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~*~
It’s all wrong. All of it.
The Lightwardens defeated. Vauthry, defeated. And yet the pall of everlasting light has returned to Lakeland, to all of Norvrandt. It blazes down upon them, as harsh and unforgiving as the sun-baked sands of Amh Araeng, just barely kept at bay by the Crystarium’s shutters and tinted glass. Looming as vast and terrible as the singular thought that gnaws at Alisaie’s skull.
They failed. They’re finished. The First is finished. Mankind is finished.
And here she is, perched on a bed in the Pendants like a schoolgirl having a sleepover, having to go about her evening as if the world isn’t about to end.
“Alisaie?”
Alisaie snaps towards the sound. Ryne squeals in surprise at the force of her glare. Alisaie glances away, guilty, the image of Ryne flinching away from her in fear coiling uncomfortably around the base of her spine.
“I-- I’m sorry,” Ryne stammers. “I was just going to ask if you would mind brushing my hair.”
Alisaie sighs, and relents. She pats a spot on the bed beside her, and Ryne primly settles in, her hands folded in her lap. The brush Ryne hands her is feather-light and shimmers like coral, not unlike her crystal rapier.
“Do you like it?” Ryne asks, with an eagerness in her voice that immediately softens the edges of Alisaie’s jagged, knife-sharp despair. “It was a gift! From Urianger. Made by the pixies, he said. Though, he was quick to remind me to always be wary of accepting gifts from the Fae.”
“Mm,” Alisaie hums, drawing the brush down Ryne’s long, ginger hair. So soft, and rather luscious for a fugitive of Eulmore. She idly wonders if being an Oracle of Light meant even her hair was immaculate, untouchable, unsullied by the world and its troubles.
“Do you know why he’s called us all together?” Ryne asks.
“I’ve been trying not to think about it,” Alisaie mutters.
“...Oh,” Ryne murmurs. She purses her lips, thoughtful, deciding to change tack. “Um. Do you, um. Do you fancy anyone, Alisaie?”
Ryne doesn’t see how the question stops Alisaie in her tracks. How it tightens her jaw, how her eyes go hard as glass. The haunted quiet behind her, though, says more than enough.
“...I’m sorry,” Ryne whispers, a moment later.
In her aether, Ryne can feel it-- a door slamming shut whenever it starts to creak. One that always manages to wriggle itself open, over time.
“It’s alright,” Alisaie murmurs, with a false, practiced calm. “Everybody’s lost somebody. I’m nothing special.”
“That’s not true!” Ryne blurts out, whirling around.
Alisaie blinks at her, puzzled, distracted from her unquiet mind by Ryne’s outburst. Heat flashes across Ryne’s cheeks and she turns back around, wondering about what exactly had come over her.
For a long moment, the only sound is bristles parting Ryne’s hair. Alisaie is forced to admit that this little ritual, tedious at first, was starting to become rather soothing. The flutter in Ryne’s chest, on the other hand, was anything but.
Alisaie can feel the worry in Ryne’s neck, the hitch in the other girl’s shoulders. That’s twice now Ryne’s tried to make conversation and been met less-than-cordially. Alisaie sighs, trying to meet her halfway.
“...You have beautiful hair,” she muses.
“Do you really think so?” Ryne beams. She clears her throat. “Um, I mean-- th-thank you. You do, too.”
Alisaie laughs, and this time, it’s more genuine.
“No, I don’t. That’s half the reason I keep it in this stupid rat’s tail braid, so I don’t have to bother with it. The other half is Sharlayan tradition.”
“How do you mean?” Ryne wonders.
“You start keeping a braid when you begin the path to an Archonate. A symbol at-a-glance at how much your knowledge has grown, or some other pompous nonsense,” Alisaie scoffs. “It’s old-fashioned, even by Sharlayan’s stuffy standards. You won’t find too many people practicing it today. But Father insisted.”
“I see…” Ryne hums, thoughtful.
“Alphinaud and I left Sharlayan before we completed our Archonates. But I daresay what we’ve accomplished since qualifies us for the Mark far more than any of those self-important academics. The braids are just a reminder of those Studium days. Old habits, I suppose.”
“And if you had received your Archon’s Marks? What then?”
Alisaie shrugs. “We’d be free to do as we wish. I would cut mine-- no sense in keeping something a foe could grab in a fight. Alphinaud supposes he would keep his. Wear his hair long, like Captain Lyna’s luscious locks. I told him he was more likely to come out looking like Estinien.”
Ryne lets out a very unladylike snort, clapping her hands over her mouth. Alisaie grins, despite everything.
“I told you about him, did I not?”
“Yes,” Ryne said through her snickering. “A comparison Alphinaud would hate, I’m sure.”
Silence seeps back between them. Warmer, less fraught than before. Eventually, Alisaie speaks into the intimate quiet.
“How about you, Ryne?” Alisaie asks. “Do
you
fancy anyone?”
Ryne’s cheeks flush a shade closer to her hair.
“Well,” Ryne begins, sounding suspiciously rehearsed. “Growing up as I did, cloistered in Eulmore, you gather fewer suitors than you’d think. I haven’t had much time to spend with people my own age… and the ones I do seem rather preoccupied.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, yes,” Ryne nods, lips curling into a sly smile. “With ‘nothing less than--’”
“‘--the salvation of this star!’” they finish together, two terrible Alphinaud impressions bleeding together as one. They devolve into hapless giggles, leaning into one another.
“Don’t tell him I told you that story,” Alisaie snickers, grinning.
“Not a word,” Ryne smiles.
Alisaie sets Ryne’s brush aside, forgotten. Ryne scoots over on the bed so she’s sitting beside Alisaie rather than in front of her, close enough for their knees to touch. Ryne glances up, meeting Alisaie’s eyes.
“Have you told him?” Ryne asks gently. “About… who you lost.”
“I--” Alisaie falters. Ryne’s eyes are so striking-- as if she can see right through her. Alisaie swallows hard.
“...No,” she admits. “He knows, of course. He knows me better than I know myself, and I know him. But have I actually
spoken
to him about it? No. Not him, not anyone.”
“Why not?” Ryne urges.
“He wouldn’t understand,” Alisaie snaps. “And before you ask, neither would you.”
Ryne’s elbow bumps against hers. Alisaie looks up to find Ryne’s gentle, pleading smile.
“Wouldn’t I?” Ryne asks.
“...Well,” Alisaie smiles, rueful. “Maybe you would.”
The look in Alisaie’s eyes just about tears Ryne in two. The loss. The struggle. The facade of strength. Softened, now, by the glimmer of knowing. Of unexpected kinship.
She looks
so
soft.
Ryne wrings her hands, and plants them firmly on her lap before she does something foolish.
“...There’s something I wanted to say,” Ryne begins, staring at her hands in her lap. “If… if we manage to get through this, if Norvrandt is saved and you and the Scions return to your world. I wanted to ask you something, before the end. And… well… if it really is hopeless… if tomorrow we’re all lost in Light, then I really,
really
need to say this before then--”
Ryne squeaks, her eyes darting up like a chipmunk. Alisaie smiles, a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“
Breathe
,” Alisaie urges.
“R-Right,” Ryne smiles.
Ryne reaches up to the lock of her hair styled in tribute to the first Minfilia, the first Oracle of Light, and carefully pulls the ribbon free. She loops the length of pink silk in her palm, and stretches out her hand.
“I was wondering if you would accept this,” Ryne says softly.
For all her bravado, Alisaie’s heart still flips in her chest. She stares at Ryne, her eyes wet.
“...I understand if, if pink isn’t really your color,” Ryne barrels ahead, taking Alisaie’s stunned silence for hesitation. “And I know I’m-- uh-- I’m not… I’m not her. But if we actually find a way out of this, if the Warrior of Darkness finds a miracle and you get to go home, it’ll be something for you to remember me by…”
“Ryne,” Alisaie says gently.
Two hands on Ryne’s shoulders cease her flustered babbling. Alisaie meets her eyes with a soft, sad gaze.
“Ryne,” Alisaie says firmly. “I’m honored. I am. But I don’t know if I can give you what you seek, or how long we’ll have it if I do. We’re… kind of in a crisis, here.”
“...Oh. Right,” Ryne squirms under her gaze. “M-Maybe you could still wear it? Use it to tie off your braid, at least until you finally decide to cut it. Until it’s something you’ve outgrown…”
“Look at me.”
Ryne does as she’s told. Immediately she’s struck by the gulf of maturity between them. Ryne is starry-eyed, a babe in arms, one who discovered herself only in the last hectic months. Alisaie, meanwhile, looks like someone who’s known herself all her life.
“Promises you can’t keep are no better than lies,” Alisaie says firmly. “So I offer no promises, only hopes.”
Alisaie’s hands slide down Ryne’s arms, her touch electrifying. She takes Ryne’s hand in hers, and closes her fingers around the pink ribbon in her palm.
“I hope you find someone to give this to, someday,” Alisaie says. Reverent, like a prayer. “Maybe someone like me, maybe not. Maybe someone stronger. I hope the Warrior of Darkness finds a way, that all of Norvrandt is saved and you have a future that’s more than just fighting. And I hope that this… this feeling that you have now… is something you never have to outgrow.”
Ryne gasps out a sob and dives into Alisaie’s arms. They hold each other, in wordless grief and desperate, yearning hope, as the sky over the Crystarium blazes with light. Eventually, they fall into a fitful sleep, still tangled in each other, dreaming of a Norvrandt restored. Of a peaceful life, an ordinary life. A future that is almost gone.
In the morning, Urianger will convene the Scions. He will tell them the truth of the Exarch’s identity, and help the Warrior of Darkness put their miracle in motion. In the morning, Alisaie and Ryne won’t be normal teenage girls. They’ll be heroes again, carrying hope on their shoulders and straining under the weight.
But until then, let them dream.
~*~