#undertakings

Ashley moved as silently as he was able across the creaky kitchen floorboards in the dead of night. Alma had moved his satchel from where he'd put it last - or maybe he'd misplaced it himself - but he had promised to keep the lights off and he was supposed to have been out the door seven minutes ago. In truth, there was nothing he needed among his personal effects that could not be replaced once he reported in at the palace; nevertheless, he paced around in the dark until his pulse beat quicker with anxiety and frustration. Then he heard footsteps from the bedroom, then a sigh, then Tia murmuring his name.

His wife had lit a lamp by the time he returned and was sitting up in bed, white sheets kicked to one side, her skin glistening with sweat. The night was hot and unbearably humid, and he did not begrudge her the eventual need to go back to sleep.

"You're leaving?"

He nodded his affirmation from the doorway, only scarcely trusting himself not to speak a word of the mission ahead.

Tia let out another deep exhale, then lowered her gaze to the swell of her abdomen beneath her thin nightshift. "I think it's time. Then again, it could be another false alarm."

There was no plea in her voice for him to stay, nor even the barest hint that she wished for him to abandon his mission in favor of remaining at her side.

"Please promise me," he said. "I know Mondeberta is the finest midwife in the Quarter, and you know I would trust her with all our lives, but please - if anything should go awry, the palace chirurgeons will be ready to receive you. You need only call for them."

"I promise, Ashley."

Ashley did not often consider the possibility of falling in battle, or of never returning home; yet for all he had tried since he and Tia had first spoken of such things, there would be no coming to grips with the notion that he might leave a child with one less parent.

He crossed the room in a few quick paces and drew her into his arms. Necessity hastened his every movement, clipped short what he knew would be their last embrace before everything changed: he tucked a lock of Tia's sweat-streaked hair behind one ear, stroked the line of her jaw as he kissed her, and let his other hand settle on her belly for the briefest of moments before he realized that if he did not leave now, he would never leave at all.

I was not present at the moment of your birth. While you were being brought into the world, I was serving the Mad King through what would ultimately prove to be one of the greatest atrocities in Ala Mhigo's recent history: the Kingsguard's sacking of Rhalgr's Reach.

As a Riskbreaker, my tasks went far beyond those given to the standard rank and file. I was sent to the Temple of the Fist early that morning to eliminate key targets - monks and priests with the standing or the means to rally others against the king. My mission was, in short, to eliminate all hope of reprisal before the battle had even begun.

Leaping Doe sat at the front of the recreational hall with her legs crossed in a traditional meditative pose and a crowd of refugees assembled before her. The hall itself, like much of the rest of the temple, looked to be centuries old, what with the dawn light pouring in through the open ceiling and the elaborate tapestries on the walls depicting scenes of monks from antiquity. Though the space had the means to hold several hundred comfortably, no more than twenty had gathered to participate in Leaping Doe's guided morning exercises. Ashley pulled his ragged cloak - a staple of the Undercity's - a little tighter across his shoulders and sat down at the back of the group, near an elderly Miqo'te woman in rags.

The smile that the young monk sent across her crowd of pupils was kindly but guarded; Ashley could see in that smile every onze the charitable soul the scouts had reported, albeit one whose good deeds had been rebuked once or twice too often. She would allegedly have been bound for a position of leadership within the year, had one of the senior monks not seen fit to promote instead some nephew or cousin. Nevertheless, Leaping Doe's reputation for kindness twinned with her innate gift for the forms had inspired recruits and refugees alike - had given her the capacity to lead others through her example.

In the event of a massacre, she would be the first whom many of them would turn to. She, whether or not she knew it, was among the select few with the means to launch a counterattack against the crown.

She spoke in a gentle voice of committing oneself to great deeds, her words creating a steady rhythm that ebbed and flowed for all to hear. He closed his eyes along with all the others but did not allow his mind to give way to meditation. Though he could have slipped into the Echo as easily as anyone in the hall, that momentary peace would not be worth the lapse in concentration.

He counted the seconds before the refugees stood one by one, stretching and chatting amongst themselves, until each of each of them had departed and Leaping Doe preoccupied herself with putting away any of the threadbare meditation rugs that had been left out across the stone floor. Her death would have to be quick, or all would be for naught. She was bound for the kitchens after this, and none of the routes she might take would be devoid of witnesses-

"What are you still doing here?" Her voice, little more than a murmur, radiated with the same power he had forsaken only moments before. Her every muscle was poised to strike before she had even turned to face him. "Leave now, friend. Cease this course, or I-"

She abandoned her placating demeanor, as he had known she would, and lunged toward him with a shoulder tackle.

The dagger that left his hand flew through the air and embedded deep in her throat. Her eyes widened in pain and shock and fear, and only after a second did the blood begin to seep down her neck in a heavy gush; when she fell to the floor, her final motion was to let out one last cough of blood and spittle before she at last lay still.

He retrieved his dagger and cut slits in her stained tantra robes, that they might fall away with greater ease when he threw her body into the Velodyna. There could be nothing left of Leaping Doe - no means at all for her to become a martyr.

To this day, there are few missions that haunt me to such an extent. It was in many ways my first test of many throughout my stint as a Riskbreaker - a test to see if I could live with the future I had carved for my family and my country through my actions and allegiances.

The blaze shot up through the early morning mist of the Peaks, tearing through the horizon in a column of flame and smoke and dispelling any hope of serenity in that dawning. The only mercy, if any mercy was to be had that day, was that so little grew in the outlying areas: the beacon of destruction shot only upward and bore no chance of spreading to outlying settlements through sparks on the wind. It would instead send a message, one that would be made clearer still when Theodoric's standard was eventually raised over the wreckage.

He had always found it difficult to wait. He suspected that that was part of the reason he had always excelled at his own lengthy missions: so long as he had something to do with himself, no matter its physical toll, he would keep from delving too deeply into his own thoughts. Even when he'd been a newly-orphaned sprat, he would rather have scoured the foulest passage in the Undercity than sit alone and idle on a market corner.

To sit and watch and wait without any guarantee that anyone would ever pass-

There came the brief gust of a southerly wind and he nearly gagged at its stench of burned flesh. Even as it reminded him of that horrible day in Rinomy's only nine moons back, it was enough to tear him away from still more memories.

As the bells dragged on, he espied some few people atop the cliffs from the place where he lay in wait: a lone Roegadyn miner who fell to his knees and sobbed, a slight woman on the back of a chocobo who immediately raced off to the north, a pair of gangly Hyuran brothers in identical cloaks who stood transfixed and clasped each other's hands. He let them come and go, for they could hold no possible threat to the crown.

At long last, the target for whom he had been waiting emerged from a heavy curtain of smoke amid the blackened pillars, as though summoned from the depths of the void. The elderly priest cast about wild glances at his surroundings, shifted a fulm-long bundle in his arms, and took a tentative step toward the road to Ala Gannha.

There would be no traversing the distance between them without being seen, not in the vivid afternoon sun. Ashley raised his readied crossbow and fired three silent shots: two into the chest, a third into the cheek.

The priest had ceased twitching by the time Ashley could sneak over to the body, and the bundle had come unbound in his death throes. Priceless works of scripture, teachings handed down through generations since the great flood, lay scattered and torn at Ashley's feet.

He gathered what he could and left the rest for the earth.

Ultimately, what kept me sane during the aftermath of that day was the unyielding belief that it would all mean something - that there would be some great, underlying justice to the wrongs I had committed for the sake of order. In the years that followed, when it became more apparent than ever that the Garleans had set their sights on Aldenard, I believed an Ala Mhigan tyrant preferable to foreign occupation and told myself I acted only in accordance with those beliefs.

The Kingsguard's initial orders had been for each knight to take up a precise station at each entrance or exit to the network of stone tunnels throughout the Reach and to cut down anyone attempting to flee. That plan had gone awry as the conflagration had spread to the tunnels themselves, quicker than Grand Steward Atkascha could have anticipated. Any fighting was done out in the greater courtyard, beneath the gaze of the Destroyer. Few of the monks who had managed to stumble so far from the temple presented much of a challenge, their lungs so filled with smoke and the reek of death; before long, even the most skilled of their number were overtaken by the sheer force of the knights lying in wait for them on all sides.

But it was no battle. Monks of the sect of the light believed above all else that battle could only ever be counted as an engagement between participants on equal terms. Anything else, they maintained, was slaughter.

The sun beat down into the canyon with a hellish insistency. The pool around Starfall, so clear the previous morning, was now tinged a murky brown. Wherever the fires had begun to abate, some of the knights had taken to gathering up the corpses from within the smoke-filled ruins and moving them into horrific piles. He passed a lone soldier holding a sword in one hand and dragging a burned monk by his hair from under a toppled pillar with the other; when at last the blackened, crumpled body was free, the soldier reached over and proceeded to stab it over and over again.

Beads of sweat ran down from Ashley's brow and back, tracking through every layer of soot and blood and grime. His skin itched beneath his leather armor; the summer heat compounded his discomfort. He needed to find water - clean water, after what they'd done to the wells - before he collapsed from dehydration. With that single focused thought at last propelling him onward, he set out on a new course away from the carnage.

It took nearly two days for the last of the fighting to die down. Only when all was being accounted for, when the weight of the Kingsguard's victory was still being assessed, did I learn of your birth.

I knew then that all I had done had not been in vain.

"Are you alone?"

Ashley, his linkpearl cupped in his hand, cast a glance around the shadowed antechamber. It was full of soldiers as weary as he, many of them a good deal more bloodied, all of them seeking out a moment's rest. "Alone enough." Whatever orders he had been given in secrecy mattered little now that they had been carried out; each of them, Riskbreaker or no, had played their own part in the king's madness. "Let's hear it."

Atkascha sighed, but though Ashley readied himself for a lecture on the need for protocols, none came. Atkascha was in all likelihood as exhausted as the rest of them after over two days of intercepting and analyzing untold amounts of intelligence, despite not once setting foot outside the capital.

"Initial reports estimate over eighty percent of the temple's two thousand four hundred residents have been confirmed dead, with many more still missing. That isn't accounting for the refugees. Not one of your targets has yet been listed among the known dead; as was expected, what survivors can be accounted for have since focused their efforts to locate them, particularly Leaping Doe."

"Go on."

"Word of this has already spread throughout Aldenard. Throughout Hydaelyn, perhaps. These events will doubtless embolden some anti-monarchy sentiments, and an early report from Ala Ghiri suggests that the True Sons are already clamoring for retribution; they will doubtless need to be quelled before long. And-"

"And?"

Ashley could only hold his breath in the intervening pause.

"...Your daughter, Ashelia Marco Riot, was born two days ago without incident."

He was staring off into the distance at something that might once have been a pillar but was now little more than a heap of dark rubble. His daughter. And they had given her Marco's name nevertheless. A soldier off to his left began to clap, then was joined by another; someone else in the vicinity burst into tears.

"You've been given leave to return to the capital at once."

At that, Ashley pushed to his feet with a groan - perhaps he had been sitting on the unforgiving cobbles for longer than he had realized - and hastened to the chamber's exit, to the courtyard where the Destroyer stared down upon them all. Thick rain clouds had blown in early that morning, bringing with them an occasional rumble of thunder. Were he capable of believing in anything at that moment beyond what he could see, beyond what he knew for certain, he might have thought of it as an omen from Rhalgr Himself.

His daughter.

"Are you still there?" he said into the linkpearl thirty seconds after he was certain he wasn't being followed.

"Of course."

"I need a favor."

"Name it."

"Keep talking to me on my way back."

"Too great a chance of you being overheard." There was no one, would be no one for malms, but Ashley suspected his superior had only stayed awake as long as he had in order to be the one to deliver the news. "We'll speak again once you've returned."

The line went dead with a click, and Ashley turned northward in solitude.

We only ever had two wishes for you, your mother and I. The first was for you to see more of the world than we did, and we thought that a foregone conclusion each time you would sneak your way into the Undercity to explore. The second was that you would never feel a need to follow in my footsteps.

Marco was a more loyal, braver, better man than any I have ever known. He died the day you quickened in your mother's womb; you were given his name the day I brought the temple of his faith to ruins. And you are more than worthy of his name. He would have loved you with all his heart.

His eyes burned from fatigue by the time he passed through Gylbarde's Gate. For the first time in longer than he could remember, though he could remember precious little at that moment, he had crossed the Lochs on foot without considering a stop at Marco's tree. There would be time later, his family were waiting, and he did not think he could bear to face Marco then.

He moved like a wraith through the daylight streets, dazed to the seventh hell. He felt removed from the bustle and clamor, numb to every sensation except the sharp glare of sunlight. It would have been easier to go through the sewers, and yet he did not want to travel in solitude any longer; even still, the crush of so many people going about such normal tasks threatened to overwhelm him. Every now and then, always in hushed and agitated whispers, came fragments of discussion of what had taken place at the temple.

Only when he heard three sharp, familiar barks was he jarred back to the present, to the grounding reality that he had come home from one more mission.

"There he is!" came Alma's voice before he had opened the door. "Oh gods, he's back, he's-"

He had only to step through the threshold and into the kitchen before his sister-in-law's arms were around him. "She's beautiful," Alma said. "Tia's resting. Montblanc hasn't left the foot of the bed."

He opened his mouth to voice some apology and blacked out.

That I send this letter now to Rhalgr's Reach proves once and for all that your deeds have far surpassed my own.

Happy birthday, my dearest.

He awoke in his own bed to Tia's fingers pushing back his hair and her deep indigo eyes meeting his own. It was a knowing gaze, an acknowledgement of everything unspoken - a kinder welcome home than any he deserved. With one arm trapped beneath her frame and his head propped against her shoulder, he looked down to find a tiny baby girl, scarcely two days old, swaddled and asleep in the crook of her mother's arm.

And she, Ashelia Marco Riot, was the most wondrous thing he had ever seen.

I remain, now and always,

Your father

Undercity in turmoil. Garleans have assumed control of the city. Approx. 1/4 staff report survival after escape attempt. Made the Garleans an offer. They think me cowed. They will learn their mistake. All I have to do is live long enough to see the day.

No word from Tia Malheur. Alma Malheur reported dead. Makes sense. They told me Ashley’s dead, too, but I don’t believe it. You’re better than that, Ashley. I know you’re still out there. I’ll find you, whatever it takes. I’m not losing you, too.

They think this book is me writing a historical textbook for fun. They cannot crack our cipher. But at least they think me boring. Good. Let them.

The man assigned to relay if your wife and daughter escaped safely was found dead today. Tried entering the city through the front gate. The depths to which I’ve had to resort, hiring idiots like that. Garleans won’t let me inspect the body or tell me what it was carrying. That might mean they’re fine, or it might mean they want me to have hope.

Persuaded the Garleans not to torture me. Sold several staff remaining in the city to them. Death and disability are unacceptable. I must be ready when the counterattack comes. When Eorzea fights back. It will happen.

Garleans demanded I marry. Intend to use a spy to watch me, think I’ll love her. As if that could happen.

The agent appointed to marry me is an idiot. I somehow find this even more insulting. She plays at being kindhearted. But she’s nervous. I can see she’s thinking too hard about what she says before she says it. Careful with her words. She’s got to have some sort of angle. All of their kind always do. She’s pretending she doesn’t notice I notice and it’s infuriating me. They’re force me to live on their compound, now, too.

The Garlean blinks twice every time you ask her a question that takes any thought to answer at all. Every single time. It’s a delay tactic. It’s irritating. Sloppy. This is the kind of spy they send to watch me, one who has such an obvious tell?

Gridanian source says Tia Malheur and Ashelia Riot have yet to be seen, but the horde of refugees is thick and the conflict with the city’s guards has made identification difficult. It seems likely the Garleans would kill them if caught and identified. And taunt me with the bodies.

The Garlean doesn’t stretch her joints enough. I can hear her ankles pop when she walks across the room at night. I hate her so much.

Sold another agent today. Still haven’t found you, Ashley. Can’t die yet. City needs freed. You need saved. She wasn’t doing anything of any real value, anyway. Her “Resistance cell” was her, her brother and their dog. No significant cost to the cause.

The Garlean asked to try the food I was cooking. I wish I could have poisoned her. She claimed to like it, too. Either she was telling the truth or she’s a great liar pretending to be a terrible one. I’m not sure which it is, yet.

Been reading further into voidsent summoning. Told them it was a book about Ala Mhigan rituals to track enemies by using their blood. The idiots believed me. They don’t know a single thing about our culture. 

Binding powerful things to my will? Still beyond me, and probably always will be. Tiny voidsent? That’s doable. Can see through an ahriman’s eye, but grow it too much, and... well. Testing will be necessary.

How ironic I used the eye of an ahriman as my icon and soon I’ll literally look through one.

The Garlean mentioned the way I sit reminds her of an old friend she knew. I’m not her friend.

The Garlean bought me a book, said it was because she saw me writing so often. ‘Garlemald: A Glorious History’. What a thinly-veiled attempt to brainwash me. Child’s play. 

After I read the book, she pretended to sympathize with me: “It was assigned reading at the Academy. It’s pretty thorough but has a clear bias. Can I read your Ala Mhigan history book?” They clearly want her to see if I’m writing in code. Good luck cracking this cipher. All she’s going to see is a boring history textbook.

I told her it isn’t finished yet. She offered to ‘help’ with research. As if she could. As if I’d let her. What an idiot.

“Bernard Noctine”. When the city’s free, I’m going to burn every single document they ever dared to write those words on. No one must know.

I also need to destroy every single image that exists of me in a suit. A suit! Rhaglr’s blood, I’m going to see them all burn.

Especially the tailor. “Red and black, perfect for your new country.” I’m going to figure out a way to see him burn.

I used to think your wedding was the most awkward and uncomfortable experience I’d ever been through. I remember Marco saying he’d be the best man at my wedding. I’m glad he can’t see this.

Garleans demand I sire a child. They’ll take the thing away, off to their Academy. As a hostage. As if I would care. But it disgusts me all the same. The thought. My blood, swinging a Garlean sword. Learning their culture as if it were proper to. Told they’re superior to what we grew up with.

A young idiot threw a grenade at a Reaper tank collecting taxes near a quarry. That sort don’t want a revolution, they want recognition. Nobody will remember his name.

I fail to understand the appeal of procreation. Spent the entire time waiting for the dagger I was sure she was going to pull on me when my guard was down. Still waiting.

Why would anyone want to be that close to someone? I tolerated hugs for Marco’s sake, but this is far, far worse. Uncomfortable. Irritating. A waste of my time.

Haven’t heard from Gustav. Worried he’s gone native. Boy was always more clever than smart. Maybe they’ve tortured him. Maybe they’ve broken him. Would be a waste.

Found what I was looking for - a concoction that will sterilize me. Should’ve done it years ago. What use do I have for a child? As soon as the first one’s born, I’ll make sure there’s never a second.

The Eorzeans show no sign of assisting us. When Baelsar goes West, they’ll see their folly. Perhaps then we can strike, while the garrison is gone.

The Garlean is with child. Good. I’ll kill it at birth, tell her there were complications, then play up that I’m so aggrieved the thought of making another is unbearable. That should work. If nothing else, the sterilization is something they won’t be able to deny is real.

Every time I look at the Garlean there’s something odd I feel. Not sure what it is. Some sort of spell? Garlemald doesn’t know this sort of magic, do they? Is she drugging me?

The Garlean offspring is due in days. Preparations are complete. I’ll finish the job myself. Can’t trust anyone else.

Couldn’t do it. Can you believe it? It was strange. I’ve never hesitated before. I’ve never felt the ‘guilt’ people talk of when they kill people. But I saw it... no, I saw him screaming. Crying. Pathetic. Weak. And yet Ala Mhigan all the same. I made a split-second decision while the Garlean was unconscious. It would’ve been so easy to make her death seem accidental, but not worth the risk. Took my son. Sent him away. Used his blood, my blood, the Garlean’s blood. Summoned and bound a small ahriman. I can watch the boy through it. This will work. This is good.

The Garlean’s attempts to convince me she thinks anything more of the boy than that he’s a tool to manipulate me have not deceived me. She cannot and will not be trusted. None of their kind can be. I will not fall for her faked tears.

He is my son. And he will be my only son. The concoction works. No more worrying about procreation.

The “agents in charge” were furious. Claimed I was making it all up. Their leader thinks he sees through me. Perhaps he does. But he can prove nothing, and I can prove myself incapable of siring another child. They demand the Garlean stay with me regardless. Continue this charade of a marriage. It’s a punishment, I’m sure.

His name will never be ‘William Noctine.’ He will not be named after the filth that sired his mother. He will never, ever meet that mistake of a family. He will never go to their academy, fight in their military, work as their slave. He will be free. He will be strong. He’ll have the life we couldn’t have, even if it means I have to get him out of here.

This ring stifles my hand. I refuse to wear it.

The Garlean cries. She is my enemy. I don’t care.

The Resistance is weakening. They were passionate, but disorganized. One by one they die or depart. They’re solidifying into various factions. The weakest will die, unable to support themselves. I can keep the strongest alive, possibly.

Garlemald continues to seep through this city’s skin. All the Twelve are absent. There are statues - of Garleans. Disgusting.

A child threw a stinkbomb at a Garlean patrol. They shot him in the street.

Children are sequestered away. My son is safe, but lives in filth. So did we. If he is more my son than hers, he will survive.

It was an absurd thought, any observer might have noted – one man wasn't going to spring a revolution. One man wasn't going to turn the tides. And even if one man could, Bernard had sold hundreds to the Garleans – betrayed the people he claimed to act in service of time and time again to save his own skin. He would be considered, if his acts were reported, one of Ala Mhigo's greatest traitors. History would write him as compliant in the Garlean occupation, as a supporter of the mad king Theodoric, as an unquestioned and irredeemable villain. If given the opportunity, Ala Mhigo would see him executed for his crimes. He would be tossed in a mass grave with other Garlean sympathizers, and that would be his story closed.

He had accepted that when the first Garlean boots had crossed the city gates and he had recognized what had to be done. He had accepted that no matter what, his own survival would be necessary. He had accepted that he would need to do things that no one else could ever understand in order to maintain his position, because standing obstinate against an overwhelming force was suicide, and no matter how “noble” historians claimed a last stand to be, it would accomplish nothing.

Selling out individuals who played at being a resistance? Selling out teenagers with stolen grenades who would blow up a single magitek reaper and think they'd won the war? Selling out old men who'd rather die a hero than live on their knees? Wasn't he just giving them what they wanted? A good many of them had never wanted a free city, Bernard knew. They wanted everyone else to see them. They wanted the others to see that they were true Ala Mhigans. It was the false, overemotional, idiotic pride that Bernard had always seen in those around him and had exploited his entire life. All he did, then, when he sold out the locations of weapon caches, when he informed on people whose idea of a revolution consisted of half-baked assassination plans without the smallest chance of success, was give the fools what they really wanted. If they were remembered at all, they'd be remembered as heroes, and he a villain.

That was what made Ashley Riot so important.

The people couldn't unite behind a villain. When the revolution came, when the armies marched on the city and he saw their flag fly again, when the altars to Rhalgr were restored, when the Garlean army was crushed beneath a proud city's populace, they would never follow a villain.

Bernard couldn't be a hero and survive, but Ashley could. Former Kingsguard or no, Ashley Riot was a man whose tale could be spun into a legend that could save Ala Mhigo in its own right.

It had been crucial to internalize that truth for the past twenty years, rather than simply admit that Ashley was one of only two friends he had ever had. To sacrifice others for the sake of a hero was tragic justice; to sacrifice others for the sake of a friend was the act of a selfish man and a coward.

Ashelia had gone to see her father, and Bernard knew Ashley was under some kind of Garlean control. He suspected Ashley Riot would've chosen to die fighting rather than make the choice Bernard so readily had, and that meant the Garlean bastards had some sort of leverage on him. Perhaps Ashley thought his family were their hostages. Perhaps he thought they were dead, that he had nothing else to live for. Whatever it was, Bernard knew which path Ashley would take. He knew Ashley too well, and some things never changed. There was only one path to Ala Mhigo beyond Baelsar's Wall that was fast enough, secluded enough, and lightly-traveled enough for Ashley Riot. So Bernard stood and waited.

Eventually, he knew, Ashley would come.

It wasn't two bells before he was proven right – a man nowhere near as touched by age as Bernard was came through the woods at a full sprint. A vision from the past. He looked half dead from exhaustion. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. That may very well have been the case.

And Ashley saw him, too, and showed nothing. This wasn't Ashley the friend, this was Ashley the Riskbreaker. Ashley was working, just as when Marco had died, and Bernard recognized immediately this was going to be difficult. The spear, drawn and leveled at Bernard so quickly it looked almost as if Ashley had been carrying it the entire time, confirmed Bernard's suspicion.

Be that as it was, for the first time since Marco's death Bernard found himself unable to suppress an emotion: he actually, genuinely grinned at his friend.

“Hello, Ashley Riot.”

But Ashley didn't move, didn't blink, didn't twitch. Bernard considered his tone, and his words, carefully. Ashley must have recognized him, he realized – had he not, Bernard would have a spear through his chest. Somewhere, then, was the Ashley he knew.

Maintain courtesy. Don't give him a reason to attack. Keep him talking. He's not like to interrupt you. If you're an enemy, he'll want answers. He'll want something.

“Please,” Bernard continued. “I know I haven't aged as gracefully as you have, but surely you recognize me? Or is my assumption the Garleans did something to your head correct?” Friendly condescension. Connect emotionally. Present as a friend, present the idea he's being manipulated. Lay the groundwork. Don't frame as an accusation, frame as an option, as a possibility – you're not ordering him, you're offering an explanation to him.

“Don't.” Ashley said. His voice was raspy. Bernard suspected he hadn't used it much recently. Had Ashelia not found him after all? Ashley took a deep breath. Bernard recognized he was preparing to attack. Defuse this. He's not himself. You have to break him free.

“Are you going to put the spear away or not?” Get the weapon down. You can't beat him in a clean fight. It's been too long. You don't have surprise. You don't even have your weapons ready. He's got reach, drive, conditioning. Probably hasn't stopped fighting for twenty years. “I've looked too hard for you to fight you. I'm old. All my fighting is with words and information now. I certainly doubt I could fight you to a draw, let alone beat you.” Be ready to draw. Ashley will aim for the heart. Get the spear away, get inside his range, and I'll have a chance.

Best not to think of that.

Bernard's familiar, the ahriman his son had dubbed “Ahri”, manifested behind him, sensing the stress his master was under. Ashley didn't lower the spear, but his posture, the movements of his eyes shifted almost imperceptibly. Good. He's thinking. If he keeps thinking, he won't attack, and I won't have to take this further.

“What did you do to her. To both of them. To-” Ashley cut himself off. He was struggling. Fighting. Good.

“I tried and failed to save Alma. Tia I had no contact with until quite recently. To be honest, I wasn't even aware they'd made it out alive. The Garleans made sure of that.” Grab a fact, something easily proven, something he could find out from a commoner. “But when Gaius van Baelsar is killed by a Riot, the word spreads.” To Bernard's surprise, Ashley gritted his teeth.

He hasn't heard? They'd have locked him up until it was old news, then. Ah, but if he runs and asks someone, he'll get the answer and know I'm right, and I still win.

“That's what I'm to think, then? When you never cared one whit for them to begin with?”

And for the second time, Bernard's self-control slipped. Somewhere inside himself, he knew Ashley didn't know. Couldn't know. But the fact he had given so much and the man he gave it for dared to accuse him of this was too much. His temper flared and his voice grew much harsher, as an angry parent's. “You have no idea what I sacrificed so this day could come, Ashley. You have no idea how many are dead, died on your behalf. Died so I could find you. Died so I could make certain your daughter was safe, once I knew she'd survived at all. It doesn't matter if I liked Tia,” Which is good, because she's nothing close to what you deserve and frankly you should never have stuck with her to begin with, oh Rhalgr do I want to show you how right I was but now is not the time- “what matters is that you cared about them. That was enough to give all I could for them.”

And Ashley looked so angry at Tia's name, looked more poised to strike than Bernard could ever remember seeing him. Finally, his friend spoke, in a quiet tone that told Bernard just how dangerous Ashley was in this moment: “You murdered them.”

And there it was. That was the lie that turned Ashley Riot into a Garlean agent. That was what it took to make him betray his city, betray his people. It all made sense, now. But it was no less disappointing. Did he actually care that much about his damned wife? About a daughter he hadn't known but for a few years?

Either way, now Bernard had to talk. He knew Ashley wouldn't interrupt him, and that meant he had to say all he could before Ashley could stop him. Give him a reason to think. Give him information to digest. More, and more, and more. Drown him in it. Overwhelm the lies. “So that's what they've got you believing! There it is. That's what it would take, then. It does make sense. The only thing that would keep Ashley Riot from his family is the lie that they lie dead. No, Tia and Ashelia are both alive. Ashelia has her own free company. Has dreams about her father all the time. My best guess is there's some sort of connection, there. It seemed to run both ways.” Take advantage of that. It's something he can't deny. Hit him in the face with it, break the wall down. “Did you see me in a dream, recently? In a red room?”

And Ashley's eyes widened. Surprise. Disbelief. Perfect. Keep going.

“I told you to go to Camp Dragonhead,” Bernard continued, taking advantage of the hesitation. “I was so certain you'd be there. But of course you weren't. You were on a mission, weren't you? Nothing ever has deterred you when you're like that.”

Ashley didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't react. But Bernard knew he was fighting with himself. Excellent. That meant Bernard was winning. Keep at it. Make yourself too valuable to kill.

“I'll take you to meet your daughter, if you like.” Whatever you do, don't mention Tia. Don't say what happened to her. Don't mention what she's become. How can you spin it, without lying? If he senses a single lie, he'll think it's all a lie. But mentioning her as a godsdamned addict and mistake of a mother could push him to violence. “I don't think it a good idea for me to go to Little Ala Mhigo. Where Tia is. I'm not a popular face there.” Excellent. Does Ashley know anything at all about Little Ala Mhigo? Elaborate. “I would have expected Gundobald, of all men, would understand my position. But here we are.” As if I'd be stupid enough to actually approach the man. Please. With his connections, he already knows what I've become in the eyes of the Resistance. But Ashley doesn't.

And Ashley still did not lower his lance, but he seemed to calm the barest bit. And yet the threat was still there. Ashley said nothing, and Bernard said nothing, and the sounds of the forest filled the air for several minutes. He had said his piece, and would wait for Ashley's response. He had grown used to waiting.

“They told me you were dead,” Ashley finally said.

“They told me you were dead. And I knew from the start it was a lie.”

“You – you had your agents come for them. There, while we were on- on the hill. Tia's throat was slit, Ashelia was-” Was Ashley going to cry? Seriously? “...Like-”

Like Marco, eh? Let's hit him with the best response. The most logical response. If he thinks me a liar, he won't believe a denial. So let's attack from the side.

“Why would I?”

“He would never have died, if not for me. He was in that bar that night on a favor for me. And then I sacked the temple of his faith. Named my daughter after him. Took in his... his stupid dog.”

That?! You think THAT is enough to kill you over?! As if I'd have let you live that long if I blamed you! As if I would've waited. Is that REALLY the best those three-eyed bastards could do? And you FELL for that? Gods, Ashley, this is ridiculous. They must've torn you apart to break you enough to believe this sort of nonsense. His control was slipping again. Ashley must have recognized how annoyed he was getting, how irritating this whole scenario was. How frustrating to have his friend back, only to have him so far away. Let's come from another tact. Let's point out why this whole event is ridiculous. He responded too quickly to question my motives, but he certainly knows my methods. They didn't erase who I am, just added a lie about what I did.

“Do you remember Gustav?” Bernard asked. Ashley took a moment to nod. Good. This'll be easy.

“Gustav is the only man I ever recruited who was able to shadow you, and you put the fear of Rhalgr in that boy. He wouldn't have agreed to so much as follow you if I had a knife to his mother's throat. Who am I supposed to have sent to kill you and your family?”

“I turned my back only for a moment. I got soft.”

“What sort of idiot do you take me for that I would try to kill you in an open expanse where you could easily see assassins coming? If I were going to kill you it would've been just outside your door.”

That much was certainly true. It wasn't an exaggeration to say Bernard always kept a plan on hand for killing anyone he'd ever talked to, should he have to, and not even Ashley was excluded from that. “It would've been quick, because I know you, and I know it would have to be an instant death or you would kill absolutely everyone around you on the way down. And further, if I was going to kill you, I'd have done it myself. What sort of idiot sends men to kill your family first?” In all honesty, he was offended at how stupid Ashley clearly had to think he was. Garlean torture is thorough. It doesn't have to make sense to him with enough force. But this makes it all the easier to break it down.

“The sort who's more intent on teaching a lesson.”

Well, he had done that before. Can't say he wouldn't ever. How could he approach this? Wait, I've got it. “To whom? If I killed you, everyone in my organization would worry for their own lives. That sort of fear breeds revolt. There would be absolutely no gain.” He hesitated, considering if he should go this far, but it was time to. “Besides, I've already accepted whose fault Marco's death was. It wasn't yours.” It was mine. “Frankly I can't comprehend what sort of lapses in judgment it takes to look at what happened and blame you.” It was all mine, and it's your fault I have to think on it again. You'd better appreciate that.

Ashley took a single step forward, but didn't seem like he was going to strike. Indeed, it seemed almost as if he was going to run past. To run away. Easier than accepting the truth. You're not getting away. “Don't go back to Ala Mhigo,” Bernard said. “Not until the revolution comes. They'll find you, refit your mind with the lies they've clearly already implanted. I won't allow that to happen, Ashley.” Even if I have to kill you and die trying. You're better a corpse than a slave. Grey will be taken care of whether I'm here or not. “Everyone else has left or died. My organization is filled with Garlean footpads and cockroaches.” He won't care about them. Ah, but I've an ace. “Your family isn't there.” The thing you'd betray your city over should be enough to betray the Garleans. “Go and be with them. You can meet my son, too. It'd do him good to meet a proper man.”

Did I mean that as an insult to myself, or the Marbrand boy? Or both? Regardless, something changed in Ashley. He did not soften, but some part of him behind the eyes at last grew calm. Ah, of course. He just needed orders.

“That's what you've been doing these twenty years, then? They've kept you well-hidden.”

You have no idea. “I have done precisely what I had to do to stay alive, because there's no one else in this world who was going to save you.” The only ones left who even knew you are your family. “And when the revolution comes, someone has to be there to throw open the gates.” And accept what comes next.

Ashley clearly thought it over, then nodded. “Ashelia, she's...”

“An extremely capable commander in her own right, though far too trusting for my standards and more attached to her personnel than she ought be. She's also married. To the Marbrand boy. He's an idiot, but a kindhearted one. Were he a problem he'd already be dead.” But still, it seems picking people beneath your level is a family trait. An irritating one. Do I tell him I attended the wedding and it was by their standards a good one? No, that throws us off track. Threatens his stability by reminding him how much he's missed of her life. “She's adopted my son. It's a strange state of affairs. But it's what the both of them want, so it doesn't exactly bother me.”

“Your son.” Ashley seemed to think this absurd. And it was, to be fair. “Your son.”

Bernard sighed. Of course. He would dwell on that. The only good thing about Marco not being here is that I don't have to put up with this from him, too. “Yes. Get it out of your system. The Garleans assigned an agent to play my wife and made it clear my life depended on her having a child. That's what this one is for.” He jerked his thumb at Ahri. “The boy named himself Grey. Much better than 'William Noctine.'”

Ashley seemed to be thinking for a moment, then blurted out another question. “What of Tia?”

Gods, do we really have to do this? Can't you just go back to Ul'dah and be with your daughter and forget about that waste of flesh and bone? No. No, of course you can't. You idiot. How am I going to explain this? “...Tia is currently residing in Little Ala Mhigo.”

“Little Ala Mhigo? With the Resistance?”

No, Ashley, in a pit in the dirt with smoke in her lungs. And missing, now. Stupid woman. I told her he was coming back, and she goes off and gets lost.

Ashley must've picked up on what was going on, because he pressed the issue. “What is it?”

“She was ill for some time,” that's a nice way to phrase it. Sure, her illness was her own fault and her own doing and ruined your daughter's childhood, but this makes it sound so much nicer, doesn't it? She can explain it herself. It's on her, not me. It wasn't my decision to ruin her life, so she can take the responsibility herself. “And then she got better. And then she walked out and hasn't been back. It's been difficult to get reliable agents in the camp,” if only you knew, Ashley, that I have to rely on a Silverbrand even more useless than the rest of their kind “and I've been unable to learn where she went or why.”

Ashley was quiet for a moment. Bernard had nothing more to add – anything else would raise questions he didn't want to ask. When lying, too much information could bury one deeper. “Thank you,” Ashley finally said, and Bernard was relieved he hadn't asked anything further.

“If I had known she had planned to leave, I would have tried to impress upon her how important it is she stay. I'm sorry.” I should've had her tossed in a cell, somehow, with a crime I could easily free her from. And I would have, if this was Ala Mhigo, but Ul'dah doesn't work the same way, now does it? Maybe I could've bribed a mercenary to lock her up, or done something else. But then you'd hate me for it, wouldn't you, Ashley? And that sack of bile isn't worth that.

Ashley shook his head. “I suppose there's only one place left for me to go now.”

Where's that? If the answer is 'looking for Tia', I'm going to wait 'til you turn your back and hog tie you, you son of a bitch. If anyone can keep you out of harm's way, it's that daughter of yours.

“...I did meet her, deep in Dravania.” Ashley said. So she did succeed. “She saved my life."

...What? I must've misheard him. Or he misspoke.

“She saved your life?” The nod Ashley gave him was completely serious. She saved his life? That girl? The one with her fancy armor playing at military command, not invested enough in finding her father to commit to it until she'd finished playing war with the Ishgardians? The one too busy building airships to reunite her family and too soft to punish anyone adequately? The one that lets in strays like she's running a charity? That one, that child, that's who saved Ashley Riot, the greatest fighter Ala Mhigo ever produced? How did that happen?

“She is a woman grown, one who has carried far too many burdens.” Ashley said. Bernard barely registered it, still trying to figure out how she could possibly have saved Ashley, but nodded anyway out of politeness. Never mind, there'll be time to figure that out later. There was something else I should warn him about. Something more important, right?

Right. “By the way, there's something you may want to be aware of. It worries me, at least. Gerrith Gaffgarion is still around, and with Garlemald losing one of their prized agents, it's possible a man like him may be hired to bring you back. Age has not weakened him. There are others out there, but he's the only mercenary I'm aware of that might actually pose a threat to you.” He was definitely a threat to me, back then, and if what I've heard is true he's only gotten to be more of a bastard with age. “I regret not killing him when I had the chance.”

Ashley sighed, and Bernard felt the weight of his friend's exhaustion in that sigh. “Of all the people to survive these twenty years...”

“I'm going to be frank with you, Ashley. You're the only good man left.” And I'm why.

But Ashley shook his head, clearly not believing Bernard. “I've lived half my life as a lie, Bernard. No matter what they did to me, that will not change."

No you don't. Don't pull your self-sacrificing nonsense on me. “There's no blame in being a victim.” The answer was immediate, forceful. He wasn't going to accept an interpretation of the situation other than his own.

But infuriatingly, Ashley shook his head again. “It's as you said. Only a fool would think to put the pieces together as I did. I never did remember burying either of them. And Alma, she was... there were never any memories of what became of her.”

“Gods damnit Ashley,” Bernard said, barely suppressing how furious he was getting. “There's no man in this world could endure twenty years of Rhalgr only knows what they did to you."

“Isn't there? I would imagine Ashelia endured it with me.”

Who cares about her? She didn't want you freed enough anyway. "I didn't sacrifice what I have so you can feel guilty for something you've no fault in.” Hundreds dead. Two decades I spent with a collar and a leash, bending over backwards for those smug sons of bitches. I may as well have killed every last man who didn't leave with my own hands. I sacrificed my freedom, my name, my plans, my position, my power - my legacy - and I certainly didn't give it all up so Ashley Riot could be little more than a shell of a man. A walking corpse.

But what if he is? Something deep within Bernard asked, something he'd been silencing for twenty years. What if you did waste it all? What if this was all the path of a fool? If you hadn't been so obsessed with keeping him safe, you could've left the city before they marched in. You could've run your own Resistance from outside, revered as a patriot instead of reviled as a traitor. You could've put your hooks into the other cities, forced their hands a decade ago. Freed your city by now. Saved them all. Kept your name.

And maybe, if you'd done that, Ashley would've been saved anyway.

Bernard's limbs tensed, his heart raced. He suppressed his rising panic, but he couldn't quell the anger in his voice. “You need to live, not be some echo of a man engrossed in imagined losses and blaming himself for crimes he's innocent of.”

“I saw the signs. The holes in their patterns.” And their blades, surely. I'd bet my life you've far more scars now than you had twenty years ago. “I thought the worst of you.” So did I. “And I played along even when I had my doubts.” So you could survive. “Even when I saw my countrymen broken and beaten in the streets.”

Focus. Break his will. Get this stupid idea out of his head. Think. How do we do this? “In all your life have you met a man harsher than I am?” This'll work. Appeal to his knowledge of me. “If I tell you it's not your fault, then it isn't. Would it help to hear your daughter say it, too?”

“You misunderstand me," he snapped. He turned from where he stood overlooking the Shroud, his gaze sharp but steady on Bernard. "I will keep moving forward.”

You'd better, you bastard. “Good.”

“But in my own way. I cannot simply take from what my daughter has built through her own deeds. If my dreams were any indication... she and hers truly have a chance.”

Maybe. Better than the Resistance, at least. “...Perhaps.”

“Where will you go from here?”

...Where WILL I go? I want to go with him. I don't want to go back to the Garleans, to the cat and mouse game. To playing at being their dog. “...I'm not sure. I hadn't planned past this point.”

Ashley chuckled at that. Briefly. He WOULD think that funny. I suppose this is only the second time I didn't have a plan, isn't it? “Would you go to the Sandsea?” he asked.

And live with that lot again? With Ashelia's feigned pleasantries? Watching men and women who should be fighting sit around and drink tea and talk nice to each other? Throw away the chance to help my city? Look my son in the eyes and know he'll always see me as a demon? Deal with being a burden on him? Absolutely not. But I can't word it that way, now can I? “If I abandon Ala Mhigo, I discard my chance to be useful in liberating my home.” How sickeningly patriotic of me.

Ashley nodded. “I'll look after Grey for you.”

Maybe you'll be the father figure he needs. “See to it he doesn't end up like us. He deserves to cling to his dreams. I worry your daughter may try to push him along our path.” She likely wouldn't on purpose, but oh is he the type to use her as an excuse to fight. Little would-be hero. Would've joined the Resistance, eventually.

“I will.” Another moment of silence, which Bernard soaked up. Twenty years of waiting, and he was still savoring the moment. He knew it would soon come to an end. “How are we to communicate?” Ashley asked.

“Anything you say to this one I'll hear. He'll hang around my son from here on. It started as a way to make certain he didn't die. I also kept record of everything that has happened since the Garlean attack in a book in your daughter's study. You certainly still remember how to read between the lines, I am sure.”

Ashley cast a little glare at the voidsent. He didn't seem to like it, and Bernard found this more amusing than he should have.

“Keep in touch, then. I'll do the same.”

“Of course. Good seeing you again, Ashley.” How ridiculous, to put it that way. As if it had only been a day.

“...And you. I'll send Ashelia your regards.”

“Thank you.” Bernard watched Ashley set off again, presumably towards Ul'dah, but walking this time. He stood there, watching his friend disappear, and dwelt on how easy it would be to follow him. To abandon his city. He'd weathered two decades, he'd weathered an entire generation. Did he really need to stick around, still? And what if the Garleans executed him upon his return, after having been gone for so long?

But with Ashley at rest, I can't betray Marco. I still have a handful of cards to play.

Though he could recall so little of the path he had taken to the Shroud after stowing away aboard the Riskbreakers' vessel up in Azys Lla, his journey back to the Sandsea had been an easy one. He had permitted himself simply to walk for the first time since he had left on his mission for the XIIth, and his feet had carried him back to the manse as if of their own accord. Walking had given him more time to think about what he could begin to say.

The Sandsea was a prominent fixture along the Goblet's northern skyline, but any twinge of pride he might have felt was undone by his anxiety. The closer he came, the more he felt her presence saturated in every ilm of the land. He was reminded of how stupid it had been to think her dead, far from any trace of her though he had been.

He blinked upon reaching the house's front steps and was abruptly sitting at a table in the bar with a cup of black coffee, watching a shadow approach from somewhere out in the garden.

He raised a fist to knock on the front door and hesitated.

The door opened for him all the same.

Ashelia stood framed in the threshold, her violet eyes intent on him. Here, lit by the morning sun and standing only a few fulms away as she was, he could take measure of her far better than he had in the Dravanian ruins. She was tall, not quite Tia's height but certainly above Alma's; her hair, tucked back by a black beret, was of a lighter shade than that of the child in his memories.

When he beheld her face, he was ashamed to have mistaken her for Alma for so many years, even if that time had been spent seeing through her eyes. He saw much of Alma reflected there, yes, but so too did he see Tia in the curve of her mouth - and the slight quirk in her eyebrow as she surveyed him in return was the very picture of Brynhilde, his own mother, dead now for decades.

Somewhere in the bar beyond, a puppy began to bark.

"You're here," she said.

Her voice was of no surprise to him, as he had dreamed so often of speaking it himself. He nodded.

"On their orders?"

She seemed to already have sensed the answer, but he gave his reply nonetheless. "...No."

Her shoulders relaxed. Behind her, the dog continued its yapping.

"...You've come a long way."

So have you, he longed to say. "I stowed away on your airship up in-"

"I meant from Garlemald. You've seen Bernard, then?"

"Last evening. Just north of Baelsar's Wall."

At that, the barking rose to a volume and intensity that would render any further conversation between them futile. Rounding on the small shape crouched over the rug, he shouted "Argath, no!" just as Ashelia snapped "Quiet, you!"

Argath looked between them, doubtless confounded to be addressed thusly by a stranger, and offered one last defiant bark before scampering off into the basement. A quiet chuckle escaped Ashelia as she watched the pup depart - and as she turned back to face him, he was stunned to realize that he was laughing as well.

"Come in," she said at last, and held open the door for him.

It was eerie to watch him move about the Sandsea. He helped himself to a cup of coffee at her urging and knew without hesitation where each object necessary to the process could be found: mug in the cabinet above the sink, spoon in the leftmost drawer, kettle already warm on the stove, cream in the icebox. Judging by the continual furrowing of his brow with each step he took around the bar, he seemed just as confused by his own foreknowledge as she did.

"Muscle memory?" she offered as she handed him her own mug for a refill.

"Ashelia." They had taken seats at the booth by the window, and he marveled at the simultaneous ease and impossibility of it all. To say her name, let alone to say it to her... "You'll find me changed from the man I was twenty years ago."

The words came out sounding far more useless and trite even than he had anticipated, and the scowl she shot him in response was well-deserved.

He had walked a good many malms to tell her what he had to say and wondered if she already knew most of it.

"Doubtless you've wondered why I never followed you out of Ala Mhigo. Please know, Ashelia, that I would never have forsaken you willingly. The truth is that what I remember of Ala Mhigo's fall differs greatly from what actually transpired. For many years, what I knew was that you and your mother were dead - murdered by Bernard Undertaker - and that Alma went missing in the siege."

Ashelia's eyes widened, doubtless at the mention of Bernard.

"Only when we met in Dravania did I recall things as you do, as they actually took place - but even then, I cannot say for certain what became of me after we said farewell in Ala Mhigo. I was captured, tortured, I think-"

"No one else believed me," she whispered. She clasped her mug with one hand, holding it to the side of her face as she stared out the window. "I told anyone who would listen that you had saved me, but they thought me delusional after all the horrors I had seen that day. And then-" He had seen this expression on her face in the Dravanian ruins: a quiet loss, and a fear of losing still more. "I dreamed, night after night after night, that the Garleans were torturing me. Experimenting on me. I knew it was happening to you, somehow, though I couldn't understand it or put it into words. And Tia trying to end the dreams only made them worse."

Tia. She called her mother by her first name. Bernard had said nothing to indicate damage to their relationship - which meant that something unspeakable had come to pass between them.

"...Your mother."

She had dreaded the possibility of this moment for years. So often had she struggled to imagine what her father would have thought of her, been haunted by what he might have said for how their relationship had deteriorated. When she had been but a teenager, those thoughts and fears had been the only thread keeping her and her mother together, until even that had at last been severed. He must have seen something on her face, because his expectant face filled with concern the longer she fought for words. "She... things are better now. Or at least, they were. But she was never the same after Alma... after Alma..."

"What happened?"

Tears were the last thing she wanted.

"Alma was with us up until we entered the Shroud." She could not keep the tremble from her voice. "But the elementals wouldn't let her through. She tried to follow us, but the trees kept forcing her off the path, kept bringing her back to the highlands. And then the Garleans came, and we heard... we heard her screaming. She was begging for us to run, to leave her behind... and we never saw her again."

Were those tears in his eyes?

"And I know I wasn't the easiest child to care for, especially with the dreams. I would cry so loudly at night that half the camp proposed to throw me to the Amalj'aa. Tia started taking somnus, at first to sleep a little easier... and one thing led to another. She... she started..." She could not say the next piece without incriminating him for the same offense. "She started mistaking me for Alma as I got older, whenever she was on the pipe. When I was about fifteen or so, I couldn't take any more. My hair was still in braids at that point, like the ones Alma wore; I took my knife and cut it all off, down to the roots. We didn't speak for years after that."

He thought he recalled the years that followed: foul-smelling potions brewed in mesa walls, ventures and heists amid the blinding sands, and an abiding, gut-wrenching disdain for anything that did not further the ambition of home.

She took a sip of her coffee as he reflected on the nature of those dreams and winced as his own lips were burned.

"Bernard said she left the camp."

It was several moments before Ashelia could respond. "Things were improving between us after I founded the Riskbreakers. I don't know what changed, but she threw away her pipe. Only a few weeks ago, I received word from Gundobald that she had disappeared. It was as if she had stood up and walked away, though she's struggled to walk anywhere for ages. No one has heard from her since then, and by now, it's... it's been so long that we fear the worst."

"She was ill for some time," my bloody arse. Go fuck yourself, Bernard. "What's the likelihood of kidnapping?"

"There's been no word from Mil-" Milleuda Folles, he knew, sister of Kingsguard knight Wiegraf Folles. "-from the Corpse Brigade, or from any separatist Resistance factions, at least not thus far. If she were taken, ransom likely isn't their goal."

He sat in silence, turning his thoughts over and over for any possible answers and finding none. "I'll start looking for any trace of her as soon as I'm able," he promised. He would need to take considerable precautions to ensure that his presence in Eorzea remained undetected by any Garlean frumentarii, and perhaps two weeks was an impossibly cold trail, but this would at the very least give him something with which to occupy himself. Another task, another objective, another mission.

For only a moment, Ashelia's eyes lit up with hope.

"Can I trust Bernard?" The question spilled out of her rather abruptly during a tangent on his journey back from the Shroud.

Her father stopped, breathed a deep sigh, and lowered his gaze to the table between them.

"You said he... you said you remembered him murdering me and Tia." Even as she said the words, she strove to firmly remove the picture from her mind; it did not bear thinking about for a man who had once insisted on watching her sleep.

"The memory was the XIIth Legion's doing," he insisted. "Their means, I imagine, of turning me against Ala Mhigo once and for all."

It made sense. If her father and Bernard had been as brothers - her father, Bernard, and Marco - it stood to reason that the fracturing of a bond between two people so rooted in loyalty to their homeland would have been devastating to his deepest convictions.

Argath returned from the basement, triumphantly carrying an appropriated sock in his mouth.

"Bernard's been an ornery shite his entire life, but if he's even a fraction of the man he was twenty years ago, he wouldn't so much as think of doing harm to me. Or to my flesh and blood."

"Unless he saw it as a necessity, you mean."

At that, he smirked. "You've come to know him well."

"We have to think back." A slight frown crossed Ashelia's face as she did so. "Aside from the earth wyrm in the Shroud, what near-death experiences have there been that we've each recovered from?"

Her gaze fell down to a spot near the table, and he realized she was looking at the gash along his upper arm left from where the wyrm had swiped at him. "I nearly starved when I was about ten," she admitted in a voice quiet enough to make his heart break. "There was no food to be had in the camp for days, none at all. I went out into the desert and saw a dead peiste. It was half-rotted, but I supposed it would be safe from all the buzzards on it. The meat poisoned my stomach for a week. Gundobald told me it was through the grace of Nymeia that I survived."

When she was ten. "That would have been fifteen years ago." Fortunately he did not have to rack his brain for a corresponding incident. "There was a feast held in Ala Mhigo for all sorts of visiting Garlean dignitaries. One moment I was fine; the next, I was violently ill. Directly outside the ballroom doors." Ashelia gave a devious giggle. "I was in the infirmary for a week with what they figured was some sort of flu. But that care must have been what kept you alive."

"Something I've been curious about: I don't always see things from you when I'm asleep. It's usually when you're engaged in battle, I would say - though with you, of course, that's a relatively frequent occurrence. Would you say the same of your dreams?"

He paused for a moment to think. "Yes," he said cautiously, "and no. The most vivid dreams I've had were of... running across the Sagolii at sunrise."

"My morning exercise," she mused. "It was a form of meditation in its own way." She gazed out the window at the sky now turning from orange into blue, and he could not begrudge her her wistfulness for the memories they shared of color and light. "I imagine I was drawing on the Echo without realizing it. Perhaps that's the key to this connection, above all else: a connection to the Echo, be it through battle or meditation, or..."

"Anxiety," he finished. "The ruins were proof of that."

She nodded. It was the first either of them had spoken of that meeting, their first in twenty years.

"Do you think there could be a way to sever the connection?" he asked. The look she gave him was one of surprise, but it was not for his own sake that he posed the question.

"I... I don't know. Of all the people I've ever met with the Echo, I've never heard of anyone losing their gift. It could be this is something we'll have to simply... make the most of."

"Ashelia, I-"

"Don't," she snapped, and her voice was firm for the first time. "Don't apologize. Not for this. For all the pain it's brought us both, it's saved our lives."

That was certainly true.

"What now, then?" she asked at long last. The pause between their questions had been substantial enough for them to find time for a light breakfast: toast, bacon, and rolanberries. Though her father had savored the food, as he had doubtless seen little more than prepackaged Garlean rations for the past several moons, he had eaten only in moderation.

"I don't know," he admitted. He stood to her right at the sink, washing the dishes they had used. Already he was a better houseguest than half the residents of the Sandsea. "I do intend to look for Tia... but I have to determine first that the Garleans have no means of affecting my memories from afar."

It was a thought she had not imagined before: that she might regain her father after twenty years, only to lose him once more to the Garleans. "Do you want to stay here?" There was, after all, no safer place in Eorzea for anyone in hiding from the Empire.

He blinked in surprise, but thankfully, he made no displays of self-reliance. "I'd be grateful."

And so, in truth, would she. "What would you have me call you?"

"Whatever you wish in private, though 'Rosenheim' would be for the best among the rest of your company."

She nodded; though she longed not to care about what the rest of her subordinates thought or knew of her personal life, neither was she ready to reveal that the man who had inspired so much of what the company stood for had served for twenty years as a Garlean, willingly or otherwise.

He set the last plate into the cupboard and sighed, staring around at the bar as if he were truly seeing it for the first time. "This is all of your own making, you know," he said. "Whatever else our connection may have given you, I had no hand in this."

Argath sat down on the floor and scratched himself so vigorously that he toppled over.

"I hope you're proud." He placed a firm hand on her shoulder - an Ala Mhigan expression of solidarity - and she returned the gesture. "You've done far more than I could ever have achieved. And even had you not, you would still deserve to be proud."

Though it had been years since she had striven for his praise, she nodded. Her eyes began to sting with tears.