#loffrey

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((i need money to buy an xppentab really bad

He swung the window open. It was spring and the air was brisk but not unpleasant, even in a state of undress. He felt his stomach settle and turned back to her. She was calmly running a brush through her hair. “You are unlike any woman I’ve ever known.”

“’Tis no compliment,” she said dryly, “To lay the rest of my sex low, ere I even believed you knew much of women before now.”

Beowulf frowned and shook his head. “I have served with women strong, with women wise, and with women true. In truth’s name I have known women fair, as well. But I’ll not renounce my words. If I’ve only not yet made acquaintance of other women of your disposition, let me instead frame it in matters ineffable.”

And so Reis Duelar put down her brush and frowned. “You speak of love then, Beowulf? I refuse it. You do not yet know me, and I’ll not dwell upon your pedestal long before my feet tire.”

“I...” He flinched as if struck. “What has this been, then, if not love?”

“Nothing I regret, for certain.” Reis beckoned him with one hand. “Tell me your story, then, if you’re willing.”

He did not return to the bed, to her arms, no matter how his body yearned. Instead he took one of the bed posts in his hand and leaned. “I oft recall in the night the hunts I’ve completed. At times exaggerated, even such that I can see not only those I’ve killed but their families, erupting from the ground to swallow me whole. A great Hell underground into which I fall, fires hotter than those we endured yesterday. Great skeletons bleached and gleaming in the dark.”

“You speak not of humans, but of beasts.” Reis reached out, wrapped her hand around his where it held the post. “I bore witness to the truth of you in the moments following our meeting yesterday.”

It was only past noontime when they met. Beowulf was standing with two other men of God in the town square, and he was watching as one put his boot to a peasant’s neck.

It was the dragoon, Abel, who was pressing down on the heretic, a nasty little grin sneaking free and then retreating again and again. It was said that someone out in the eastern farmlands had set up a pagan chapel in a barn, and that attendance was growing. This would be a death sentence in any land in Ivalice, but to do so in Lionel, and to do so in the shadow of Balias Tor, no less, was blasphemous to such a degree that the Templars had not left it to the Cardinal to police his own land. Beowulf was wondering to himself how something could be more or less heretickal—how something could be an affront to God by degree—when he caught a judgmental look from the third of the men of the cloth assembled. Loffrey Wodring raised his eyebrows silently. Beowulf was ostensibly there as representative of the Gryphon Knights, but it was a rather open secret that he was being considered for membership to the Templars. This was, then, to prove to be his initiation.

The peasant was bawling and scrabbling in the dirt as Abel asked his questions. A crowd had gathered, gawping, and had strangled shut the exits from the town square, still giving them a wide berth. Loffrey sort of... tilted his head, allowing Beowulf to interpret.

Aliste was the cynical one, the one who whispered in the dark that no small part of the church’s stance on paganism had more to do with politics, with Prince Lennard’s grand speeches regarding the holy land of Bervenia, of Glabados. Beowulf was a man of stronger faith—it was why he was here, now, at the side of two Templar knights, being considered for a tabard. Probably yellow, if they let him choose. His favorite color, the color of his mother’s dresses, of chocobo plumage, of the flowers that grew outside the chapel.

He was meant to break this man. Perhaps literally, perhaps not, but break him indeed until he told them something of use. If he even knew. But what happened instead was that a woman pushed through the crowds with the force of a cannonball. Beautiful, in a dress of white and blue and pink, displaying for all the world the most perfect pair of shoulders that Faram had ever sculpted for a Hume. She stomped up to a distance of five or six feet from their assemblage before Loffrey placed a hand on his sword’s hilt. She halted then, wisely, but for all the world did not look afraid.

“What has this man done?” She asked, and Abel rolled his eyes.

“Begging your pardon, milady, but he’s under suspicion for heresy, so if you’d kindly...”

“Heresy?” She looked aghast. “But that’s Slippery Dane Milch you have.”

Loffrey was implacable. “The Milch farmstead is one of a number that are suspected of...”

“Are not church men meant to be lettered?” She was incredulous. “You surely seek Backside Dane Milch, who owns the farmland! The brothers haven’t spoken in a score!”

Abel did not lift his boot, but he looked unsure. “Their names are both Dane?”

“’Twas a family of six, and all four boys were called Dane,” she said with finality.

“Stand him up,” Loffrey barked, and took a step towards her. She lifted her chin to meet his eyes. “We’ll maintain his bondage until such time as this has been sorted. But you claim to know overmuch about the peasantry for a woman of Quality.”

“She knows everyone in town!” shouted someone from the crowd, and she actually blushed.

Loffrey looked at Beowulf, who in turn looked away in shame. He was so often engaged at the castle, or sent out in Delacroix’s name, that he in fact knew very few people in the town proper.

“How’s that, then?” asked Abel, and the woman scowled at him.

“I...”

“Fire!” shouted someone, and then “Fire!” shouted someone else, and the crowd exploded in panic all at once. Smoke was unfurling from a nearby house, thick and black and fast, and people were beginning to trample one another.

Beowulf did not hesitate then, did not look to the two Templars, just shouted “control the panic!” and launched himself forwards, over Slippery Dane, over a pair of toppling seamstresses, and then over a planter (yellow flowers) and an overturned wagon, through the surging mass of people, up the roadway to where a bakery was consuming itself in flames. And then he saw that the woman from the square had not only beat him to building, he’d only just arrived to see her already throwing her weight against the door, breaking it open and falling into the fire.

Someone had started pumping water—he felt someone throw a well-bucket of water at him even as he smashed the shop window with the pommel of his sword, one gauntlet over his face as the fire surged out towards him. Then he vaulted in after the woman.

She was nowhere to be found on the shop floor. He had a single moment of absurdity, a thought that the place should smell like bread, or at least the toasting of it, before he was pushing past the counter and up the building’s back stairs. The ground floor was built from stone, but everything above was wooden, likely added later, and rundown. It was going up like tinder. He dodged a falling beam and wrapped his cape over his mouth and nose, searching.

He found the woman in a bedroom farthest back. In her arms was an infant, and she was shouting at an elderly woman who seemed resistant. When she realized she’d been followed, she turned.

“I can only carry them both if she cooperates! But she’ll not ride upon my back!”

“Is anyone else here?” He shouted back, and she whipped her head back and forth. There would be time enough for answers when they weren’t in danger of the floor giving way beneath them. He picked up the old woman, who was shouting curses at him all the while, and he and the woman both turned to leave when the roof caved in above the stairwell, blocking the way back.

“Here!” She shouted, darting to one side. He could do naught but follow, as she led the way to a window no bigger than two-by-two handlengths. She kicked out with slipper-shod foot at the wall beneath, but it did not groan. Beowulf was much larger and wearing armor. He kicked the rotten, burning wood in turn and it gave way, opening the wall enough to see a roof some distance away.

“You’ll have to go first,” she said.

“I cannot leave you to--”

“I cannot catch you!”

Sounder logic he’d never heard. He’d also never make the jump while carrying the crone who even then kicked at him. He lowered her, said a prayer, and then jumped. He saw the old woman fighting with this stranger who failed to blink at blaze and sword alike, and then she shoved the old woman out. Beowulf was so startled he almost failed to catch her, but thank Faram he did.

And then it was her turn, infant child in her arms, and she leapt—and for a moment, seemed to fly. Sun at her back, flames at her feet, and the angels carried her down to him.

If he held her a second too long, it was only that they both gazed down at the child, who cooed and smiled as if this had all been a grand mummery for his benefit. Then they turned to see each other, faces too close, and she favored him with the same smile. He lowered her quickly.

The hour to follow brought answers. The old woman had set the fire, and it was not clear if it was grief or dementia that guided her hand, but she’d little thought for the child who’d die with her. The parents had come to see the inquisition and she’d taken her chance while it existed. Slippery Dane had... slipped away... in the confusion, and Abel had pursued, but the injuries amongst the townsfolk had been minimal. Loffrey had offered a single respectful nod before leaving to join the pursuit. It so happened that the four Danes were all but identical, and Beowulf suspected there would be a further comedy of errors to follow. He could only hope that if it were to end in bloodshed, that at the least the right Dane would lose his head.

And the woman’s name was Reis. Her parents had passed away when she was scarcely of age, and she’d been too gregarious to remain shut away behind the manor gates. He was grateful that the Templars had left so quickly, that they did not hear the citizens call her “the Angel of Lionel” in all sincerity, for such idolatry might be less than amusing in Delacroix’s own home. She’d walked amongst the people for years, too curious and too delighted to be denied. She’d waited tables and mended clothes, taught letters and bandaged knees. Never in presumption, just by virtue of being present and offering a hand for a day, or a week. Never for coin, because coin she had, and station enough to live, even in obscurity.

She was covered in ash and soot and looked radiant. In all the years to follow, that would be the vision of her that would stay with him the surest, the remains of fire at her lips and fingertips. He escorted her home. The yellow flowers were her favorite, too. They had tea, and then they had spirits. They’d bathed the ash from each other’s faces, and then further. Laughing all the while. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world. And even now, in the light of day, with his cape draped over a chair and the herald of the Gryphon Knights staring back at him, he hadn’t a regret.

And when he’d woken screaming, she’d held him until the shudders ceased.

“You are such a serious man,” she said. “Serious even in your joy.”

“Have you ever beheld a dragon?” he asked her, and she shook her head. He slowly eased down to a seat on the bed. “They are beautiful, in their way. Almost... elegant. To slay a cockatrice is nothing, or a behemoth. A matter of skill, or arms, or numbers, but they are wild. A dragon has light in its eyes, it knows things beyond our ken.”

“You sound like you’ve come from a storybook.” She poked him with toes from beneath the sheets.

“In truth, the knight from whom I learned the trade, Ser Gauwyn, might well have been such, by his noble bearing and wisdom. But not I. Not every kill I’ve made was so fraught. I’ve severed the heads of a hydra that had charged a village, had blood in its maws, and not felt guilt. But I’ve taken club to eggs; I’ve entered caves where the beasts slept and opened their underbellies before they could wake. And I oft welcome it, for it keeps me instead from hunting my own kind.” He looked towards the open window, where there was a flutter of bird wings. “It shall be my penance to bear a knight’s arms until death grants me leave to retire. When that day comes, no Templar shall perish, but a hell-bound hunter of dragons.”

Reis took his hand. “I did not see it in full before now, how it eats you to raise the blade at all.”

“Should it not?”

“Aye, it should.” She took his chin with her other hand and turned it to her. “But you are no fool, Beowulf Cadmus, that thinks all knights feel the same. Better a hunter of dragons than a Templar, if those were your choices only. But they needn’t be.”

“I welcome your faith, Reis.” Beowulf’s eyes wavered. She did not relinquish his face, but her eyes were yet hard to meet. “But I’m not certain I’ve the gift for aught else.”

She did not argue the point; they’d only met a day ago. “Then find at least something for which raising your blade feels righteous.”

“A search that will be delayed,” he said with a sigh. “For I’m sent on the morrow to Romanda.”

“So far, for the Cardinal?”

“A lord there named Hrothgar, who has been a friend to the church.” He gently took her hand away from his chin. “To be sure there is more to it, but I’ve little mind for politicking. And what of you?”

“What of me? I’ll live here, as I always have.” She gave him a sly look. “Do you intend to ask me to wait for you at that open window?”

“I suspect you wait for little that you do not already want.”

“Then know for the time being, I will wait, Beowulf Cadmus. I think I’ve already been waiting.” She embraced him, and he her, and Lionel continued to move outside without them. “But that is tomorrow. And in the fullness of truth, my feet are not yet tired.”

And in another day’s time he was riding. Many days travel, up north past Zaland, west to Gariland, north into Fovoham. Near the Galgastan border, in a small village north of Yardrow, a rider caught up to him with a missive that he did not open, a letter from Mullonde. He did not open it all the time riding through the northern wastes, past burnt-out villages, the remains of plague tents and mass graves. Not until he’d left port on a boat for Romanda did he tear its edge and free the sheet which only bore a spare few lines from Loffrey. He was to be a Templar of Mullonde.

 Perhaps as a test of will, perhaps only from a spike of innate cruelty, Vormav has handed the 'responsibility' to Loffrey. The ex-priest, the yet-priest. The man excommunicated for his skills with a blade in a time where such 'god-swords' were lacking. An inconvenience to the Church, but a follower still in ways. 

 Maybe it is only his loyalty that Vormav wishes to call into question.

Loffrey runs his hand along the blue-tinted tang of his sword, thinking. His rationale claims that there is no remaining feeling for the Church or its acolytes. 

 And yet - doubt gnaws. A doubt seeded in a puberty full of too many questions for a seeking mind to answer; getting lost; finding again. Now, again, he has wandered from the path, but still he sees it. Maybe his foolish hume heart has hope of finding it again, that simple faith, that will to rights. In his heart, Loffrey is still a priest - soft-spoken, bookish, and fierce in the protection of his flock (and now his brothers-in-arms) from outsiders and their own folly alike. 

 It is not doubt that he might deny orders. Only doubt about what such an action will have him become.

 Some might call him craven, that he fears Tengille, that he does as wished because he is a man of the military and does not question orders.

 It is simpler than that. Funebris will die because, and only because, Vormav asked.

---

  He pulls his sword from its sheath and the sound rings of thunder. It echoes from the walls and the solemn glass like the voice of a God. Like judgement, conviction, cataclysm.

 The carpet muffles his footsteps. Funebris’ hand is held up towards him, not with a finger of divine fury but the outspread fingers of an old man begging. And he does beg, knelt, swamped by the robes of office. He is Hume, a vessel for the will of the Church as much as Loffrey is a vessel for the daemon Ralseph.

He lifts the sword with supernatural ease, and while Funebris pleads he spears him with the blade named Havemercy. It pierces his body and the stone with a crack and a wet retort. Funebris slumps like a sack, sliding down.

As he impales the man he once regarded like a father of men, Loffrey is surprised by what he feels.