#reshene

(Timeline: Stormblood, Azim Steppe MSQ arc)

(I never get tired of writing WoL | Lyse friendship fluff)

***

Mornings like this make it all worthwhile, Lyse mused, leaning back until she was fully lying down on the grass.

The rising sun was casting long shadows across the Azim Steppe. And with the light came a pleasantly chill breeze that drove the remnants of slumber away. Very different than her experience the previous morn. This time yesterday they had been scrambling with last minute preparations for battle. Anticipation and fear over the uncertain outcome. The rush as the fight was joined.

Today there was laughter and idle chatter and a great many tantalizing smells coming from several cooking fires scattered around the Mol camp. Such as the one Reshene was currently hovering over, her eyes intent on the steaming pot she was tending.

“I can’t wait for this to finish up,” the Warrior of Light said. “You aren’t a real Xaela until you’ve tried buuz.”

“Right,” Lyse said slowly. “About that, I have some bad news for you.”

“Hush, I need to concentrate.”

With a shake of her head, Lyse obliged her friend. She appreciated the momentary silence anyways. Everyone had been talking in circles for days about the Naadam. She was overdone discussing strategy and tactics and, after a few awkward conversations with near strangers, feelings. It was good to have a chance to just sit and be present with a friend without any real purpose in mind.

But silence was also… hard.

“Smells good,” Lyse said, less than a minute after Reshene had said she needed to concentrate.

“I would hope so. My aunt would return from the dead to berate me if I cooked up a bad batch of buuz.”

“Is this spicy?”

“Not really. It does promote healthy scale growth, however.”

“Scale growth? Its a glorified meatball, not a miracle food!”

Reshene gasped in mock fury. “Its not a glorified meatball! You take that back!”

“Why should I? You are such a liar!” Lyse laughed.

“Honestly? Would I tease about something as serious as food?”

“As a matter of face you would. Do. Are.”

(I apologize in advance, I don't have a good grasp on Urianger's way of speaking yet AND my tenses are all over the place when I did a quick read through. And heads up, talk about kids and parenting for those of you who are very child-free)

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It wasn't everyday one triumphed over a Fae King turned Lightwarden. And the Warrior of Light chose to celebrate it in their own unique fashion; by avoiding everyone else and heading down to the lake to fish up dinner.

Reshene had maybe an hour of solitude when she heard soft footsteps from behind. She tensed for a moment, but a quick check to her right reveals her carbuncle sleeping soundly. A friend then.

"May I join thee?" Urianger asks.

"Be my guest," she says.

And so he does. Lacking his own chair he settles in the sand. For a few minutes she thinks he is just there to avoid the others like herself. To enjoy a moment of quiet after a busy few days.

"I have an inquiry of thee, though thou needn't answer."

Her line bobs gently in the lake, giving her the momentary hope something had taken bait. "Ask," she says, staring intently where her line meets the water.

He shifts beside her and delays his question for several breaths. "Thou speaketh little of thine life before the Scions. 'Tis only mine own situation that causes me to breech etiquette..."

She sighs. The line was still again. Nothing.

"...Thou art a mother?"

Ah. Of all the possible questions she had been expecting that was not one of them. "I had a older sister. She died and I took her own children into my house." If you could call the animal-skinned yurts of the Azim steppe a house. "They are not of my body, but I raised them. So, yes, I am a mother."

"Mine own parents bestowed no lessons on me that can assist now. I possess questions concerning Minfilia."

That caused her to finally draw her eyes away from the water. He wasn't looking at her, but rather at something out over the lake. She could see the lines deepen on his face and wondered just how many questions he was holding in his thoughts.

"Thancred is her guardian, you have concerns about that?" Dusk Mother knows she did.

"Many times over the past few years have they graced my house. Thancred would have her schooled properly and so I doth play the part of tutor." A thin smile ghosted his lips.

Interesting. She supposed it natural that in the lengthy course of their exile on the First her fellow Scions would develop in ways she hadn't anticipated. "How is our Minfilia as a student?"

"Delightful," he says. "Though Eulmore kept her ignorant, she has great will and perseverance in her acquisition of knowledge." He pauses. "The origin of my inquiries comes from elsewhere."

She pauses before responding. Now would be an indelicate moment to reveal just how much Moenbryda had told her about his troubled upbringing. Having the arrival of such a sheltered youth as Minfilia into his life would complicate an already complicated situation. And from his tone she wagered he wasn't just talking about the responsibilities of being a good tutor.

She took a risk. "The moment you bring a child into your heart everything changes. No parent is every fully prepared for what follows. And that includes those of us who foster children not of our own making. I'd be concerned if you didn't have questions."

"Thou understands," he quietly says.

She nods. And at that moment there is a slight tug on her line. Finally.

Not how she intended to spend her evening recovering from Titania's harsh welcome, but there it was. They spend enough hours in conversation that she finally manages to catch several fish worth keeping. Two foster parents swapping stories and questions on the shores of a foreign lake, each trying to navigate their unexpected situation the best they could.

The Azim Steppe

The wind feels lovely after their sojourn through the tunnel. Lyse closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. The air no longer smells of brine and for that she is thankful.

Ahead of her Gosetsu and Yugiri are speaking about something. She overhears enough to know she should stay out of that conversation. Instead she turns around. The Warrior of Light is hanging back at the tunnel exit, shrouded in shadows. Lyse has always found her hard to read, but right now her face was even more blank than normal.

Her carbuncle, however. Its twitching and curled up around Reshene's ankles with its tail moving wildly back and forth. Looking very much like a jittery ball of fluff agitated at the world.

<i>This is why Thancred always wins when they play cards</i>, Lyse thinks. That carbuncle was the worst imaginable tell.

"Hey, everything all right?" she calls out.

The Warrior of Light blinks. "Pardon?"

"You look... A bit off."

"Do I?" she asks and Lyse nods. The Warrior sighs. "I just was never expecting to come back this way."

"You never told me you visited here before!"

A short, bitter laugh. "I was born here."

Oh. What could she say that wasn't completely daft? "I didn't know that." There, not completely daft. Just mostly.

Reshene shrugs. "I don't like discussing my past much."

Now that was probably a little lie, she knew how close Shtola and Reshene were. "I guess I understand. It was strange going back to Gyr Abania after being away for so long."

"Nothing has changed," Reshene says. Then, softer: "Everything has changed."

"When was the last time you were home?"

"Years," the older woman says. "And I never thought I would return."

This role reversal was something she wasn't exactly comfortable with. It had always been Reshene to be supportive when she felt a bit frayed. Still, that means she had to return the favour, didn't it? "Well, you're not returning alone, are you? Your with us. Hopefully that counts for something."

And there it was! A rare smile. "It does."

Today would be the day.

Well, there were no guarantees of that. There never were. But the weather was right, she had splurged extra on high end bait in Eulmore, and the world was no longer in danger of being consumed by Primordial Light at any given second. Finally, there was time to go about properly acquainting herself with the fishing locales of Norvrandt.

As luck would have it, a little sand gecko had just taken a chomp out of her bait. In retaliation she hooked it back on her line. If the locals weren't lying then this was sure to attract the attention of something much more interestingly larger.

That was the hope, at any rate.

Somewhere behind her, close enough to hear but far away enough to not hear it well, came the gigantic thud of something heavy hitting the sand. Followed quickly by Alisaie swearing and that telltale twang in the air she felt whenever someone unleashed their aether in combat.

"No, no, not now," Reshene mumbles.

The sounds of combat intensify behind her. Something roars. Alphinaud's undignified yelp followed by Alisaie calling his name, the worry in her voice apparent. Meanwhile, her line remains slack.

Reshene sighs.

After weeks of waiting, of worrying, of cursing, the moment had arrived. Their party left the Rising Sands en mass shortly following breakfast, a veritable herd of chocobos bearing the remaining Scions to the shores of Lake Silvertear. The ferryman only looked somewhat dismayed at their numbers and the gear they had brought along.

Still mounted, Reshene looked up towards the Crystal Tower. A marvel of engineering, one that she had grown strangely accustomed to. Yet this morning when she gazed upward it felt as if her heart lurched.

What was this feeling?

The same skip in her heart she felt upon the first time seeing Ifrit descend down into the Bowl of Embers? The hesitation that gripped her when Nidhogg's shade faded to reveal Estinien's pained visage? Zenos' sickening smile at their final encounter?

How many times had she stood on the threshold of defeat and managed to walk away from it by burying the hesitation that coiled around her heart?

There was nothing special about this moment, not really. Nothing that should elicit this response. Or maybe it was just the accumulated dread that had been growing within her ever since Thancred had collapsed in Ala Mhigo had finally reached a tipping point.

Hoary Boulder appeared before her bird suddenly. "You want in on the first crossing?"

The Aery.

The very aether of the sky itself crackled when Nidhogg roared. Dark clouds rapidly unfurled as lightning ripped through them. The flashes of light revealed the broken architecture upon the floating island beneath, a testament to a better age long since dead.

A day for wicked deeds and terrible violence.

In the shadows of one of the broken spires, the dual Azure Dragoons stopped to get their bearings before the next assault.

“I think we found him,” Reshene shouted over the din at her companion.

Estinien spared her a backward glance. “Any other brilliant deductions?”

“Yes! He’s angry!”

Somehow there were muscles left on Estinien’s face to deepen his already present scowl. They were used.

Reshene’s grinned like the battle-happy fool she was. She leapt over the rock and into the open where any and all could spot her from malms away. “Don’t worry, sourpuss. It’ll all work out!”

It was not the first time her Grandfather had caught her neglecting her duties. Nor the second. Or even the third. Reshene’s childhood memories of the old man were nothing more than a string of annoyed quips beyond counting. Her litany of failures in his eyes was as endless as the wind that continually blew through the ravine their tribe called home. This time, however, he said something that actually stuck with her:

“Useless brat. When your my age will you actually be able to say your life amounted to anything?”

The answer when she is 12 :

She is so sad and proud as she sings the dirge. While the rest of the tribe had long departed Reshene remains to witness as the carrion birds begin their ancient role in the Arulaq funeral rites. No one understood her aunt but her, and no one understood her like her aunt did, and Reshene thinks of all the things she should’ve said when she had time. By dawn there will be nothing left but bloodstained rocks above and the burning desire in the young woman below to make her aunt proud.