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When the path diverges, Zenos is five, wandering the palace halls in the night. In his tiny arms he cradles a trove of foreign fairytales; worlds of heroics and wonder. Even so young, he knows they’re better worlds than his.
The darkness offers a refuge for this roaming. Ordinarily some servant would shoo him back to his room; Father’s orders from overseas. Now, if he takes just the right pathways to avoid the night guards, no one remains awake to do so. He can almost transport himself elsewhere, undertake an adventure through a dungeon or a maze or the ruins of a long-dead civilization. He can morph ceruleum candles into dragonfire, their flickering shadows into enemies in hiding. Almost.
But it’s not real, and so it’s terribly, insufferably dull. No matter how thoroughly he imagines, the stories always come to an end, and he finds himself wandering back to his room, to his cage. The sun rises over the frozen cityscape but does not bring warmth. The days drag in a loop of tedium and lessons already far too elementary for him.
Except tonight, another echo of footsteps joins the fray. Is it the guards? Will tonight be the night one of father’s automatons finally remembers his command? Unwilling to end his closest approximation of fun, unfulfilling as it is, he presses himself against the wall and listens to the rapid tread until it comes close enough to inspect its source.
A woman wrapped in a nondescript dark cloak, with a babe in her arms. No servant, that is for certain; all the more so when Zenos spots the white lace under the concealment. Nerva’s wife—a runaway princess. This trope he’s familiar with. It has resonated with him since the first story he read, though he understands not why. He watches as Lady Polistea’s head whips from side to side without spotting him, her breath frantic and her hushing even more so when the younger prince threatens to wake.
Wherever she’s going, it’s better than here. Even so young, he knows this.
So he grabs her by the hem.
She gasps and nearly trips over before whirling around and meeting Zenos’s bright blue stare. While the babe faintly hiccups in her arms, she slowly takes the situation in without a word, staring at him as if he were an apparition. Finally, she whispers, “What are you doing out of bed, young lord?”
Her words are similar to the ones his nannies constantly spout, but somehow he minds them less. There’s something genuine in her tone of irritation, like he’s an obstacle or worse a pest. The servants would never be allowed to show such sentiments around him. Father would no doubt call it an affront, but for Zenos, it’s refreshing.
Instead of beratement, he offers a question of his own, so simple it might be ridiculous: “Where are you going?” Blunt like a boy used to getting what he wants.
The shock etched into her features gives way to hesitance. She glances down at her babe, a wrinkly thing still far too vulnerable for the world around them. Zenos follows her gaze. His cousin squirms and whines, then calms as she begins rocking him gently back and forth.
“Somewhere far away from here, and quickly,” comes her equally simple answer. “So please, my lord, may you let go of my dress? I need to hurry.”
Zenos tightens his grip instead on the lifeline before him, with the stubbornness only a child can muster. It would be unfair if the squealing dumpling in her arms got more freedom than he. “Take me with you.” The demand is flat, not a request but a decree. Yet his eyes burn with something new, raw and desperate. A prince who has never begged for anything now stands on the precipice of doing so.
Polistea regards him with that same wide-eyed apprehension she had when their paths first collided. “I cannot possibly…” Her refusal wavers in the face of his sincere longing. “Why should you even wish to go?”
“Why should you wish to forsake this tomb?” he turns the question around with ease. “Is it not because it suffu-cates?” She blinks at him. Had he misspoken, or was she dull in the head? “… I am bored,” he simplifies his meaning regardless.
She opens her mouth to protest, probably about to go on some moralistic tirade about his role, his father, the Empire. He can tell from the stern set of her brow. The same expression he’s seen on every mindless mannequin in his life. But time ticks out, her child starts to fuss, and she has to decide in haste.
Perhaps she fears he will tattle, and that informs her choice. Perhaps she sees a kindred spirit in him. Either way, she relents. “Don’t get in the way.”
A triumphant smirk curls at the edges of his lips—a strange sensation—as he releases her and falls to step beside her. The palace is silent, their path clear, and for the first time in his little life, Zenos feels the thrill of choice.
“I shall learn to hunt,” he sweetens the pot though she’s already agreed, with all the certainty of a boy who has never been wrong. “Your infant will be protected from harm.”
To his genuine offer, she snorts like he’d made a jest. “You are a child.”
He bristles at the dismissal enough that his stride falters. “And you are slow,” he counters as he picks up pace again. “Move faster, or I will leave you behind.” The childish taunt is laced with truth: he will abandon her if she proves a burden. After all, the night is vast, and freedom tastes sweeter each step away from his gilded cage.
“Aunt.”
Zenos Paloma at the cusp of sixteen stands before Polistea at her sewing machine. She’s always working on a garment or another for the Weavers’ Guild, if not with the woman she fled their previous life for. A stationary existence, the kind of which would stifle Zenos almost as much as the palace did.
What they’ve made for themselves in Northern Thanalan has begun to feel too small. He’s made good of his promise during the years, hunted for their small community; people who treat him more humanely than the staff ever did, but who do not quench his need for a challenge. Not even the strongest of the Lemures holds a candle to him since he picked up a scythe.
“Speak, boy,” his once-rescuer, now-captor grumbles with a pin between her lips. “What is it you want?”
Zenos leans against the rough wooden frame of her workshop’s door, feigning casualness despite the impatience itching under his skin. His eyes fixate on the rhythmic back-and-forth of the needle, its repetitive motion a reflection of the monotony he once again aches to escape.
“I have decided to join the gladiatorial matches,” he informs her, not asking. It comes out forceful, he knows, but it’s better than biting his tongue like a well-trained hound. Or worse, tearing at the furniture like an indoor puppy in his restlessness.
Polistea doesn’t look up from her stitches, though her pace slows just enough for him to notice the shift. “And why,” she mutters, spitting the pin onto the desk, “would I let you do something so reckless?”
“Because I will go.” Zenos leaves no room for argument. “Your blessing changes naught but whether you see me again.”
The machine stops abruptly. Silence stretches like the thread about to snap if Polistea grips the fabric any harder. She finally lifts her gaze to meet his; older now, but bright with that same desperation she once glimpsed in a palace hallway.
“You cannot make a name for yourself,” she reminds him sternly. “You will be recognized, and your father will come for you and drag you back screaming.”
His teeth flash in a grin that’s all edges. “Let him try,” he counters, stepping closer like a predator smelling blood. What should be a threat instead thrills. “If he does, I’ll at last have a foe worth fighting.”
She knows that look of hunger. It has gnawed at him since he first held a blade, and she is powerless against it. “You’ll get us all killed,” she hisses, but the fight bleeds from her voice. He has outgrown this place. Outgrown her.
Zenos does not argue the point; not because he believes it true, but because he does not care. The dice will land as they may. He’s done hiding in the shadows of her fear. He leans over her sewing table, bracing his hands on the edge, towering over her now. Nearly a man grown, not a pet she can keep. “If my yearning frightens you, then you should have left me behind,” he states coldly, beneath it the unspoken gratitude for the choice she made that night. It doesn’t stop him from resenting her now. “I leave for Ul’dah at dusk. Try to stop me, and you’ll have more to fear than my father.”
Polistea meets his challenge with a glare as sharp as her needles, though her hands tremble. “Then go,” she snaps, throwing a pouch of gil onto the table between them. “But if you die in some back-alley bloodsport, don’t you dare haunt me. And for the sake of all that’s good, don’t put ideas in Vespasian’s head.”
Zenos pockets the coin with a scoff and no thanks. “He is well capable of generating them himself,” he drawls; just today he witnessed his younger cousin trailing after Drusilla like a chocobo chick, begging her to teach him the Reaper’s arts.
She but shakes her head in weary acceptance and resumes the click-click-click of her machine as if it had never halted. Many times she has sat here, mending his clothes after scrapes and squabbles. Now, neither knows if she’ll ever do so again. Her stolen boy is grown and her own will follow. The weight of her gaze burns between Zenos’s shoulderblades until the door slams shut behind him.
The sun beams in his face. The desert wind howls in his hair. Finally, finally, the hunt begins.