#lancifer

"Of course, sirs. Rest by the fire, and I will fetch him for you at once."

Honoroit did not run. For one, it was undignified. For another, undue haste would be suspicious and one of the two Wailers now sitting by the fire looked like he had sharp eyes. However, it was the man’s comrade who struck fear in his heart; he’d known Mistress Ritanelle had a brother, but the strong family resemblance was unmistakable. Her words floated through his mind as he strode down the halls to his lord’s chambers.

“Near as much of a chocobo’s arse as Artie...never approved of a thing I did...prob’ly glad t’ be rid of me, all things considered...might well do for me himself if he caught me.”

This was a situation that called for subtlety. Fury, let my lord grasp the meaning of that term for once.

“I’m looking for my sister—oh, here’s a sketch. She’s about yea high—well, she was when I saw her but she might have grown since then. It’s been a few years.” Three. She’s probably dead. “Brown hair—like mine, but her eyes are greener. She always wears these black iron ear clasps…” And she was so proud when she got them, with their so-very-traditional vine etchings, and I told her she ought not to wear them so much. I told her that. Matron, forgive me. “Please—it’s very important, if you see anyone that looks like her, please tell me. She’s sickly, and she’s got our parents terribly worried.”

They had been, at first. But now, three years later…oh, they had mourned, of course, and Lancifer knew they missed her, but it had been so easy in their shattered grief to simply accept what his fellow Wailers had told them. That Rinette was a murderer, that she’d been arrested for thievery and stabbed her way out, that if she was still alive she’d have to answer for her crimes. Better for her to be dead than for her own brother’s comrades to have to execute her.

The Wailers had exchanged looks when he’d told them, thinking he hadn’t noticed. Their lack of faith galled him, but he knew what they were thinking. It was what every good Gridanian thought. She’s a Duskwight, after all. ‘Twould be no surprise.

The adventurer was shaking her head, walking away; Lancifer leaned back against the canyon wall with a sigh. He wished he’d been stationed nearer to the market stalls. Surely—if she’s alive, she’d need coin, and someone might at least recognize her face. She can’t possibly have killed Terremont and Ailebert. She was always wild and needed discipline, but she’d never go so far. The Seedseers will prove her innocence, and she can come home…

There was an elezen woman crossing the bridge. She wore a carved wooden mask, horns curling back over her wavy brown hair; the skin revealed below it was peach tinged with gray, and there were iron clasps at her long ears. Even with her heeled boots, she would certainly be shorter than him.

He barely dared to raise his voice, but no force on earth would have stopped him calling out, “Rinette?”

Somewhere far to the southwest, Dalamud is falling. Tonight, thousands will die. The land will be irrevocably scarred by Bahamut’s rage. Lancifer Habelliard, on patrol in the western Twelveswood, will lose an eye to flying debris as the moon comes down.

In Gridania, his parents know nothing of this. At least, not yet. Their concern is for their daughter, Lancifer’s younger sister Rinette, who’s always been...strange. Gridania prizes stillness and tranquility, harmony above all, and surely that shouldn’t be difficult? But Rinette is troubled. Angry. Some of the things she says verges on blasphemous, and they all pray that Stillglade Fane never hears of her fascination with the Gelmorran ruins. As if that isn’t enough, she’s also terribly sickly, with frequent debilitating headaches only a dark room can cure. She sees things that aren’t there, speaks of ancient history as though it happened yesterday. Sometimes she blacks out or spends long minutes staring blankly at nothing.

She’d been listless and complaining of a headache all day, lingering over her chores in a manner that they’d first attributed to worry over Lancifer. They couldn’t blame her; they’re all worried about him. But she’d never before been so worried as to not eat—and then, as the sun set, she’d fainted. Fredirec had just barely gotten her to a flat surface and then to a proper bed in time. Now she’s tossing and turning, her long hair tangled around her own limbs, and though she’s not running a fever—thank the Matron—her mutterings resemble no language her parents have ever heard. They can’t call a conjurer. All the best ones are at the front, and the ones that are left...well. A family of Duskwights, of middling means, is unlikely to be so blessed by the spirits.

So they wait. And Rinette Habelliard dreams.

“Hear...feel...think...”

A dragon’s roar that coalesces into words, coalesces into agony. “I will burn thy bones to ash!”

Clicking. Beeping. Soft mechanical whirrs; gloved hands and masked faces lit by strange bright lights. “Second internment hulk is holding steady...steady...”

An old man, his face lines with the tracks of many years, addressing a small crowd with a kind voice. She’s seen this one, hasn’t she? At Apkallu Falls? But she’s never dared to step closer, not with how angry her parents get if she speaks to strangers. “To ignore the plight of those we might conceivably save is not wisdom. It is indolence.”

Thousands of voices praying, though the flesh is being stripped from their bones and their worlds have been reduced to blue glass and pain when once the entire sky was their dominion. “Bahamut, brood-brother, brood-father—save us! Save us!”

Silence. Bahamut does not hear.

A woman in white armor, the eyes behind the mask alight with a horrible fanaticism as she gazes upon the lowering crimson moon. This...this is her god, her true religion, and soon it will come to earth and smite the unworthy and leave all clean for the Empire. “Videte! Testate adventu Dalamud!”

Fire.

Falling.

Blind, unthinking, bone-shaking rage.

Light and fury and the slow, grinding tones of iron bells and a voice like a thousand crystal chimes in her head, in her bones, in her very soul—

Rinette stiffens, screams, and goes limp.

“Rinette!” Pierrine gasps, nearly sobbing with relief when she realizes that her daughter is still breathing, that she’s only fallen into a deeper unconsciousness.

Fredirec is pacing the floor, hands clasped together behind his back to hide their shaking. He can’t do anything about his ears, though. “Nophica,” he whispers, “spare her. Please. Please. She’s a good girl, truly, she doesn’t deserve this!”

Maybe the Matron hears them, because after three days—three days alternating between deep, nightmare-filled sleep and stirring only enough to accept water and thin porridge, her voice raspy from screaming as she tells them that her head hurts—Rinette wakes, and stretches, and says she’s hungry. While her mother hugs her tight enough to bruise, her father steps out of the room before anyone can see him cry.

But then Lancifer limps painfully into the house, and over time her parents forget about Rinette’s episode. She hasn’t suffered any lasting harm, after all, whereas the pride of their family—the child who will make them truly respectable, such that people will look past the gray in their skin and the odd vowels in their surname—has been maimed, and will need a great deal of time to recover. Who can blame them for focusing on him?

In hindsight, perhaps they should have noticed the books their daughter was reading. Perhaps they should have allowed her to explore their heritage, or encouraged her to follow her dreams. Perhaps they should have done a lot of things.

And yet, when Rinette disappears a few years later—under suspicion of murder! Two Wood Wailers in good standing are dead, and everyone is saying it’s their daughter who did it!—they are shocked. Appalled. Rinette couldn’t have done such a thing; she can only cast the simplest of spells, and she’s never been strong. But all evidence says she stabbed one and burnt both of them to death, and that takes a great and terrible strength. The only saving grace is that she’s nowhere to be found, and a lone girl in the Twelveswood couldn’t possibly get far. She’s probably dead, but at least they can mourn her in peace.