Chapter Text
Energy from the four meteorites converges at an oddly shaped strip of land, stretching itself into a web of light across a crack in the earth. Faris has scarcely caught her breath from the climb up when Lenna leaps into the warp. Forget the fire crystal’s chosen having any claim to courage. Lenna casts herself into the light without a second thought, and when the warp stretches concave with her weight, Faris’ stomach flips.
The magic – energy, technology, whatever it is – quickly rebounds, sending Lenna on her way. Faris follows. What’s this world worth without her headstrong princess to keep her on her toes? Faris isn’t certain where the other world is, whether it’s a place that can be reached by crossing something so simple as distance or whether their realities are laid upon one another, edges starting to fray; all she knows is that for a bright, blistering moment, she’s more light than matter, sprawling and confined, tearing across an ocean that has never existed.
Nothing hurts. Not the loss of Syldra, not her father’s death. Their sacrifices coalesce in the expanse within her and everything fits. Her and Lenna are exactly where they’re supposed to be: together, doing the only thing that makes sense to either of them.
The feeling fades as soon as it envelops her. The light sears away and Faris hits the ground hard, reminding her of the mortal bounds of her flesh and blood body. Not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough for her fingers to find the shapes that best complement white magic incantations.
For all that this is a new world, the grass is green and the sky is blue. Clouds drift overhead. Bartz points out that the mountains look different, but rock is rock. It can be eroded into any shape. Fire flickers to life at Faris’ command and the three of them sit around a campfire, wishing for a map that wouldn’t mean anything to them. Despite the unsettling familiarity, Faris can tell they’re in a new world, even if she can’t say how the knowledge comes to her. Getting there felt so impossible that it slipped her mind to make plans beyond their immediate arrival.
They didn’t crash land at Galuf’s feet. They’ve a whole world to search for one former-amnesiac.
A whole world where nobody knows them. A whole world that’s never heard of Tycoon, much less its princesses. Faris smiles at Lenna as Bartz snores softly by the campfire. Even when the conversation turns to Hiryu and their mother, necessitating the careful shuttering of Faris’ expression, she can’t quite smother the sparks of excitement in her gut.
But because she’s Faris Scherwiz and she’s never known more than eighteen consecutive hours of peace in her life, what she takes for an opportunistic monster leads to imprisonment in the castle of Exdeath himself. Naturally, since the three of them came to help Galuf, Galuf has to rescue them, and there’s hardly time to explain themselves before they’re fighting their way through swarms of Exdeath’s forces on a continent-spanning bridge.
It’s hardly been weeks since Galuf returned to his world, yet Faris can’t deny that it feels good to fight together again.
Exdeath’s barrier flings them halfway across the world. It feels worse than a warp and the four of them take turns passing the white mage’s shard around, healing each other up as best they can. Faris downs potion after potion, needing all the strength she can scrape together after the gamut of battles.
“It’s like we never left our world,” Faris grumbles, trudging through the mud. “Here we are, out in the middle of nowhere, knackered, praying we can drag ourselves to a village that’ll sell us a tent if they don’t have any rooms left.”
Galuf slaps her between the shoulder blades.
“No one asked you kids to lug yourselves to another world and make my problems twice as worse,” Galuf says without any malice. “Makes me miss the days when amnesia was my biggest worry.”
Faris knocks a fist against his shoulder. She knows damn well that he’s pleased to see them.
As evening makes its last stand, they reach a small town by the name of Regole. Galuf can tell them nothing about the town itself beyond the brewery they’re famed for, but has little faith in finding any form of transportation there. The people in the streets gawk at them as though they can tell they’re from another world. When Faris’ approach of glowering at anyone who comes too close doesn’t get them answers, Lenna takes to talking to the locals.
It turns out Regole hasn’t seen visitors in years. So much for blending in with the locals. After an age of getting turned around, they find a tavern that isn’t unlike the ones Faris grew up around: good, solid furniture, much of it sticky, a fire blazing in a stone hearth, but nothing in the way of dancers. Faris pulls out a seat for Lenna, summoning a smile to her tired face, and really, it’s the best sight she’s seen in this world or any other.
Faris slumps in her own chair. Galuf brings them drinks, pretending generosity alone motivates him, and assures them dinner is on the way.
“If it weren’t for you, old man, I would’ve been straight to bed,” Faris says, sipping her ale.
She wouldn’t go out of her way to acquire a barrel of it, spirits have always been more to her taste, but it takes the edge off after the day they’ve had.
“Again, I didn’t invite you here, much less order your presence,” Galuf says.
There’s a hint of a grin curling the corner of his mouth. He’ll claim it’s the ale that’s put him in high spirits, not the present company, so Faris doesn’t waste her breath on a retort.
“What Faris means to say is that we really do want to explain ourselves,” Lenna says, voice edged with more friendliness than royal diplomacy. “As you can imagine, we didn’t intend to become Exdeath’s prisoners within a handful of hours of arrival.”
Galuf sighs fondly and shakes his head.
Grinning, Bartz says, “And we had no idea that he’d have a giant mirror! Or any mirror, honestly. I’m sorry we ruined your big stand.”
“Pssh,” Galuf says, waving Bartz off. “The plan was pure desperation. If something had to go wrong, it may as well have been the three of you turning up. Are you going to tell me what on earth this is all about?”
Bartz scratches the back of his neck. Lenna has the decency to look sheepish, and Faris supposes Lenna has the memory of their grandparents to fall back on.
“Like it or not, yer one of us. It didn’t feel right, letting you face this all alone—even if you’ve got an army at yer back,” Faris says. “Our crystals might be blown to smithereens, but there might just be something in this world we can still protect.”
Galuf lets out a pleased hmph and fights to smooth out his smile. He lifts his stein in a silent toast, knowing he can’t very well put them all on a meteorite back to their own world.
“Warriors of Light till the end, hmm,” he says, rubbing his chin. “We’re going to have to fall back on our usual plan: take rooms for the night and hope we can figure out a way forward in the morning.”
Their food arrives. It’s nothing Faris hasn’t eaten before; it isn’t even a combination of dishes she wouldn’t have put together. The cook clearly went out of their way with outsiders to feed for the first time in years, but Faris barely has time to appreciate how good it looks. She eats fast, eats with her fingers, and Galuf boasts of the castle he’ll take them to and all Balian hospitality has to offer.
Faris shoots Lenna a sidelong glance. Lenna smiles, covering her mouth as she chews, and seems to understand what the lift of Faris’ brow means.
As Galuf finishes his last drop of ale and slaps his thigh, Faris gestures for him to remain seated.
“There’s just one last thing, before we all put our heads down,” Faris says, voice low and serious. “Now that we’re in this brand-new world where no one knows us, I wanna keep it that way. Y’know things about me most people don’t and I’m trusting you’ll keep that to yerself. I’m no royal, not here. The devil knows I’m not much of a royal back in my own world. I’m just Faris, just a pirate. Let’s not complicate things, aye?”
Galuf raises his brow. He knows exactly what Faris is getting at. Other than the small matter of losing all his memories, not much gets past him. He blinks, gaze darting to Lenna. A guilt Faris is determined not to feel churns all the food she’s just put in her stomach; still, she refuses to flinch.
It doesn’t matter whether Galuf knows or not. It’s her and Lenna’s business and no one else’s; Faris knows how to keep her hands to herself in public. Oh, she’s always taken pleasure in the boast of a tavern girl sat in her lap while she drank with her crew, but that was nothing but a show. Whatever she’s embarked on with Lenna, whatever words Faris can’t say yet, add up to more than simple preening.
“And are you a man in this world?” Galuf asks, almost amused.
Faris shrugs.
“Take yer pick,” she says.
Heading over to the counter and asking for a room for her and Lenna is the only thing that saves Faris’ mood. Galuf calls over that he’ll settle the bill, likely planning on getting drunk with Bartz, and Faris waves over her shoulder as she lumbers up the stairs.
“I’m sure Galuf isn’t angry with us,” Lenna says as she closes their door behind her.
“Angry at us for barging in on his world with no way back or angry at us?” Faris grumbles.
“Faris,” Lenna says, placing her hands on Faris’ collarbone. It isn’t fair. Lenna knows that will placate her. “Dear Faris. This is complicated enough for the two of us, isn’t it? Don’t be too disheartened by Galuf. He’s doing his best to understand, even if he won’t ever approve.”
Faris wants to argue. It’s in her nature. Unfortunately, Lenna’s voice is soothing and her words reasonable, and Faris can’t grumble anything under her breath without giving the game away; without admitting that even in this new world she’s still afraid of being caught out.
Her life is as good as in Galuf’s hands.
“Aye. Yer right. We’ve just had one hell of a rough welcome to this world,” Faris says, planting a kiss on Lenna’s forehead. “I’ll feel better once I’ve washed up.”
Lenna smiles sweetly up at her, belying her own exhaustion. Faris thinks she might kiss Lenna in earnest if Lenna doesn’t kiss her first, but there’s an awkward moment where they both falter, thoughts and actions diverging. Faris thinks to the night on the airship after all their tears and honesty and talk of their father, thinks of all they said and did and wonders exactly how much of that was an unhealthy coping mechanism. Maybe it was fear and confusion and disgust that moved them, the need to deny what they were to one another.
But there’s no denying it now.
“You go first,” Faris says, tilting her head to the adjoining bathroom and stepping away.
Lenna doesn’t argue. She draws in a breath as though she has something to say but soon steps aside.
Once the water is running, Faris goes through their bags. She takes inventory, ensures everything is in working order, and digs out a needle and thread to make a few quick repairs. She counts their gil, only to wonder if this world even uses gil. She’ll have to ask Galuf in the morning.
Lenna emerges from their bathroom, short hair darkened with water, and tells Faris she’s run a bath for her.
“That’s good of you,” Faris says, kissing Lenna’s cheek as she steps past.
She wonders if the gesture felt forced.
The moment Faris slips into the water, bath quickly upgraded from pleasantly warm to almost scalding thanks to a quick fire spell, she comes back to her senses. She feels like herself again. She scrubs her hair through with an otherworldly concoction that looks and smells suspiciously like what she’s used to and lets the lather drip down her shoulders as she soaks.
“We could be in Tule right now,” Faris says, perched naked on the edge of the draining bath as she rubs her hair dry.
“We could,” Lenna agrees from the other room. “I don’t know what I expected to find in a new world, but after all the places we visited in our own, this is all so…”
“Normal?” Faris suggests.
“Exactly! Did we really travel from another world to this one? Surely we’re just in a corner of the world you have to squint at to see on a map. It seems impossible that we can’t go home.”
Home means something very different to the pair of them.
“I’ve had a harder time navigating the Torna Canal, that’s for certain.”
Faris instinctively grabs her binding vest from the floor but tells herself it it’s just Lenna. She’s not hiding anything, not in this world. She pulls on a long tunic that’s comfortable enough for sleeping in and squints at the small, square looking glass as she picks between her teeth.
“Reckon it won’t feel like a whole new place until we get to that castle of Galuf’s and see him being treated like a king. I’m not sure Bartz has it figured out yet,” Faris says, chuckling to herself.
Lenna doesn’t answer.
“That Gilgamesh fella was an odd one. Doubt we’ve seen the last of him,” Faris hums a moment later.
Again, there’s no answer.
When Faris steps into the main chamber a few minutes later, she finds Lenna fast asleep, lantern light washing over her face. For all Faris’ exhaustion, the ache that runs from her shoulders to the balls of her feet, she’s struck by the fancy that she could stand there, watch Lenna sleep, and not want for anything.
She doesn’t, of course. There’s little point in staring at her princess when she could crawl into bed with her. Faris carefully pulls the blankets back and lowers her weight onto the bed, but the unfamiliar frame gives a little groan and Lenna stirs despite her best efforts.
“Oh, Faris, I—I must’ve fallen asleep,” Lenna mumbles, making as if to sit up.
“Hush, lass,” Faris says, slipping her arms around Lenna and pulling her close. “Let’s have none of that. Get some rest, aye?”
Lenna lets out a pleased little noise as her body relaxes against Faris’, fitting as perfectly against her as gentle water against a jagged shore. What does it matter if the same blood courses through each of them, filling the hollows? Surely it’s all the proof Faris needs that they were made for this, made for each other.
One of these days, Faris might say something of the sort out loud. For now, it’s only a distant thought, a notion sleep makes her vulnerable to, and she drifts into dreams she has little chance of remembering.
For all Regole’s residents deride it as a sleepy, insignificant town with nothing that could possibly interest outsiders, there are places enough to eat. Faris wakes early, has her entire life, and when Lenna stirs, she takes her out for breakfast. Faris is eager to avoid the men – one more than the other – and wants to actually indulge in the fiction they’re spreading in this world: they are but two people who went from strangers to lovers with nothing blindsiding them beyond the inequality of their stations.
Faris offers Lenna her arm. Lenna takes it, beaming.
Faris picks a narrow restaurant tucked into the main street. It’s a low-ceilinged affair with windows too low down to let in much light, but the tables and floors are clean enough and there are just enough patrons to signify a healthy flow of business.
Faris takes a small table in the corner. All eyes are on them, but there aren’t any wanted posters to blame that on. Faris doesn’t doubt they’ll be the talk of the town for years. Imagine the excitement if the locals discovered that they were from another world and not merely a distant village.
Lenna sits with her chin in her palm, grinning. She looks around, smiles warmly at anyone who catches her eye, and that same smile brightens whenever her gaze settles back on Faris. Faris raises her brow, questioning.
“This is all so new to me,” Lenna says. “I’m sure it sounds silly to someone like you, but I can hardly believe that I get to do this—to sit down at a restaurant, walking freely through a town, and see all these new sights. And all without a royal procession to block most of my view.”
Their journey may have spanned months and continents, but it’s overshadowed by the life of royal privilege and all its potent precautions.
“Don’t sound silly to me at all, love. I’m glad of the reminder, truth be told. You barge yer way into danger as though you’ve been chasing it all yer life,” Faris says.
Lenna’s face brightens with the compliment, easily flattered by the thought of matching Faris’ bravado.
“Hey,” a voice breaks in. The restaurant is a family affair, judging from the teenage boy who’s materialised at their table. “Do you want to order, or...?”
And that’s another thing about this world. The Regolian language is shockingly close to the dialect spoken in Lix.
“Aye. We’ll have whatever passes as a proper breakfast around these parts. The local speciality,” Faris says.
The boy waves both hands vaguely in the air.
“So, like. You want a normal breakfast?”
“If you’d be so kind.”
He shrugs, supposing that’s easy enough. He makes it a step towards the kitchen before finding the resolve to falter and turn back.
“Hey. Uh. Is it true that you’re a pirate?” he asks.
Faris chuckles.
“Now where’d you hear a rumour like that? Yer a brave lad asking that to my face, I’ll give you that,” Faris says.
“That’s a yes, right? Do you have a ship?”
Faris thinks to her beloved boat reduced to splinters in a waterlogged graveyard and idly debates whether the fire-powered ship or the airship can be considered hers, even with all the time she’s spent at the helm.
Lenna sees Faris’ brow twitch, knows exactly what she’s mulling over, and says, “He has a whole fleet of them.”
The boy raises his brow, impressed. He rocks on the balls of his feet, searches out another question to ask, but someone calls his name from the kitchens. He darts off, already having gossip enough to spread.
Faris settles into her seat, head tilted a little.
“I’m sorry if I made any assumptions,” Lenna says, catching her eye. “I wasn’t certain how you wanted to be referred to in public now that we’re in a different world entirely.”
Faris folds her arms across her chest and hums. She’s never been presented with a choice like this; not one she’s been truly free to make. It feels right that Lenna is the one offering it to her, for no one else could comprehend how obfuscated the matter is in Faris’ mind—in her body too, more often than not.
“You said it yerself. We’re in a brand-new world,” Faris says. “While I’m here with you, love, I wanna be myself. You just might have to be patient while I figure out who that is.”
Lenna reaches across the table, giving her a look of such pure devotion that Faris wants to run to a distant tavern, drink herself insensible, and pay for the company of three or four women whose names she’ll never learn, all while telling herself it was inevitable that it didn’t work out with the princess.
Being unfamiliar with the taverns and brothels of the land as she is, Faris instead opts to put her chair legs back on the floor and entwine her fingers with Lenna’s. Lenna beams at her like a pirate who’s found a chest of gold under an inked X and Faris doubts she looks any less smitten.
“I like it. I get to be myself, too. In a different way, of course, but it’s still exciting.”
Faris grins. Their food arrives but it’s a long moment before they unlink their hands.
Breakfast is an assortment of sliced fruit, cold meat, and hard cheese. Lenna hums to herself as she digs in, idly tucking her hair behind one ear, and when Faris pops an apple slice into her mouth, something about this world finally feels different. The apple doesn’t taste wrong or alien, doesn’t shock her into spitting it out; it’s just different. She chews slowly, eyes fixed on Lenna.
Faris finally lets herself believe that this new world might not be all empty promises after all.
*
Faris makes a decent trade for her armour and a few old pieces of gear. The town’s smith puzzles over the metalwork, having never seen anything of the sort before, and lets Faris help herself to a few extra pieces she has lying around. Faris procures a map along with the other standard fare at the town’s foremost general story, though the map only shows the general Gloceana area. There’s not much of note, save Kuza, the Sealed Castle.
Upon further inspection, the castle is mostly… sealed, and its empty, pristine corridors unnerve Faris. Luckily, Galuf is in a hurry to get back to his people and they don’t have time for more than a brief gander around the premises.
When they come across a moogle – a small, docile monster with a considerable store of intelligence – Lenna can’t be talked out of saving it. She charges into danger without a second thought for her own safety, sending a prerequisite spike of fear down Faris’ spine.
Still, it’s for the best. Moogles, see, are all telepathic, and it just so happens that Galuf’s granddaughter has a moogle companion of her own. Despite the moogles’ apparent lack of spoken language, Krile understands them all perfectly and it isn’t long before she arrives with her wind dragon.
To the untrained eye, the dragon looks just like Hiryu. He’s a beautiful creature, determined through his exhaustion, and setting eyes on him lifts Faris’ spirits as much as it makes her heart ache. Faris is grateful that Krile’s dragon is so distinct from its distant seafaring relative, and that she’s well-acquainted with Hiryu by now, else she’d be mired in contempt-addled grief all the way to Bal.
The dragon diligently lets the five of them climb on his back. Faris sits at the rear, Lenna in front of her. She slips her arms around the princess’ waist and spends the flight with her eyes closed, feeling the wind on her face and the warmth of Lenna’s body against her.
Faris has visited castles enough those last months that they no longer impress her. Little more can shock her more than learning that a castle is technically hers. What does impress her is the fact that it’s Galuf’s castle and the people call him Your Highness and Sire with a straight face. Bartz’s jaw drops. Faris is dully amused that it took him so long to put the pieces together and personally thinks her own royal reveal was far more dramatic.
Galuf had amnesia. He could’ve been anyone or anything. Faris was a pirate and thought she would never be anything more than that.
Krile takes the dragon to his roost to rest and Galuf shows them around the castle. The vast majority of the castle inhabitants are soldiers. Faris is slowly realising that this is a world not yet healed from a blight decades old; this is a world that knows loss and will fight to its last to preserve the few shreds it’s held onto. Regole won’t be the only town or village that hasn’t seen visitors in years.
“Most of the guards have a variety of skills. We all have to rotate between domestic duties to keep the castle spick and span,” Galuf explains. “A morning of cooking here, an evening of patrolling the walls there, a little elbow grease on the floors… it keeps everyone on their toes!”
He laughs at his own ingenuity, as though running his castle on a skeleton crew is born of anything but blinding necessity. Still, he makes the best of the life he’s always known. Faris doesn’t dare imagine how empty the castle halls were thirty years ago.
“I suppose that’s not too different to what we’re doing with our crystal shards,” Bartz muses.
Galuf slaps him between the shoulder blades and continues the tour. Soon they’ve seen the lean library, the busy kitchens, the castle’s infirmary, ever in demand, and peered through the armouries.
In the throne room, Galuf reclines in his ornate seat of power and introduces all the prominent figures in Bal: his chancellor, Krile’s governess, his trusted generals, and the half-dozen ministers who keep Bal running outside of warfare.
Clapping his hands together, Galuf says, “This is Bartz. I’ve told you all enough about him already, I’m sure,” to his people.
Murmured greetings fill the room and people bow their heads politely. Bartz is so thrilled by the thought of Galuf talking about him to his trusted advisors and old companions that Faris swears she sees him blush, momentarily breaking from the trance Galuf’s sovereignty has put him in.
“As for the others. Well, we’ve got royalty with us! This is Lenna, Princess of Tycoon, and that’s Faris—” Galuf says, leaning into a heavy pause. Faris’ stomach clenches like a fist but Lenna holds out a hand, stopping her from seizing by Galuf by the collar and demanding what the devil he thinks he’s doing. “King of the High Seas!”
He throws his head back, laughing uproariously. Faris isn’t above throttling him in front of his own court, but Lenna takes her hand and squeezes it tightly. It is so bold a move for royalty that none can be left in doubt of what they are to one another.
“Faris may be a pirate, but she’s a Light Warrior, too. None of us would’ve made it this far without her and King Galuf certainly wouldn’t be sitting on his throne right now. I’m not sure I could count how many times she’s saved his life,” Lenna says, warmth seeping into her attempted diplomacy.
Interest grips the gathered crowd. Faris is not merely a pirate but a pirate from another world; a pirate the crystals personally chose. Bartz and Lenna begin sharing tales of their adventures in their own world and Faris makes certain to share the worst of Galuf’s amnesic blunders. Galuf soon comes to the conclusion that it would be wise for them all to get some much-needed rest. The three of them are taken to the guest wing, where they’ve all been giving separate rooms, Bartz’s between Lenna’s and Faris’.
Ignoring the soldier’s explanation, Faris stomps into Lenna’s room and leaves her to apologise on her behalf.
“That smug old git,” Faris grumbles, pacing the length of the room once Lenna closes and locks the door behind her. “He’s on a proper wind-up.”
Lenna takes a cautious step forward. When Faris shoots her a glare clearly meant for someone else, Lenna braves her foul mood and smooths her hands over Faris’ shoulders.
“Faris, dearest,” is all Lenna says for a time, far more patient than Faris deserves.
Faris exhales heavily.
She can’t blame Galuf for his poor taste in jokes. He has every right to disapprove of Faris and Lenna, and it isn’t as though he’s actually done anything to stop the inappropriate feelings cascading between them. It’s the half-hearted disapproval that gets under Faris’ skin. He’ll huff and grumble but he won’t let it amount to anything, won’t made a stand. And it’s always Faris he’s glaring at, not Lenna.
But why wouldn’t he? Faris is the pirate, the scum of the seas, corrupted by her own nature. She’s rotten through and through and has condemned herself time and time again. And then there’s Lenna, the young princess, prim and proper and too brave for her own good, the perfect victim for Faris’s charms, naïve to the world as she is. Of course Galuf would want to protect Lenna. She’s all goodness, all grace; there’s still something worth saving in her. She can be washed clean of Faris’ influence and return safely to her old her, the life that awaits her still.
But there’s no saving Faris. There’s no redeeming her from what she’s twisted herself into.
“… Pisses me off, is all,” Faris grumbles.
“I know, dear sister,” Lenna murmurs, one hand pressing to her cheek. “He’s trying to get a rise out of you, but I don’t think he means any harm—even if he’s doing harm.”
Faris closes her eyes. She leans into Lenna’s touch and for a blissful moment, all she hears is Lenna’s breathing and her own heartbeat.
“Doesn’t matter. We’ve got it good, aye. Only one person to deal with who knows the damn truth,” Faris murmurs.
She slips her arms around Lenna, pulling her flush to her chest. Lenna lets out a pleased little sigh, arms looping around Faris’ shoulders. Faris shouldn’t be wasting time getting all riled up. There are far more important things to focus on, like the way Lenna pushes herself onto tiptoes to get that little bit closer.
Faris cups her face and pulls Lenna into the kiss she’s silently asking for. Gods, no one has ever kissed her like Lenna does; she makes her entire body part of the kiss, needing to connect to Faris at every point. She gasps prettily into her mouth, always willing to part her lips and let Faris in. But she isn’t a passive partner, either. She slides her tongue against Faris’, tangles her fingers in her hair, always certain to let her know she wants Faris more than the kiss; she wants the kiss because of Faris.
“Yer right,” Faris mumbles to the wordless point Lenna makes with her lips. Lenna’s fingers tighten in Faris’ hair as though she can’t stand Faris faltering for more than another syllable. “No use worrying about all that when yer here with me.”
Faris guides Lenna across the room, careful her princess doesn’t trip on the hefty rug laid across the centre of the room. The chamber is unlike any pretence of privacy they’ve had before. It is no village inn with creaking floorboards, beds pressed into corners, neighbours so close they need only clear their throats to be heard through the walls; it is no narrow tent that can no longer count on the wind drowning out any discord within; no airship cabin that for all its amenities, is really only divided from the ship proper by narrow wooden boards.
It is wide and open, its walls made of thick, ancient stones. Unlike Tycoon castle, Faris need not fear an ambitious guard intruding to save the princess from the pirate that’s crept through her window. After a lifetime spent sleeping in ships’ quarters, bunks rarely winder than the span of her shoulders, the bed at the heart of the room is almost comically large.
Faris seats Lenna on the edge of the bed. Lenna falls back with a confused little oh, barely cognisant of being moved at all, and grips the covers either side of her thighs. Her face is a delightful shade of pink, her lips already kiss-swollen, and the skirts she blessedly chooses to wear between her time with the crystal shards hitch around her thighs.
Faris begins unbuttoning her greatcoat. The heat in her stomach dissipates halfway down.
“Faris?” Lenna asks, her voice a dreamy little wisp.
Faris shakes her head. Her fingers move to the next button and still.
“Are you sure y’wanna keep doing this sort of thing?” Faris’ treacherous mouth asks, though her throat does its utmost to close tight around the words. “We can still be together without all this. I’m not expecting anything from you.”
“I…” It takes a moment for Lenna to thread a coherent thought together. It’s almost as though she’s the expectant one right now. “I’m—I’m sorry, Faris. I’m sorry if I made any assumptions.”
Lenna’s hands dart to smooth out her skirts. The colour overspreading her face shifts to an embarrassed hue.
“No, no, ain’t like that,” Faris says, stopping short of grabbing Lenna’s wrists. “I wanted to be sure, is all. It’s just that, if yer not wanting to, that don’t mean I’ll pack up and sail off. Listen, love—”
Faris screws her eyes shut. What is she trying to say? The bed, raised a good distance from the ground as it is, puts Lenna at eye level with her chest. Faris feels a gentle hand rest against her sternum.
“Are you trying to say that you still wish to court me, even if I have no desire to be intimate?” Lenna asks. Faris hears the corners of her mouth tug into a smile but stubbornly refuses to open her eyes. “That’s very thoughtful of you, Faris, but I—I’m not sure what I’ve done in the last few minutes to give you that impression.”
Faris exhales heavily through her nose. A hum, a grunt.
She thinks to the airship and the way they’d grasped at one another. It had been clear they wanted nothing but the other, but that had all been aching, instinctive, desperate; perhaps they were not in their right minds, or—
Or?
Faris doesn’t know. It isn’t their being related that’s stopped her dead. If she were forced to reflect on what’s twisting her gut, she might even conclude that any lingering disgust she feels for the sake of a propriety she’s never followed adds kindling to the fire burning low and hot. It isn’t the sister-thing. There’s an itching in the back of her head, a memory not so much lost as cut adrift, and if Faris opens her eyes, she’ll see it’s just Lenna before her.
Not just Lenna. Lenna could never be just anything. Faris opens her eyes and sees a princess, the water’s chosen warrior; a girl blind in her bravery and heedless of her own mortality; her sister, her lover; and perhaps most pertinent, she sees a girl pressing her thighs together impatiently.
“Don’t go listening to me. I’m getting in my own head over nothing,” Faris grumbles. “Just want to be sure, love. Not sure where our boundaries lie, is all.”
Lenna’s fingers twist in Faris’ collar. She gives a little tug and Faris obliges, placing her hands on either side of Lenna’s thighs and leaning down, their noses almost touching.
“I appreciate your concern, I really do. I know how important it is to you that I’m protected, how worried you are about doing anything to make me uncomfortable,” Lenna murmurs, her gaze drawn over and over to Faris’ lips. “But can’t you just—oh, can’t you be the pirate I first met? Surely it isn’t fair to start kissing me like that and then decide it’s the perfect moment for a talk.”
Faris almost snorts her laugh. She’ll have to remember that she likes it when Lenna gets worked up enough to break out the royal haughtiness, the thinly-veiled pleading that almost sounds like a demand.
Faris grips Lenna’s jaw and kisses her slow and deep, easing her back onto the bed. They can’t waste this opportunity, not with Exdeath looming and a whole new world to save. The door is locked. The walls are thick. They’ve all the night ahead of them.
Faris relishes in taking her time, in lavishing attention upon Lenna. She makes sure to give as much as she takes, though she can’t be held accountable for her pirate’s greed; her mind is wonderfully blank as she settles down where she belongs and the world narrows to a few sordid sensations. The taste of Lenna against her mouth, warm and slick, the fingers twisted in her hair, the thighs draped over her shoulders, and the chorus of whimpers, all utterly incoherent but for her name.
Faris sleeps deep, but not long. She wakes before the breaking of dawn, routine worn into her, and knows she will not fall back asleep even with Lenna tucked against her, naked. Lenna is doubtlessly used to rising early too, but she takes their little adventure as an opportunity to play fast and loose with a lifetime of etiquette. Faris can’t begrudge her that.
Faris untangles herself from Lenna as best she can. Lenna huffs a royal protest in her sleep and grasps blindly for Faris. Smoothing Lenna’s tangled hair back, Faris kisses her forehead in an effort to placate her, but Lenna stirs enough to blink bleary eyes open.
“Where are… time is it…?” Lenna murmurs.
“It’s not yet dawn, love. Get some more kip,” Faris says.
“Come back to bed.”
Lenna’s words are accompanied by a stretch. She’s not yet awake enough for modesty and the covers bundle around her waist, breasts and stomach covered in the little red marks Faris sucked into her skin. There are more yet decorating Lenna’s thighs. Faris almost climbs atop Lenna and wakes her in earnest, but there’s a sandpaper-rough fluttering in the back of her mind, the memory of a voice that isn’t Lenna’s.
“I wanna check on that dragon of Krile’s. Reckon we left the poor sod in bad shape,” Faris says.
Lenna pouts but knows Faris will not be divided from any duty that involves dragons. She relents, burying her face back in the pillow as she waves Faris off, asleep within a heartbeat.
Unlike Lenna, Faris is not so thoroughly undressed. Her breeches are halfway across the room, her boots slumped at the door, but her underwear clings to her hips. Her shirt, half unbuttoned and askew, covers the binding vest she not only slept in but took such strenuous activities in.
Which could mean nothing.
Faris adjusts her clothes and dresses, downs half the pitcher of water on the sideboard, leaves the rest for Lenna, and heads out into the wider castle.
No one waits outside the chamber for her, though Faris tenses in anticipation of the onslaught of fists and insinuations that never come.
All is quiet in the castle. Few servants flitter around and the soldiers’ ranks have thinned since the evening before. Faris takes the spiralling stairs up to the dragon’s roost two at a time, her eyes instinctively darting about for a hint of anything shiny.
The sun is only just rising, sky still a deep, solid blue everywhere but the horizon. Faris takes in the Kingdom of Bal with a clarity that yesterday’s exhaustion did not allow and sees a beautiful, desolate place. Its towns and villages are sparse, some smaller settlements no doubt abandoned when the survivors banded together close to the castle, and she imagines that many of the overgrown swathes of land were once a neat collection of patchwork fields.
Thirty years have passed since Exdeath was sealed away and the world has not yet begun the hard work of healing in earnest.
Thirty years is not only longer than Faris has been alive but longer than she’s ever imagined living.
At her intrusion, the wind dragon turns his head in a slow, arduous arc. The strength that saw him carry them across the ocean itself has evaporated, and he lies with his stomach and neck pressed to the cold stones of his roost. His wings rest limp against his back like a mere afterthought and the low growl that rattles from the back of his throat is not quite the warning he wants it to be.
Dragons are proud creatures. Faris is enough of a dragon herself to know that. Whenever Syldra was ill, he’d retreat to the depths of the ocean, unable to suffer any witnesses along with his weakness. The wind dragon must be faring worse than Faris feared to be in such visible distress.
Faris takes slow, wide steps towards him, hands held up. The growl dies in his throat, though one great fang glimmers in the dawn light as his scaly lip curls back.
Flies are beginning to gather around his eyes and the narrow holes that serve as his ears. Bile tinges the back of Faris’ throat.
“That can’t be comfortable, mate,” Faris says in what she hopes is a low rumble of reassurance. She stretches out her fingers, hands forming the shapes of the blue magic she hasn’t practised in weeks and weeks. “Lemme give you a hand, aye? Least I can do for you coming all that way to rescue us.”
The dragon exhales through his nostrils. Lifting her hands as though shaking out a bedsheet, Faris sends a gentle aero spell his way. The flies scatter. His slitted eye fixes on her.
“Faris?”
Krile climbs the last steps to the roost, holding two pails of water and carrying an assortment of rags over one shoulder. For all they’ve been through together, Faris has scarcely had time to say hello to the girl.
“Morning, lass,” Faris says. “Just came up to thank my mate here for all his help. Looks like yesterday really took it out of him.”
Krile’s teeth worry her lower lip. She has to blink a few times before she can find her words, and Faris wishes she didn’t know exactly what the girl was feeling.
“He’ll—he’ll feel better once he drinks, I’m sure of it,” Krile says in that accent that matches Galuf’s in everything but gruffness.
She sets the buckets by the dragon’s head and kneels down, scooping water between her palms. She presses her hands to his mouth but much of the water slides down his jaw, mapping rivers between his scales. Krile frowns. It’s obvious she knows how to care for creatures great and small, but never has her dragon been so utterly helpless.
“Here. Toss us one of those rags,” Faris says, kneeling by her.
Krile complies, confused. Faris expects she was going to use the rags to scrub his scales clean.
Faris soaks the cloth in one of the buckets before bringing it to the dragon’s mouth, then gently eases his lips apart. She squeezes the cloth, sending a few drops between his fangs, and after a moment sees his tongue shift. Letting out the breath tangled in her chest, Faris lowers the cloth into the dragon’s mouth and lets him suckle on it.
She can almost feel the relief peeling off Krile.
“You must miss him very much,” Krile says when Faris lowers the cloth into the bucket for a second time.
Faris looks her question.
“Your dragon,” Krile says. “He wasn’t exactly like mine, but a dragon is still a dragon. The way you feel about him isn’t something that will just go away.”
Krile speaks not with a wisdom beyond her years but a wisdom made for that very moment. Faris’ shoulders tense but even she doesn’t like the idea of telling a fourteen-year-old to fuck off.
“More than I’d miss my own heart,” Faris hums.
Krile gives a smile at that. A smile that says she need not force Faris to pour said heart out to hear what she already understands so well.
“Got a brush there? Getting some of the grime from between his scales will lift his spirits, if nothing else,” Faris says.
Krile does indeed have a brush, tough enough to scrub the castle floors. Faris works the stiff bristles gently between the dragon’s scales, cleaning out the dirt and debris he hasn’t been able to loosen himself. Krile sits cross-legged by his head, helping him drink a drop at a time.
It feels good to be close to a dragon again, even if it doesn’t so much as wear away at the jagged edges of the hole Syldra left behind. This isn’t her dragon, Faris doesn’t even presume to ask his name, but she settles into the work, drifting into a gentle trance.
“Grandpa says you don’t want anyone to know who you are,” Krile says softly, stroking the dragon’s face. “Well. Not who you are; who people would expect you to be, if they knew.”
Faris stands a little straighter. Her knuckles whiten around the brush. She glances at Krile, uncertain how much the girl knows, how much she’s picked up; if she does know anything, it will be purely because of her own intuition, not anything Galuf has let slip.
“Aye. Yer right there, lass. Coming all the way to this world weren’t an easy choice to make and I’d best be reaping all the benefits I can. I don’t wanna be shoved into a role I ain’t fit for,” Faris says.
When the dragon’s wing twitches, Faris ducks down to sling it over her shoulder and help him stretch it out.
“Grandpa’s upset about… something. I don’t think he even knows what it is, but he’s carrying so much guilt around. Guilt over sealing Exdeath in your world, guilt over not being able to protect the crystals,” Krile hums. “So try not to be too hard on him, okay? I’ll keep your secret, Faris. I promise.”
She’s a bold lass, Faris will give her that. Not many people have ever dared talk to her so plainly, much less children. To watch Krile tend to her dragon with such solemn love and tenderness is to know exactly how difficult the girl’s life has been, and how much she’s lost. The castle walls have scarcely held back the despair of a world recovering from its own ruin.
“Ta. Yer a good lass, caring for yer dragon like this. I can tell he loves you from horn to tail.”
Krile beams, touched by such a compliment from one who truly knows what she speaks of. Faris returns to cleaning the dragon’s scales, enjoying the silent companionship, and shakes off the last dregs of guilt.
Krile is a child, true, but Faris cannot help but think of all thing she’d done by the time she was fourteen, all the things that had been done to her. It wouldn’t do to underestimate Krile because of her age alone. Perhaps Faris only feels the urge to protect her thus because there was no one to do the same for her those scant six years ago.
Before she can say anything more, Lenna makes her way to the roost. Her hair is brushed through, her clothes perfectly pressed. Faris’ hands slow on the dragon’s scales. Bartz and Galuf aren’t far behind.
Hurrying to the dragon’s side, Lenna crouches before Krile and Faris, her hand resting on a curved horn.
“How bad is it?” Lenna asks softly.
Glancing away, Krile says, “He’s dying. He pushed himself too hard and flew when he shouldn’t have, but he wanted to rescue you. I think he would’ve gone without me if I’d said no.”
Faris knew the dragon was dying. She knew clearing the flies away and helping him drink wouldn’t save him, and she knows the cure spells she’s been weaving into him as she brushes his scales clean aren’t enough to restore his body to what it once was; this is all a kindness, a way to keep him comfortable.
Yet the way Lenna’s face twists makes the reality hit all the harder.
“Ain’t there a way for us to save him?” Faris asks.
“We’d need dragon grass,” Lenna murmurs.
Lenna strokes the dragon around the eye. Faris sees Lenna dragging herself through poisoned brambles once more.
“Dragon grass?” Krile asks in a voice that says she’s never heard of such a thing. “Will that heal his wounds?”
“It will, if such a thing exists in this world.”
Faris lays the brush on the floor and dusts off her breeches. So much for a peaceful morning.
“Back home, dragons always nested around dragon grass. Makes as much sense as anything—reckon they help cultivate it. If we’re gonna find any in this world, looking for where they roost is gonna be the best place to start,” Faris says.
“Hmm,” Galuf hums, drawing Lenna and Krile’s hopeful gazes his way. “If that’s the case, Drakenvale is our best bet. It’s the old valley of wind dragons. Used to be dozens of them coming and going when I was a boy! Still, I hear that no one who ventures there has ever been seen again…”
Faris glances at Lenna. Perhaps that means there won’t be bounty hunters with poison-tipped arrows awaiting them.
With his hands on his hips, Bartz says, “Well, I guess that just means we’ll be the first ones who do!”
Faris slaps a hand between his shoulder blades, some part of her becoming increasingly reliant on his blind optimism. She gives the wind dragon one last look, knowing he doesn’t have long left, and reaches for the samurai shard tucked away in her pocket.
She couldn’t save Syldra, not with the way these damn dragons are so intent on sacrificing themselves for their human partners, but Faris will do all she can to spare Krile that same loss.