Chapter Text
'It was the Veil that took us in. That fed us, clothed us, and healed our hurts. Those that could be healed, at least.
My love was already too far gone.'
The first day she first passed through the threshold of the Veil, gray skies had opened up with rain. Slick torrents hammered upon cobblestone streets, and had it not been for the keen focus on her companion's part to find shelter, Isabelle was sure she would've succumbed right then and there with him in the street.
Perhaps in hindsight the Veil would've made a strange choice for shelter. But weeks on the run sleeping in abandoned structures that were all but rotting boards and soft earth rich in moss and mushrooms had left them in such disarray as Isabelle struggled to scrounge for herbs and food that would hopefully nourish her love back to strength. As they stumbled upon Northreach she had half a mind to deviate a sharp turn that would lead them off a cliff into the ocean below, if it meant the promise of a sweet release from their predicament.
Death was growing apparent as the only freedom they'd be granted, if it weren't for the soldier who took pity on them sleeping huddled together against gate.
“Look to the Veil,” he told her when he approached them, apparently not taking note of her love's brand as his feverish cheek was rested against her shoulder out of the soldier's view. “The madame may take you in, depending on your circumstances.” He kindly moved to assist her in pulling her love upwards to brace him so that he could walk, but Isabelle refused him, defiant and desperate for her love's identity as a bearer to go unnoticed for as long as possible here, for their state of disheveled desperation would surely reveal him as an escaped slave, and she, his liberator. The soldier was taken aback, but willingly gave her directions instead as she braced her love's larger frame against her body, thanking him.
She felt nothing but despair as she pounded on the door firmly, absentmindedly whispering assurance in her love's ear as she held an arm over shoulders by one of her own, the opposite wrapped about his waist. Such words she'd uttered countless times over the past weeks, often accompanied by the tucking of his auburn hair behind his ear or her lips to his cheek, willing him to keep walking. If his balance waned at any point, they would surely both drop to the ground.
The door was opened by a young courtesan, no older than she. The girl's face contorted at the side of them, nervously looking to the elderly, yet stately madame seated in the parlor behind her for guidance.
It was there that Isabelle felt peace for the first time, despite catching her love as he collapsed, long since ill from red streaks that had stemmed from the wounds of his lashing he'd endured for her that was followed by weeks of living in filth as they fled.
Within the Veil she was greeted by a warm hearth in a building solid in it's wood and stone, a testament to a legacy that had lasted and always would. The courtesans within it did not hesitate to brace her love along with her as his knees failed him there in the front parlor, his skin hot with affliction despite being soaked through from the rain.
Isabelle was drenched too, but that didn't keep her from crying out for assistance. The man she loved was a wounded bearer, but he was once a soldier of imposing stature for an associate of the prestigious pleasure house in which she worked, and the series of events that he'd endured as a result of their coupling was quite literally killing him.
“Take him to a room.” The madame spoke after what seemed to be the most harrowing few moments of Isabelle's life. Her voice was firm and her tone polished, like one of the educated highborn ladies of Oriflamme. The courtesans scrambled in response, shouting to one another the fetch this and that, and two girls had taken him from Isabelle's arms, placing either of his over their shoulders and stood, urging him to move his legs to help them lift him up the staircase.
A warm hand graced her shoulder. Isabelle looked up at the madame from where she crouched on the floor, helpless and desperate. Her hairs once immaculately swept back in twists and plaits adorned with jeweled combs that her former admirers had gifted her, was now but a tangled matted mess, plastered to her cheeks with rainwater, sweat, and tears.
“Please help him.” Isabelle sobbed up at the madame. She had expected the need to beg. Weeks of living on the streets with her lover she'd grown so accustomed to people making cruel remarks and threatening him, commenting on the means of their appearance or speculating on their predicament. She worried that though this place had been hospitable up to that point, that her love might be discarded like waste the way she'd seen bearers discarded before.
She herself witnessed it most of her life without much thought, until she fell in love with one.
“My girls will see to it.” The madame replied, her face aged but not lost by the beauty of high cheekbones and sincere brown eyes framed by dark eyelashes and immaculately plucked eyebrows, testifying of a precise kind of beauty from a former age.
There was not even a question, nor a doubtful consideration over the brand he clearly had as the girls hoisted his body past.
“And I will see to you.” The madame pulled Isabelle up by the elbow. “I take it you have it in you to stand child, so stand.” She urged. Isabelle obeyed reluctantly, wiping tears from her eyes by the back of her forearm not in the grasp of the madame.
The madame's eyes moved over her in measured appraisal from her head to her boots. “I think a change in clothes and a hot meal is in order so that you may be of assistance to my girls as they tend to your companion, hm?”
Days later, still weakened by his state, but appearing to fare far better after many good meals, he sat with her on a stone bench in the garden just outside the Veil. The summer rains had stopped, and it was the first day of full sunshine on her face that she'd felt since the morning after they'd first lain together, back before they were discovered, when she walked freely through the streets of Oriflamme with an effortless smile upon her face.
What followed was anything but that, yet she wouldn't take it back.
Not ever.
One of the courtesans passed, greeting them in passing on her way to what they'd learned was her usual spot by the pond. Isabelle returned the greeting, and her love only forced a weak smile, the color on his complexion seemingly returning, but the circles under his deep blue eyes wore heavy still.
He pulled an arm over her shoulders, wordlessly pulling her against him, and she gleefully curled up to him. Never in her life had she known such affection before him. She looked up, basking in the handsome warmth of his expression after being accustomed to him being to sickly for so long.
She'd known the pleasures and desires of many men- far more than she ever cared to, and it made her a master of sorts of reading people; from the moment the master presented his newly purchased bodyguard in tow, she saw nothing but genuine kindness.
Being in his presence and not acknowledging him on the basis of a brand on his face didn't sit well with her, and Isabelle had never been one to shy away from flirtation especially when it suited her. It didn't take much for him to indulge her in secret, telling her such sweet things that would make her blush in a manner she'd never been capable, and when she pulled him into her bed he was the first man who cared so much for her pleasure.
“We did it, 'Belle. We're free.” He told her there in the garden. A soft breeze lifted the collar of her new dress and gently rustled the leaves and blossoms of a nearby tree. She smiled. She was content, and above all grateful for the new family they'd seemed to have found in the courtesans of the Veil that appeared to delight in their joy and indulge their sorrows.
She knew enough of the inner workings of pleasure houses enough to know of the nuances and conflicts that could occur when that many women lived and worked among one another for the attentions of men. No matter the camaraderie, there was always a sense of competition. Isabelle was highly sought after for her beauty, grace, and intellect, and at times she felt that make her a target for jealousy and gossip.
But there was no sense of that here.
Despite looking better that day, her love passed away in the night when she was asleep and oblivious, with his arm about her like it always was.
Isabelle dismounted her chocobo in Northreach with a heavy heart. Days of travel from the hideaway were preceded by a farewell to Clive alongside his brother and the Prince of Dion of Sanbreque, which was followed by the eerily quietest night that left her restless in the bunk that she had been afforded, causing her to instead opt to wander out to the ale house in the hall of the hideaway where other inhabitants drank in near silence, keeping mostly to themselves.
It had been a bittersweet farewell. She found her heart warmed by the embrace of allies she hadn't seen in years, if at all, for a majority of their correspondence was done in secretive exchanges via a stolas or cryptic exchanges between trusted messengers.
The silence was welcome, for she herself was all too quiet on the inside. Anything more than silence would surely lead to tension, which she knew could easily crescendo to full on panic in such times. No one knew what to expect- if the Rosfield brothers and the Prince were successful, what would be the cost? And how would they know?
And darkly, secretly, Isabelle wondered to herself: Were their efforts leading to this point ever worthwhile in the first place? She pushed the thought aside so that it was no more than a brief flicker of doubt. There was no room for that now.
She slid into a seat alongside Otto, who had a mug in front of him but seemed more apt to stare straight down at it than drink it.
“What can I get for you?” A bright eyed barmaid asked her.
Isabelle signed. She wasn't much of an ale drinker, but on this night she would have anything that might put her to sleep- she planned to leave first thing in the morning to return to Northreach. She lifted a finger, indicating she wanted a drink, but then a single brow raised when she spotted a familiar cask by the wall with a seal from the wine made from the grapes of Orabelle Downs. Her eyes narrowed. It's been a spell since she had such a fine beverage.
“Is that a vintage from Lostwing?” She asked, already knowing the answer as the barmaid turned behind her shoulder and nodded in confirmation.
“Aye, it is.”
“I'll have a glass.”
The barmaid frowned. “We don't have glasses.”
“A mug, then.”
“Alright then,” The barmaid quickly unscrewed the port at the tap, filling a mug from the shelf. “It'll be sure to get you smattered.”
Isabelle smiled wryly, despite her mood. “That sounds perfect, then.”
“Never knew the Dame to be a drinker. Didn't you have a rule about that?” Otto acknowledged her at last.
“My rules only applies to my girls while on the job.” Isabelle replied, before quickly adding, “And to Cid, when he indulged at the Veil.”
The barmaid slid the mug across the counter, filled with a lovely aromatic red. Isabelle reached into her coin purse and slid several pieces back to the barmaid, despite knowing full well she'd been a party responsible for funding a significant part of the operations in the hideway. But that wasn't a consideration she'd ever made, for none of this was a means for her to profit.
Somewhere overhead, a shrill cry of a newborn child echoed about the hall, causing the occupants of the ale house to look up in mild interest.
“Well, I'll be damned.” Otto leaned forward, resting his elbows on the bar counter, rubbing at his temples with his hands. “To be born on tonight, of all nights.”
Isabelle hummed in agreement, sipping from her mug and setting it back down before her. “I wonder where they are right now.”
Otto grunted, finally drinking from his own mug. “Surely they made it to that shiny block in the sky by now.”
“Surely.” Isabelle sipped again. “I'd been tossing and turning in my bunk because I simply couldn't stop thinking about it.” Her thumb rubbed nervously at the handle of her mug in her grasp.
Otto's chin nodded to the hall. “You and everyone else.”
Isabelle's eyes scanned the room over her shoulder, for a place so quiet now, it sure was full, and understandably so.
In that moment, Jill emerged, rounding the corner of the hall with tears streaming down her face and audible sobs as she sprinted up the stairs just past them to swing open a door at the far end with Clive's wolf keeping stride on her heels. Those sobs muffled behind the slamming of the door and then echoed from somewhere else, indicating that the grey eyed beauty had resuming her mourning elsewhere outside.
The silence of even more heavy when littered with stray whispers. Isabelle could only watch, as anyone else did.
“That's no good.” Otto noted dryly, though Isabelle know his blunt words often sounded more callous than what he actually felt.
Isabelle's breath hitched, staring straight down in a pool of red in her mug. She knew those tears, she knew those sobs.
Her mind flashed to a sunny morning all those years ago, waking to find her lover's arm limp, stiff, and cold, only to speak his name and realizing his breath had long left in the night. It was she who wept and screamed, causing courtesans to rush into the room at the Veil and hold her as she cried into their arms.
“What do you suppose-” Isabelle murmured, only to be cut off by a voice in the hall, scrambling from the outdoors.
“-Metia is gone! Vanished! Just a minute ago!”
The hum in the room went from whispers about Jill to voices exclaiming about the red star, and Isabelle turned her head to the window and cursed to herself. “What do you suppose this means?” She wondered aloud to Otto.
She watched him ponder a moment, running his tongue over his teeth while gripping his ale in tight contemplation “I'd say they found themselves a god, at the very least.”
His tone wasn't ominous, nor was it hopeful. In their years of collaboration they'd both seen so much strife, so much death, that the possibility of it coming to a resolution or collapsing in utter failure in a single night was too much to be swayed either way.
Clive's hound howled from outside, and Isabelle proceeded to drink her wine beside Otto in utter silence.
There were many crazed speculations that she'd encountered on the roads and villages back to Northreach, people ruminating about Metia, crystals dulling or shattering into dust and people at a loss for how to forage and hunt for food, how to light and heat their homes, how to do anything. Stolases no longer functioned, but were simply white owls with no ability to transfer messages like they once could.
Some people were so desperate to retrieve old prayers of old and others exchanged superstitions- burning a dog's corpse or a bearer's hand would surely bring back function to the crystals.
It was unsettling, to say the least. Though she knew this was just the beginning and was already determined by Cid to be the darkest pages of the book, it it seemed that the world was suspended into chaos, and Isabelle would be naught but a witness.
But there was no akashic, and bearers now had no significant function like way they had in the days before. Soon, people would realize there no way for bearers to be identified outside of those already branded. Children would simply be children, without any measures to identify 'us' and 'them.'
That was the silver lining in these coming chaotic times.
Isabelle sighed with relief when she saw the silhouette of the marketplace on the hill overhead and urged her chocobo forward. The creature approached with a tangible relief she could feel even within herself, taking the last several strides with lengthy vigor.
She dismounted her steed at the gate, nodding and offering a stablehand the reins.
“Welcome back, madame.” He greeted her as she passed several gil to him. “How was you visit to your friend?”
“It was well worthwhile, Tomas.” She smiled, offering him a nod. “Though I've heard such perilous times are upon us, it seems.”
“Aye.” Tomas nodded, and he turned to walk her chocobo back to the stables. “Stay safe, madame.”
She returned the sentiment and walked through the marketplace, greeting the familiar inhabitants as she walked.
“Take this for the girls, madame!” a young lad ran out from the stall where his parents worked, stripping and smoking meat over a fire. He handed her a neatly wrapped parcel of dried meats, something that was surely worth more that ever before in such uncertain times. While it seemed the outside world was simply beside itself at the sudden relinquishment of magick, the people of Northreach were quick to adapt and aid one another.
As they had ever been.
Isabelle smiled warmly, accepting the parcel and assured him she would as she continued on through the crowd, the mud of the ground dampening her cloak as it swung about her heels while she strolled through the gate and down the cobblestone streets, narrowly avoiding and group of young boys chasing one another and kicking a broken kettle about. She clicked her teeth and shook her head.
On the path to the Veil, she heard the roll of thunder in the distance, followed by a brilliant flash of light and a sudden prickle of cold raindrops against her hood. She crossed her arms, grateful for the cover of her cloak to protect the contents of her parcel from spoiling. She didn't mind getting a little wet this close to home, but was grateful this weather had set in after she was finished with her travels.
Isabelle was anxious to see her courtesans- she'd left the oftentimes overzealous Selene in charge in her absence, and though the girl was more than competent, she could be quick to get her nerves in a knot. Isabelle wanted to know what whispers the clients had to offer the girls, and if they had the same chaos and doom about them as the outside world or if they were simply as confident as the other inhabitants of Northreach.
“Madame!” Selene's shrill voice cried out when she was ascending the hill within view of the establishment. Isabelle frowned. Perhaps this was an indication that she had done wrong in choosing Selene to oversee things in her stead. The courtesans had to be looked after as one would look after a sister, accounts had to be settled, and at times, the indulgants had to be dealt with. If business was slow, tasks must be dealt for the courtesans' means of self improvement. It wasn't a small task and she feared she'd chosen for the worst.
The younger girl ran from the house, calling to Isabelle with words that she couldn't decipher over the now blowing torrents of the rain now assaulting her ears.
“Inside!” Isabelle bellowed back, now noting that a scout stood beside the pillar in front of the front door. Just what were they calling out to her about that couldn't wait until she walked inside?
She rushed toward the entrance to get out of the rain, standing under the cover of the front of the Veil to greet Selene face to face. She pushed back the hood of her cloak, both hands absentmindedly checking her updo for stray hairs.
“What sort of greeting is this, Selene? I-” Her scolding was cut short by Selene's frantic interjection.
“You've returned just in precise time, madame! The scouts have retrieved a man in most dire condition from the shores of south of Dragon's Aery!”
Isabelle's eyes narrowed. They'd had their share of wounded to care for in the day of the akashic raids upon their lands, but that was surely over now. And even if it wasn't, the girls were no strangers to tending to the wounded as of late.
“Well, did you get him settled in a bed?” Isabelle questioned dismissively, pushing past the girl to enter the threshold of the establishment, walking with calm poise across the front parlor to place the parcel within her clutch on a table before the hearth.
“We did, Madame, just now! Ana left to fetch the healer!” Selene followed her, urging the scout indoors to do the same.
The scout said called something from out the door as he passed through it that Isabelle couldn't hear over the rush of the rain, and she only heard the second part of his sentence when he entered the parlor, when his voice was undiminished by the heavy rush of the rain outdoors.
“-s looks like Clive Rosfield, madame!”
Isabelle spun on her heels, now looking Selene directly in the eye.
“Clive Rosfield?”
Selene nodded. “He's alive, but he looks bad! His wounds are...” She shook her head. “He looks like death, madame! And his hand looked as though it succumbed to the bearer's curse! Absolutely awful! Never have I seen anything like it!” The girl was on the verge of tears, and just by the looks of her and the scout's expressions Isabelle knew that this wasn't a wounded man that looked like Clive.
He was a wounded man that was Clive Rosfield, days after she bid him farewell to Origin.
She had always been a calculated woman, and knew the circumstances were too well stacked to be coincidence.
Isabelle's focus sharpened, and suddenly the circumstances of her return made sense. Selene wasn't being belligerent- she was acting exactly as the situation permitted.
“And you say the healer is coming?” Isabelle spoke calmly, but firmly. She unbuckled her cloak and cast it on a chair as a client in passerby eyed her curiously on his way out the door.
“Yes, madame, Ana is fetching her.”
“Good.” Isabelle breathed for a moment. Her years had trained her to be precise and coolheaded in any circumstance, and the recent clashes with the akashic and Sanbrequian order had been no exception. She wouldn't lose that now.
“Do we have an adequate supply of water?” Isabelle questioned.
“T-That is a good question.” Selene stammered. “Recently crystals have been failing, if not crumbling to dust and the women having been trekking to fetch and boil their own. I suspect it's only a bad shipment, but in the meantime we've had to resort to extreme measures for water.”
The scout pointed over his shoulder towards the door. “I'll check with the friar on the matter! I know the townspeople have been compiling a supply in the well in town, perhaps we could-”
“-You know where Cid's hideout is, yes?” Isabelle interrupted him firmly with a finger pointed his way.
“Y-Yes, madam. I've run errands for them before.” The scout replied, confused at what her point was.
“Excellent. The stolases have been dysfunctional as of late. So, you will go to Cid's hideout as fast as you can, and fetch the woman by the name of Jill Warrick. Bring her back here with you.” Isabelle paused, adding, “Where are the other men who came with you?”
“Only I rode for the sake of haste to bring him here, madame, my steed is the quickest. The others stayed back to further comb the beaches.”
Isabelle nodded with approval. “Alright then, get to it!” She waved her hand at him.
“Yes madame!” The scout, young and eager, rushed out the door they'd just entered with.
“And you will speak with the friar.” Isabelle gestured to Selene. “If there are extensive wounds we will need extensive amounts of water, particularly if he was recovered from a beach. Tell the friar how the one who saved us from the raids is now in jeopardy at the Veil, and we need access to the well the townspeople have been collecting for.”
“Yes madame.” Selene nodded, and rushed to fetch her own cloak from her room upstairs.
Isabelle stood, fists clenched and her heart hammering, and her eyes wandering to the closest room up the stairs where all the commotion was happening.
It was the same room that her love was dragged to upon his arrival, and the same room where they'd slept for those few blissful days until the morning she'd awoken to the realization that he was gone.
She'd long since felt his absence every day, up until the day a young bearer lad approached her in the market several years ago, eyes the most earnest blue eyes she'd seen since him.
Isabelle breathed in deeply and walked to the stairs, stepping each step up toward the room firmly so that the dark wood creaked slightly under her weight.
For her lover's safe haven and last few days of undisturbed peace and safety, she had a debt to repay.