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Laku thought the Leveilleurs’ plans to aid with Garlemald’s ‘restoration’ was a joke at first. He laughed in their faces when they told him. In hindsight, the punchline lacking setup did lessen its humor, as did the fact it came out of Alphinaud’s mouth. But still, who in their right mind would see those pathetic, hateful worms and decide against all animosity to help them?
When he heads upstairs to pack and sees the twins doing the same in their room across from his, its door wide open, he cannot believe his ears when their serious plans of travel carry to them.
Alphinaud is first to notice his surprise-bordering-on-outrage, and quick to leap into their decision’s defense. “Before you start to question us, Laku, surely you can understand our motivations?”
“No, not really,” Laku grunts, crossing his arms as he leans against their doorway. “What’s the point? To let them rebuild and retaliate?”
Alisaie slams her travel bag shut with more force than necessary, then whirls around to face him with a fiery glint in her eyes. “Oh, so we should just leave them to die in the ruins of their own making? Let them fester in despair until they rise again twice as vengeful?” She plants her hands on her hips, voice as pointing as her rapier. “That’s your brilliant strategy, is it?”
Alphinaud inhales deep. “Alisaie…”
She ignores him, all her ire directed in Laku’s direction. “Mercy isn’t weakness, you stubborn rabbit! If we want to break the cycle, we have to start somewhere!”
Laku laughs again, ruinous in his disbelief. “You think they’d rise from all that without your help? They fucking lost. I say let them reap what they’ve sowed all these years.”
Alisaie’s glare could set steel ablaze. Her boots click hard against the floor as she steps forward. “And what, exactly, did their children sow? How about their sick, their starving, the ones who never lifted a sword against us?” she snaps. “Or do you only see soldiers when you look at them? Because if so—” she jabs his bare chest with one finger, “—that makes you no better than the worst of Garlemald.”
“Alisaie—”
She doesn’t flinch. “No. He wants to posture like some righteous executioner? Then he can answer for it.”
Laku clicks his tongue and straightens his back. He’s not the tallest man; even so, in his widened stance blocking the door, he and his obstinance loom over her. “Right, ‘cause their sick and wounded treated us so well up there last time,” he deadpans. “You want to be merciful? Spare the children and the rest of ‘em not thoroughly rotted by propaganda, then let me rain fire on the rest.”
Alisaie bristles. “We’re trying to save thousands, but you’re so wrapped up in your own grudge that—”
Alphinaud’s hand, seeing his interjections’ uselessness, grips her shoulder. “Take a breath,” he whispers, then steps forward to stand beside his sister, meeting Laku’s callous gaze with the patience of a saint. “I understand your grievances, Laku,” he says softly in stark contrast to Alisaie.
“Grievances,” Laku mutters in repeat, rolling his eyes. The cushioned approach doesn’t impress him any.
Yet Alphinaud maintains his ground, hand still on his sister’s shoulder with a subtle but firm grip that keeps her from lunging. “You’ve been mistreated, you’ve been abused and tormented,” he continues with measured words. “Those aren’t trivial feelings to deal with.” His tone takes on a harsher undertone after a pause. “That doesn’t give you the right to condemn an entire nation of people, however. That isn’t justice, Laku. That’s revenge.”
“Oh, I could think of a crueler revenge,” Laku growls, baring his teeth. Nidhogg’s thousand year war always appealed to him on an emotional level; it just wasn’t the most productive in the long run. Or conductive for the wyrm’s continued existence. “Ending them is the only way to ensure they don’t continue the cycle themselves.”
Alisaie, who had been visibly biting her tongue, cannot resist wagging it as her nerves have been struck. Alphinaud squeezes her shoulder, but it does not stop her from speaking. “Do you truly believe you have the wisdom to decide who’s worth saving and who’s not? What makes you the arbiter of life and death?” Her voice rises as her control over her temper slips.
Laku, in turn, can feel his own rage simmering, less explosive than hers but no less potent. It’s the rage that has leveled cities for these people, now turned against them. The kind of rage that ends empires.
“I’m the Warrior of Light,” he responds coldly. “Or is my title stripped with you all’s disbandment too?”
“Is that all you are? A glorified weapon for Eorzea’s cause?” she sneers at his flippant answer.
“Don’t…” Alphinaud’s fingers dig deeper into her shoulder in a silent plea.
“Yes!” Laku erupts. “Is that a problem now, all of a sudden? It’s oh-so-convenient when there’s a primal or an army or an Ascian or a huge fucking bird, but now I’m too much?”
Alisaie grits her teeth. “There it is! The truth behind the ‘savior!’” While his volume has risen, hers does more. “Deep down, you’re not trying to save anyone, are you? You’re in it for the bloodshed. You just enjoy being the slaughterer, don’t you?!”
Alphinaud can only wince as his efforts to thwart an explosion fail miserably.
Laku’s snarl, meanwhile, curls up into a shaky grin. He has no levelheaded brother to keep him from his boiling point, higher though it is. “Have I ever pretended otherwise?”
As more proof against him, the Garlean traitor he saved from the universe’s edge chooses this moment to peek out from his room where he sent him to escape the gathering. “You have too many helmets and too few boxes, my friend,” Zenos says, casual like this commotion hadn’t reached his ears. Yet the way he eyes the twins says it definitely did.
“Hey, Zenos, great timing!” says Laku faux-cheerily. “My so-called ‘friends’ here are trying to ruin your gift for me! What do you think about that?”
“Oh, perfect!” Alisaie’s fury steers towards Zenos, now split between two targets. “The very picture of Garlemald’s rot! And you—!” She hisses venom at Laku again. “You call what he did a gift?!”
Several traded verbal blows too late, Alphinaud steps in-between with his palms raised. “This isn’t helping either of you.” His usually composed face strains. “We’re supposed to be allies—”
Alisaie cuts him off with a scoff. “Allies? He brought Zenos into this! Into our home!” Her hand darts to her weapon just from the sight of him, though her vitriol remains on Laku. “You know what he’s done. What he is!”
Unperturbed and mildly intrigued by the chaos, Zenos merely tilts his head.
Alisaie’s glare snaps back to him. “Unlike some people, I’m not defending the atrocities, I’m trying to fix them. There’s a difference.”
Laku’s grin has widened to resemble a feral coeurl. “Oh, so now you do admit Garlemald’s broken. Funny how that works.”
“You—!” Alisaie takes a single step toward him before Alphinaud physically blocks her path with an outstretched arm.
“Can we not do this right now, please?” The beginning of a migraine buds on his temple. He tries to rub it away with his free hand.
“Your little comrades argue like starving hounds over scraps,” Zenos hums with mild amusement. “How futile.”
That does it; the first crack in Alphinaud’s diplomatic mask appears. “This is not the time.”
But Laku just takes Zenos’s arm unrepentantly. “See, this is why I like him. At least he’s honest about being a monster.”
“You’re impossible!” Alisaie lets out a strangled noise of frustration. Herded by her brother, she grabs her bag with enough force to rip the strap. “Come on, Alphinaud. Let’s go before I say something I regret.”
Alphinaud looks torn even as he sighs and follows her—but not before shooting Laku one last, deeply disappointed look.
It incenses him further. As he watches their backs retreat down the hallway, his foot thumps. “Hand over some of those helmets,” he asks his lover.
Zenos does, without question. Laku aims and throws directly into the back of Alisaie’s skull.
“Here you go!” he jeers. “You want to lie in the snow with those vermin, you might as well dress the part!”
THUNK. The helmet bounces off Alisaie’s head with a metallic clatter. She stumbles a step, then snarls; she resisted the temptation all these volatile minutes, but now her rapier threatens to come out and play at last. Alphinaud barely manages to grab her wrist before she can draw.
“Laku—enough!” Alphinaud shouts, which would earn him a helmet-toss of his own did it not startle Laku in its rarity. His grip tightens as Alisaie struggles against him.
“So this is the famed unity of the Scions,” Zenos says as he watches the brewing violence with palpable schadenfreude. Not for Laku’s upset, but the knowledge that his bond with him reigns supreme to theirs.
Laku shrugs. “What? They’re leaving. Might as well give them something to remember me by.”
Though she wrenches herself free of Alphinaud’s hold, Alisaie doesn’t charge. Instead, she kicks the helmet back toward Laku with enough force to send it skittering across the floor at his feet. “Keep your trash,” she yells. “And when Garlemald’s survivors spit on your name, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With that, she turns on her heel and marches off, Alphinaud scrambling after her.
“They already do! And yours too!” Laku yells after them. Neither twin rises to the bait anymore; the last word should embolden him, but all it does is leave a hole in his chest. His grin falters, but he refuses to call after them. The other Scions must’ve heard the shouting, too. They’ll ask about it, and no one will take his side. So be it. If they all want to leave him that badly, he might as well shove them out himself.
He storms back into his room, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the frame. The tossed helmet lies abandoned in the hallway, a discarded symbol of broken empires and broken friendships.
Zenos lingers to idly pick up the discarded piece of armor with a contemplative hum. “A shame you let her walk,” he mentions. “I would have liked to see her bleeding on your blade.”
Laku doesn’t hear him over the sounds of the helmets still in his arms clattering to the floor and his bag hitting his bed with much more force than necessary. His hands shake with that familiar, restless wrath. The kind that used to have a purpose. The kind that made him useful. Now, it just makes him hollow.
But he won’t take it back. He won’t.
He doesn’t own much to pack. Besides his stored hatred in piles upon piles of trophies from his kills, what does he have? No personal touches adorn his room; it might as well still be guest lodgings. So loath he was to put down roots, lest they be ripped out from under him… yet he did, though material possession never signified it, and look where that got him. Untethered. No pictures on the walls, no mementos, not a single sign that a person actually lived here.
Just that a slaughterer did.