and striding off. Either way: Alphinaud wins.
Thancred opens his mouth instead. It takes him a moment to speak, but when he does, it is with careful, strained words for no one but Alphinaud himself.
He says: “Minfilia is like a sister to me.”
It takes Alphinaud a moment to place the tone of his voice as a simple, distilled upset. Alphinaud has never heard Thancred upset. Alphinaud did not know the man was capable of having his heart scraped, much less harmed.
Minfilia shakes her shock enough to attempt to rein back the situation. She says, “That’s enough, both of you.” And, “I will speak with you two in private. This conversation is adjourned.” And, “Thancred. It was no slight on my character. Stand down.”
Thancred does not stand down.
“Listen to me, you little prick,” Thancred states. The fury in his voice is enough to shake the edges of his words. No one dares interrupt, and Alphinaud will not be the first one to blink. Thancred says: “I won’t be the one to do it, because I am the adult in this situation and I accept that, but you should know—somehow, someday, someone is going to kick your ass.”
Alphinaud scoffs, and Thancred at last rips himself from the crowd and stalks out of the room. To the tankard, Alphinaud presumes, or to the arms of some improper bedmate. Alphinaud takes a moment to take stock of the Scions left uninvolved—Yda with her typical smile wiped from her face, his sister with a vivid scowl, and a whole host of gazes staked anywhere but at him—and then straightens his stance.
“Well then,” he says, deliberately calm and intent on the last word, “if I am a child, then that makes two of us.”
Y’shtola sweeps herself around and walks out of the room too.
Minfilia orders, without specification, “Urianger.”
Urianger says, “I shall speaketh to him,” and vanishes after them.
Miniflia has not officially closed the meeting, but the others take the chance to shuffle out. No one truly speaks, just excuses themselves with nods and murmurs of work to be done, until only Alphinaud and his sister are left in the internal chamber. He wants a final parlay with Minfilia—some suggestions, at least, on how to at least plaster over Thancred’s indiscretions—but he finds Alisaie tugging on his shoulder instead.
“Let’s go,” she barks.
“The day is won,” he tells her, “no thanks to you.”
“You think I’m on your side?”
He blinks at her. She is usually on his side. He is older, by ever so briefly, and wiser, by a debatable distance, but very rarely are they divided in their stances. Since leaving the cushioned nest of their parents they have always been more or less as one united front.
“I would like to be alone,” Minfilia asks, crisply, and Alphinaud in his surprise allows his twin to pull him from the room.