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Chapter Text

It's not the perfect opportunity, but you know what they say: perfect is the enemy of good. The disaster at Phoenix Gate has thrown Rosaria into chaos, and the Imperial legions - so conveniently close to the border, what a lucky coincidence - are occupied with, well. Occupying. The eyes of Oriflamme are turned west, the Emperor's mind is on other things, and Cid thinks it's time he tried out that back entrance through the crystal mines of Drake's Head.

Luck must be with him as well as with the Empire's troop deployments: it's a walk in the park. The guards are distracted, the miners too exhausted to notice him. Cid strolls his way through the place until he finds a handy passage that takes him pretty much directly to his intended destination.

The Sanctuary within Drake's Head is certainly impressive, if you like that kind of thing. And if you don't know that the enormous crystal mountain overhead is sucking the land dry like a fat, glowing tick. Cid will take the shabbiness of his newly established base in the Deadlands any day, thanks.

He's feeling pretty good about things when he hits the bridge that leads to the Inner Sanctum. Maybe, for once, this whole plan of his will just work, he thinks foolishly, as he reaches to push open the great gates…

… which are already standing ajar.

Cid freezes, every sense on high alert. He peers through the bars, searching for the threat. He can't see anyone. He can't hear anything either—

No, wait. There is something. A faint thread of sound from up ahead. Something Cid would never expect to hear in this place. His stomach drops when he finally recognises it.

This can't mean anything good.

A wiser man might turn around and leave. A worse man would draw his sword. But damn his soft heart, Cid edges quietly through the gap in the gates, and goes to find out who is crying.

Dion has always thought that heartbreak is a strangely violent word.

He's known sadness, certainly. He barely remembers his mother, but he misses her all the same. He has lost much in his twelve years of life, even though he has been showered with luxury since his father claimed him as heir. It's little things, mostly. Toys that quietly vanish when someone deems him too old for them; favourite clothes that disappear as soon as they take a stubborn stain; people who care for him and teach him his lessons and then are gone one day without a goodbye.

Friends who aren't 'suitable' now he's Crown Prince, like Terence, whom he barely sees at all anymore.

Dion is used to impermanence, to the ache and regret that comes with discovering that something you valued has slipped through your fingers unnoticed. Sadness has always seemed to him a subtle thing, like a mist that dampens your clothes and hair so gradually that you scarce realise you are even cold until you find yourself shivering.

But heartbreak, it turns out, is exactly what it sounds like.

It's a feeling like his chest is full of broken glass. It's a pain so all-consuming that he must grit his teeth every second to keep from screaming. It's the conviction that he cannot live through this, that every pump of blood through his veins must surely be his last, because how could anyone survive this agony?

Dion can't remember the last time he cried. It's a habit that was quickly trained out of him when he became Crown Prince. It is his duty to be the people's strength; they must never see him falter.

Which is how he's ended up here, crumpled on these cold marble steps, sobbing in the eerie blue light of the Mothercrystal. There is nothing comforting about this place, nothing to ease his misery, but no-one will look for him here.

No-one will know of his weakness.

At least, that's the idea. The faint scrape of a footstep swiftly dispels it; Dion bolts into a sitting position, looking towards the sound before he remembers that his face is certainly a blotchy mess.

He turns his head away again almost at once, but he has time to glimpse the person who has disturbed him. A man, his father's age perhaps, but not in a guard's uniform nor dressed like any Imperial courtier. He has two swords at his hip, and he moves like the soldiers Dion will someday command. He has halted halfway across the circular platform, hand dropping casually to rest near the hilts of his weapons.

"What are you doing here?" Dion demands. His voice comes out choked and shaky; he flinches from it.

"Was thinking I might ask you the same question," the man replies. "Hell of a place to find a lost kid, this is."

"I am not lost," Dion replies. He tries subtly to wipe his eyes, takes a shuddering breath to hold back further tears. "Don't you know who I am?"

"Not a clue. Just heard you sobbing your heart out in here." The man's tone is brisk, almost mocking, but then he hesitates, and the next words come out softer. "What's caused you so much grief, lad?"

Dion feels his lower lip wobble. He clenches his fists against his knees to try and steady it, ducks his head so that his hair hides his face.

There's an ink stain on his white tunic, he realises. Spilled in a moment of carelessness as he hurried to finish his letter…

The letter he will never send now.

His heart breaks, and breaks, and breaks. He doubles over with it, not even sobbing so much as trying desperately to draw breath against the howls that want to escape him.

"Hey—" the man says, moving closer. "Come on, now—"

"He's dead," Dion chokes. He covers his face with his hands, hooks his fingers into his hair like he can claw the truth of it out of himself. "He's dead."

"Who's dead?"

Joshua, Dion thinks, but what he says is, "My friend."

"Shit." The man looms over him for a second, but then drops down to sit on the step at Dion's side. "I'm sorry."

It's the first time anyone has sounded sorry all day. The first time anyone has acted like this world-shattering event is worth his grief. Dion's father didn't even come to tell him personally; he was just summoned to a meeting of the Council of Elders, where the news was shared in a sombre tone, and everyone shook their heads regretfully and immediately began discussing how best to apportion Rosaria's territory among themselves.

And Dion said nothing, and shed not a single tear, and kept his back straight and his head up like he's supposed to, until nightfall gave him the opportunity to get away to the only place he could think of where no-one else would come.

Where no-one else is supposed to come.

"Who are you?" Dion asks. He can't summon the proper authority to make it a demand; to his own ears he just sounds wretchedly bewildered. "How did you get in here?"

"I walked," the man replies. "Not as hard as you'd think, to be honest. As for who I am…"

He hesitates. Dion hears him make a strange sound under his breath, a sort of resigned grunt, like he knows he's being stupid but has already accepted he can't do anything else.

"You can call me Cid."

The name stirs some faint recognition in Dion's mind, but not enough to give him answers. He presses his palms against his eyes, trying to stem the tears that refuse to dry up.

There's a nudge against one arm. Dion looks up to find a large and mostly clean handkerchief thrust in front of his face.

His own is already soaked through and useless, so he takes it, hanging his head in shame as he blots ineffectively at his eyes.

"Thank you," Dion mumbles. Then, belatedly, "You shouldn't be here. I should probably call for the guards."

Cid doesn't take it badly. In fact, Dion hears a snort of repressed laughter.

"You probably should, at that. Though then you'd have to explain why you're in here."

Cid has a point, sort of. The guards wouldn't question Dion's presence, but he can't let them see what a mess he is.

"You haven't explained why you are," Dion points out, sniffling.

"What, a man can't stop by to admire the architecture?"

Dion stares at him, really taking him in for the first time. He's definitely not Sanbrequois; he speaks like no-one Dion has ever met. His face is lined with a life of pain and hard toil, his jaw set like a man determined to be stern, but he can't seem to suppress the amused quirk of his mouth, can't hide the quiet compassion in his eyes.

Dion doesn't often like people immediately, but he likes Cid. There's something familiar about him; not so much like they've met before, but as if they could understand each other well, given the opportunity.

"You really don't know who I am?" Dion blurts out, struck by the novelty of it.

A crease forms between Cid's eyebrows as he studies Dion's face in return.

"I'm starting to think that I should," Cid says slowly. He glances at Dion's clothes, at his hands clutching the already-soggy handkerchief; Dion realises he must be looking for a ring or some other insignia. "You certainly don't seem overawed by our surroundings."

Dion huffs a shaky laugh, turning his gaze out over the great platform, taking in the sparkling crystal walls all around.

"They bring me here every year for the ceremonies. I suppose I've grown used to it." He shivers, and admits, "I don't like it much."

"And yet this is where you came for comfort?"

"This is where I came to be alone," Dion corrects him, scrunching the handkerchief between his hands. "A Dominant isn't supposed to cry."

Cid sucks in a quick, hard breath.

"Ah." He chuckles mirthlessly. "I was right. I should have known you, your Highness."

Dion flinches strangely from the title he's heard almost every day of his life.

"That other part's bullshit, mind," Cid goes on. "We may be Dominants, but we're still human. 'Course we cry."

Dion stares at him.

"We?"

Cid smirks. Holds Dion's wide-eyed gaze as he lifts his right hand and snaps his fingers showily. Lightning crackles around his fingertips, dances in his eyes for an instant before he lets it fade. Dion's mouth drops open.

Cid. Cidolfus. Cidolfus Telamon, Dominant of Ramuh. Cidolfus Telamon, Lord Commander of the army of Waloed, enemy of Sanbreque— wait no but he deserted, they say he's his own master now, some sort of bandit, some sort of outlaw—

Cid snorts a laugh, drops his hand, shakes his head.

"Wipe that panic off your face, lad. I'm not fool enough to pick a fight with Bahamut."

Dion isn't sure he believes him. Not that he thinks Cid is actually going to start a fight; Dion just has a feeling that he wouldn't hesitate to do so if necessary.

"What are you doing here?" he demands.

Cid leans back on his hands, looking up at the crystal above their heads. Dion can't help but follow his gaze automatically to where a pulse of glimmering light flows like a river into the Mothercrystal's heart.

"You can almost taste the aether, can't you?" Cid muses. "Makes my teeth itch, like a storm that won't break."

"Yes," Dion replies softly, knowing exactly what he means.

"Ever wonder where it all comes from?"

Dion frowns.

"From the Mothercrystal."

"Hmm. Does it?" Cid shifts his weight so he can point up at that ribbon of light. "Why's it going into the crystal, then?"

Dion feels like he's been speared through with the lance he's not yet tall enough to wield. He stares at the flow of aether, tracing it again and again with his eyes, trying to make sense of something he's never thought to question.

"'Cause it's a funny thing," Cid goes on, still in that tone like he's talking to himself, but with a remorseless edge that sends a chill down Dion's spine. "Seems like the rest of the world is hurting for aether these days. All that land sucked dry of it, turned to Blight and left to rot like a fruit husk when all the flesh has been sucked out. Except nothing even rots, in the Blight. No nourishment for new life, no future, nothing left."

Dion has always been a quick study. Cid doesn't need to spell it out any further.

"That… that can't be true."

"Why not? Because it's inconvenient?"

"I—"

"Thought I'd perform a little experiment, you see," Cid goes on conversationally. "See what happens if someone destroys this thing."

"Destroy it?" Dion gasps. "Destroy the Mothercrystal?"

"Aye, that's the idea. Might keep the Blight at bay, even if we can’t reverse it."

"But the crystal supply— the Empire depends on—"

"All the crystals in the world won't save Sanbreque from the dying of the land beneath her feet," Cid says grimly. He tsks with his tongue against his teeth, scowling at nothing. "Not that the Empire isn't trying to claim them, by the looks of things."

"Claim what?"

"All the crystals in the world. And all the lands left untouched by Blight." Cid shakes his head. "Rosaria is just the start."

The reminder of Dion's loss slices him apart like a wyvern's claws. It's too much. Too much on top of all Dion has already endured this past day. Too much to stave off with protests or denial. Dion curls forward over his own knees, buries his face in them, shakes with new, silent sobs.

"Shit," Cid mutters. "I'm sorry, lad. Took me years to come to terms with it and I just dump it in your lap like you weren't already in bits over your friend."

The claws of grief tighten like they will crush Dion's chest and strangle his lungs.

"I don't understand," he chokes. Cid must think he's talking about the Mothercrystals - starts to answer - but Dion blunders on before he can get more than a word out. "I don't understand how this could happen. I don't understand how they got past the guards, past the Shields! I don't— I don't understand— how can he be dead? How can— he's— he was the Phoenix!"

His voice has risen to a wail muffled in his tear-soaked trousers.

"He was my friend," Dion whispers, heart breaking for the thousandth time this day.

Cid sucks in breath like he's been gut-punched, hisses it out on a curse so foul Dion doesn't even recognise all the words.

A hand lands on his shoulder, warm and careful and resolute. Dion leans into it helplessly.

"Fuck," Cid spits, a gravelly note in his voice that blends anger with something raw and painful. "The Phoenix? You were close?"

Dion nods, unable to speak.

"Oh, you poor little sod." Cid's hand tightens like it's trying to hold him up. "Your father has a throne because of you, an Empire because of Bahamut, and this is how he rewards you?"

For a moment, Dion can't make sense of the words. Then, he jerks upright, staring at Cid through a sheen of tears.

"What?"

Cid grimaces, takes his hand off Dion's shoulder, looks away.

"Never mind, I shouldn't have—"

Dion is on his feet without knowing how he got there. The broken pieces of his heart are rattling against each other so hard that they must surely break his ribs open and fly away.

"What did you mean by that?"

There's an echo of Bahamut in his voice. He can feel the static pulsing over his skin, the stirring of wings that want to spring into reality. There are suddenly new shadows in the crystal chamber, scattering away from a white light that he knows must be coming from him.

Cid jumps up and takes a healthy three steps backward, but he doesn't reach for his sword.

"Your Highness—" Cid makes a face, changes his mind. "Dion. Easy there. If you prime in here you'll do my job for me—"

Dion clenches his fists. The light around him only grows brighter.

"What," he grinds out, "did my father do?"

Maybe a part of him already knows. Maybe it's a picture he can draw together from a hundred hints on this awful day: the Council's lack of surprise, their plans of conquest already drawn up, the total absence of more than a brief, formal murmur of regret…

Cid sighs.

"I've contacts in Rosalith," he admits. "Word is that the Rosfields were betrayed. The Duke and his sons were slaughtered in the night by assassins who passed freely through the Duchy."

He pauses, finishes with reluctance: "Assassins who wore the armour of Imperial Knights."

Maybe a part of Dion already knew. Maybe that's why he doesn't question for a moment whether Cid could be lying to him. Maybe that's why it breaks him like a glass vase thrown hard against a wall.

Dion throws back his head and screams.

He hears Cid shout, "Oh fuck—"

And then, for a time, there is only rage, and only Bahamut, and only what must be done.

One day, Cid will learn when to keep his bloody mouth shut, but today is not that day.

No, today is the day when he, quite possibly, dies under a chunk of falling crystal because he's the kind of fucking idiot who'd push an already traumatised child beyond his limits.

On the plus side, Bahamut has done Cid's job for him, and effectively at that: the Mothercrystal is crumbling around them.

It would have been nice to be a bit further away at the time, is the only thing.

Cid has legs and the will to use them. He can get out of here, with determination and a lot of luck. But he hesitates.

Bahamut is still thrashing in the wreck of the crystal's heart. The dragon's talons have done almost as much damage to the Inner Sanctum as the fractured stonework raining down from above. The Eikon throws back his head and howls, and in that otherworldly rage and pain, Cid can still hear the awful echo of a broken-hearted child's unfathomable grief.

Cid can't just leave him here.

Not that he's taking Bahamut anywhere the dragon doesn't want to go. Cid never met the previous Dominant; the power passed to Dion not long after Cid found himself chosen by Ramuh, so they have never clashed in battle. All he's had to go on are historical accounts.

Those accounts have never quite captured just how huge Bahamut is.

Crystal cracks and peels away above them. Cid gets a glimpse of the night sky. Bahamut sees it too. The Eikon roars again, that horrible hurting wail, spreads his wings, and springs up towards the stars.

Cid has a feeling he's not just popping out for a bit of fresh air.

Fuck.

Priming is so much harder than it used to be, and Cid doesn't know if it's truly become more difficult, or if his body simply resists with greater insistence now it has tasted the consequences. The stony grey patches that dot his arm sting like hell as he pulls aether into himself. Cid ignores it. It's not that much worse than dropping cigarette ash on his skin.

Ramuh does not exactly fly, not the way Bahamut does. Not the way Garuda does, either, with her endless feathered wings and fierce joy in soaring free. Cid turns his thoughts away from that place as he rises out of the crystal wreck. No, Ramuh rides the lightning like its a waterspout lifting him aloft; he may rise, and he may hover, and sometimes if Cid is feeling very adventurous he may drift around a bit, but there's no way he's catching up to anything with wings.

Fortunately, he doesn't have to, because unfortunately, he was dead right: Bahamut's outburst is far from over.

This, Cid thinks grimly as he floats higher and watches Bahamut send a bolt of white light through the nearest of Oriflamme's towers, is what happens when you raise a kid on shit like a Dominant isn't supposed to cry. Force him to bottle everything up like a good little prince, let the pressure build until something gives, watch as the resulting explosion tears him and everyone around him to shreds.

Though Cid will admit that, technically speaking, he's the one who heedlessly turned up the heat.

He has no love for the Empire, but no desire to see its citizens massacred - and gods know what it would do to Dion to hold himself responsible for such carnage. He's just a child, no matter how his father uses him as both blade and shield. Cid wonders, with a flash of disgust, if Sylvestre knows his own son so little that he was unaware of Dion's attachment to the Phoenix - or if he knew, and didn't care.

Bahamut has no focus for his destruction. He is simply lashing out, breaking anything that will shatter in a satisfying way. Cid isn't even sure he went for the Mothercrystal on purpose—

— he did, Ramuh murmurs, Eikonic insight laced with sorrow. He has a noble soul.

Well, we'd better stop him before he has a city's worth of guilt to weigh it down, hadn't we? Cid thinks back, raising his staff. Got any better ideas than making bait of ourselves, old man?

Ramuh, apparently, does not, so Cid braces himself, and sets about getting Bahamut's attention.

It goes about as well as he expects, which is to say that he dodges a couple of shots and is then punted bodily out over Oillepheist Bay by a furious draconic tail. He does at least get the satisfaction, as he's sailing through the air, of seeing the entirety of Drake's Head dissolve into vapour, leaving Oriflamme standing naked and alone against the backdrop of the northern sea.

One down, four to go.

And he has at least achieved his goal of luring Bahamut away from the city. The dragon pursues him out over the water and makes a convincing effort to take his head off with a flare of punishing light. Cid ducks, feels the hair on Ramuh's head singe, and curses as he tries to waft himself a bit faster towards the opposite shore.

It's all dark over there, of course; that land is long lost to the Blight. His only beacon is the weird glowing mass they call Shiva's Sorrow (or, occasionally, Shiva's Something-a-lot-more-vulgar), that lumpy outcropping that might be ice or might be crystal and is definitely too flooded with aether for anyone but a Dominant to risk approaching.

Too flooded with aether even for a Dominant, at least one in their right mind, but Bahamut's a long way from that and Cid doesn't have a lot of options here.

He ducks behind the Sorrow just in time to avoid another lethal blast. As he drops, he lets Ramuh's form go, lands on the ground on his own two feet. He's starting to understand why Barnabas always spoke of Bahamut with respect. If this is the power of a half-trained 12-year-old, Cid can well imagine that a Dominant of Light in his prime could give Odin a run for his money.

No wonder Barnabas was always so keen to fight the old Dominant one-on-one. Cid wishes he'd realised sooner what was really driving Waloed's taciturn king. Wishes he'd seen through the pretty words of freedom and unification to the bloodlust and craving for dominion that lay beneath.

No time for that now, he's got plenty of bloodlust breathing down his neck right here.

Bahamut's instinct - which is a sound one - seems to be to hang back and use his flare at range, but Cid has quickly wormed his way under the overhang of the Sorrow. As he hoped, it's not solid; it looks very much like a huge surge of water or mud has been frozen in an instant, and is thus full of gaps and air pockets.

As he also hoped, Bahamut is too enraged to think strategically. The dragon lands with an earth-shaking crash and begins to lash out at the Sorrow with furious talons.

Is it ice, or is it crystal? Cid can certainly feel the cold of it, like the inside of a glacier, but the glow is unmistakeably aetherial, and even more intense than the heart of Drake's Head. He can feel the power beating on his skin, choking his lungs.

He's never heard of a Dominant turning Akashic. He hopes like hell he's not about to either experience it or witness it firsthand.

Better wrap this up fast.

"Warden of Light, stand down!" Cid bellows, gladly borrowing Ramuh's ancient gravitas to make his voice boom off the crystal walls. "I am not your enemy!"

Bahamut tries to take a bite out of the Sorrow, snarls and rears back when it splinters painfully in his jaws.

"Bahamut! Enough!"

Bahamut somehow locates him well enough in his hiding place to give the impression of looking him dead in the eye as he begins to charge another flare.

"Fuck."

Time to play dirty. As if Cid hasn't hurt this poor kid enough for one day.

"Dion! Is this what your Phoenix would want?"

Bahamut falters.

"Dion," Cid says again, gentle as he can be whilst bringing Ramuh's steely judgement to bear. "Is this what you want?"

The dragon throws his head back and wails to the sky. The sound goes on and on, a long mourning howl, a plea for a response that will not come.

Except… maybe it's just the echo, bouncing back from the mountains behind the bay, but… just for a moment, Cid almost thinks he does hear a distant, answering cry.

He doesn't have time to ponder it. Bahamut is consumed in an explosion of his own blinding light; when it fades, his Dominant lies face-down in the Blighted ash, unmoving. Cid swears, wriggles his way out of the Sorrow, stumbles to Dion's side.

He's breathing, at least, though he's unresponsive and there are sparks of blue light dancing at the ends of his hair. Cid casts a nervous look at the Sorrow, swears some more, and hoists the boy over his shoulders. He's heavier than he looks; the Emperor already has him training for his future as a weapon of war. There's muscle on his childish frame; hardly any trace of baby fat left on his serious little face.

It occurs to Cid that he is, technically, kidnapping the Crown Prince of Sanbreque. He pauses for a moment to consider his other options.

There are none. None his conscience will permit, at least.

Dion Lesage, Cid reflects glumly, as he hauls both their asses away from that cursed place as fast as his old feet can take him. Dion Fucking Lesage just had to choose the heart of the Mothercrystal, tonight, to hide away and have a good cry.

Something aches in his chest. Maybe just the aftereffects of priming; he's not started coughing blood yet, but it can only be a matter of time.

Or maybe the pain is twisted up with the memory of Dion's anguished voice: he was my friend.

Inconvenient, that friendship must have been for a man with Sylvestre's ambitions. Or, at best, something to be used until it might be discarded. Much like a fruit husk when all the flesh has been sucked out.

Much like his own son when the curse finally takes him.

"I don't go in much for praying, as you know" Cid mutters to the red star hanging in the sky ahead. "But so help me, let me change this world before I die. You can do what you like with me after."

Metia does not respond, of course, but Cid finds himself uncharacteristically comforted by her presence, all through the long night's trek out of the Blight and back to some semblance of civilisation.

Chapter Text

Dion wakes up in a place so unfamiliar he can't make head nor tail of it.

He can't possibly be in the palace; even the first glimpse of this room is drab and humble. But nor does he seem to be somewhere in the city, at least judging by the sounds around him. The air smells different, the light is different, and the walls are strangely carved from a material he does not recognise. He's wearing a nightshirt that isn't his, the linen far coarser than he's used to.

He tries to sit up, is dismayed when he struggles with it.

"Your Highness?" A red-haired young woman is sitting at a small desk nearby, writing in a book. She drops her quill and comes to his side at once. "Careful, now, don't strain yourself."

She sits on the bed beside him, gently pushes him back into the pillows, and checks his forehead and pulse as if he's sick. Perhaps he is, Dion thinks, slow and confused. He certainly doesn't feel like himself. There's a horrible clenching feeling under his ribs, a sick swirl in his stomach, a soreness to his eyes and throat.

"May I have—" he rasps, then begins coughing painfully and cannot finish.

Fortunately, the woman guesses what he was going to ask; she leaves him for long enough to bring a cup of cool water, and helps him sit up to drink from it.

"Thank you," Dion manages when his throat has settled enough to allow speech. "Forgive me, I don't… I don't know you."

"I'm Tarja," the woman says, shifting the pillows so Dion can sit up against them, then going briskly to the desk to fetch a small vial of some green liquid. "Now, I can't say I know all too much about Dominants who've overextended themselves - since our resident one is seldom honest with me about his health - but this tonic is soothing to Bearers who've channelled a lot of aether, so I'm hopeful it will give you some ease."

Overextended himself? Dion clutches his head, suddenly dizzy. That's right, he— he primed, didn't he? But why? It's all a blur in his memory… there was something terrible, something awful, he couldn't bear it—

"Regrettably, Archduke Elwin and both his sons were lost."

"Both, your Radiance? The Dominant of Fire as well?"

"Indeed, your Eminence. Rosaria will need a firm hand to take the reins going forward."

Tears sting his eyes again.

"Joshua," he whispers brokenly.

Tarja puts her arm around him. People don't usually do that. He leans into it.

"Cid told us what happened," she murmurs. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Cid?

Cidolfus.

Memory bursts open the gates of his mind then, floods him with a chaos of pain and anger and fear.

"Cid?" Dion croaks aloud, shrugging out of Tarja's grip and backing up to the far side of the bed, looking about wildly as he tries once more to place himself. "Where—"

"Right here, your Highness," comes a gravelly voice from the door. "Speak of the devil, and he shall appear."

Cid sketches a sloppy bow with the words, strolling further into the room. It's some sort of infirmary, Dion sees now, but one with only a few rickety cots bearing threadbare sheets.

"Give the boy a chance to rest," Tarja hisses, jumping up as if she's planning to chase Cid out with a broom.

From the way Cid pauses, he seems to think she's capable of it.

"He won't rest until he knows where he is and why I've dragged him here," Cid says. He catches Dion's eye. "Right, your Highness?"

Dion swallows, then nods.

Tarja mutters objections all the way to the door, but she does leave. Cid considers the furniture available to him and grabs the chair in the corner, hauling it over next to Dion's bed.

"Now," Cid says, leaning back in the chair and stretching out his legs, "first things first."

He pauses to retrieve a packet of hand-rolled cigarettes from somewhere. Dion watches with wary fascination as he extracts one and lights it with a crystal. Smoking is not in vogue amongst Oriflamme's nobility; it's seen as a vulgar, common habit.

"You can leave anytime," Cid goes on, taking a drag of pungent smoke after the words. "Right now, if you like. I wouldn't recommend it, mind - Tarja knows her stuff and she thinks you need at least a few more days to recover. But I want you to understand that you're not my prisoner."

"What am I, then?" Dion asks.

"Fucked if I know, lad." Cid tilts his head back and blows smoke towards the ceiling. "Honoured guest? Teenage runaway? My own personal penance for being a foolish old man who doesn't know when to stop running his mouth?"

The memories are still settling. Some of them are fragmented, like pieces of a dream Dion can hardly recall, but there is destruction in them, the crash and shatter of falling stone.

"What… did I do?" Dion whispers.

"The right thing, by my lights," Cid replies, sitting forward suddenly. "The crystal is gone. You went a little off-course after that, but nothing a good mason can't fix up."

"I— the city—"

"Took a few knocks, but her people are fine." Cid catches his gaze and holds it with gimlet intensity. "We've heard from Oriflamme. You didn't hurt anyone."

Until he hears it, Dion doesn't know how badly he needs to. He draws his knees up to his chest and buries his face in them, hugging himself tightly.

"Thank Greagor," he chokes.

"Don't remember her volunteering as dragon bait," Cid replies without rancour. "But I owed you."

Dion lifts his head just enough to glance sideways through his own hair.

"Owed me?"

"You did what I went there to do. Better than I could have done it, probably. And I…" Cid sighs, looks away, takes another puff of his cigarette. "I didn't mean to drag you into this. Or hurt you worse than you've already been hurt."

The rest of it hits Dion then. His father. Phoenix Gate. Joshua.

"I don't understand," Dion mumbles. He presses his face back into his knees, like maybe the world will make more sense if he doesn't have to look at it. "Rosaria is our ally. Why… why would my father…?"

"Now that's a thorny question with a nasty answer, I suspect."

"What do you mean?"

"The reports I've seen so far suggest that the traitor who ensured the Duke would be caught off-guard… was none other than his own wife, the Duchess Anabella."

Dion sits bolt upright.

"Joshua's mother? But— but she—"

Loved him, he means to say, except the words sit sour on his tongue. He's met Duchess Rosfield only a handful of times, but love is not an emotion he can fit into the shape of her.

"But he was her favourite," is what comes out instead.

"Aye, well…" Cid sighs again. "There's some whispers that things went wrong. Badly wrong. That maybe the Phoenix wasn't meant to be caught up in it. Other things, too…"

"Other things?"

"Never mind." Cid waves smoke away with a grimace. "Tavern rumours, most likely. Fairy stories. One or two might be worth following up, but the rest… people always try to make their own kind of sense out of tragedy. Even if what they come up with is nonsense."

Dion doesn't really understand, but he nods numbly all the same. His head is starting to hurt; he wants to lie back down.

Cid takes note. He tsks, stubs out his cigarette on the sole of his boot, then picks up the vial of medicine Tarja left by Dion's bed.

"If you want my advice," Cid says, "drink this. It'll taste like pondwater if you're lucky, worse if Tarja's been tinkering with the recipe again, but it'll help you sleep and help you heal. You're safe here. We can talk more once you have your strength back."

Dion knows he should refuse. He is the Crown Prince of Sanbreque. He should insist on departing at once, return to his Emperor, hand himself over to the guards and accept whatever punishment is fitting for one who has desecrated the holiest of ground, done the unthinkable in destroying the Mothercrystal.

He can't remember if anyone has ever said to him, you're safe here. It has always been his duty to keep everyone else safe.

He takes the tonic from Cid.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me, lad," Cid protests with a pained expression. "You wouldn't be here if I'd had the sense I was born with."

Dion uncaps the medicine and downs it in one gulp. It tastes about as bad as Cid promised, but he chokes it back without protest.

"Thank you, all the same," he says.

Cid eyes the scout sceptically. He's new, this one, and Cid already thinks he's got a gift for it, but he hasn't earned blind faith just yet.

"Gav, was it? How sure are you, really?"

Gav is a wet-behind-the-ears stripling with too much grief under his cheery demeanour - like so many of the young people who find their way to Cid's growing clan - but he's smart enough to know when to answer honestly.

"I'm not sure. Could just be a rumour. Wishful thinking, like. But I dunno… it smells like there's a whiff of truth to it, at the least."

Cid trusts him more for his willingness to admit doubt. He nods slowly.

"Don't spread it around," he warns. "I don't want anyone to get their hopes up."

Doesn't want Dion to get his hopes up, he means. Damn his soft heart: he already cares too much about the boy.

"Aye, Cid, o'course not."

Gav takes his leave. Cid leans back in his chair, staring at the opposite wall without seeing it as he considers Gav's report.

It's probably worth following up, he concedes. Whatever happened at Phoenix Gate was a bloody mess, and whatever happened afterwards is shrouded in Imperial secrecy. But everyone seems to agree that the Phoenix ran rampant, driven to breaking point in the chaos - poor little bastard - even if some have embellished the tale with the unlikely addition of a second, unknown Eikon.

It's not impossible to kill a fully primed Dominant, of course, but it's difficult. And whilst Joshua Rosfield was by all reports a sickly child, Cid's never heard of anyone keeling over from the curse the very first time they primed.

So the rumour that he might have survived after all… Cid sighs, kicking his heels moodily against the floorboards. Problem is, stuff like this always has folks spinning stories along those lines. Heirs smuggled to safety by loyal servants, the noble blood preserved to return triumphant when the time is right… he'd be more surprised if the people of Rosaria weren't telling each other that their Dominant isn’t really dead.

Still. Still. He knows what Gav means, about the smell of truth. Cid hasn't scented it on this one himself, and he doesn't know yet if he can trust Gav's nose, but… it's probably worth following up.

As long as he can do it without causing Dion more heartache.

Cid levers himself out of his chair and slopes off in the direction of the infirmary. He's not entirely surprised to hear his daughter's piping voice before he even opens the door. Mid loves nothing so much as a captive audience.

Dion is looking much better after a few days of rest, though there's still a haunted look in his eyes, a fragility in the set of his mouth. He hasn't asked to leave, or in fact asked for anything except something to read. He's accepted food and medicine and a set of clothes with polite gratitude; he has cautiously explored the Hideaway when he isn't resting; he has assumed no airs with anyone despite his station, and even shyly offered to help with a few small tasks.

Half the place is in love with him as a result. Even Charon remarked that he was decent for one o' them noble brats.

Mid, Cid is fairly sure, has already decided she's going to marry him. Not that she's all that clear on what marriage involves: she’s barely six years old, after all. She's just thrilled to have another kid around the place, especially one who indulges her chatter without complaint.

From the look of the 'diagrams' (don't refer to them as scribbles within her hearing) strewn across one of the empty beds, she's been explaining her grand scheme to build an airship that will take everyone not just to the skies, but to the moon itself, where they'll all be safe from the Blight, and no-one will start any wars. The plan changes several times a day. Cid can't remember if this is the one with the Moogles or if she's ditched that in favour of the really big catapult.

Dion looks like he wants to jump up and bow when Cid comes in - ridiculous child - but he can't move whilst his lap is being used as a drafting desk for Mid's latest 'diagram'.

"Not enough gears," Cid tells her, peering at the squiggles like he can even tell which way is up. "It'll never fly like that, where's the torque?"

"It'll fly!" Mid declares confidently. "It don't need gears, it's got a pump."

Ah, Cid thinks, yes, she has been very interested in the plumbing recently.

"What's it pumping? Water? Air? Soup?"

Mid narrows her eyes at him, suspicious (and for good reason) that she's being teased.

"Gravity," she announces, stumbling on the word slightly. "It's the downness. The pump makes it go up, so the airship goes up too."

Dion nods gravely, but Cid doesn't miss the way his mouth twitches. It lightens his heart more than he cares to admit.

"Can't argue with that," Cid replies, truthfully enough. "Anyway, off with you, mischief, I need to talk to your assistant engineer."

Mid pouts, but she's a goodnatured little soul, so she hugs her wad of paper and collection of stubby pencils to her chest and dashes out of the infirmary to find someone else to educate on the finer details of powered flight. Dion carefully sets aside the large, leatherbound book of herbal illustrations that has been occupying his lap and serving as Mid's desk, and Cid collects up the scattered papers before he sits down.

"How're you feeling?"

"Better, thank you." Dion stares down at his hands. "Tarja says I… don't need to be in the infirmary anymore."

"Does she, now?" Cid folds his arms over his chest and leans back, regarding him. "Shall I find you somewhere else to sleep, then?"

Truth be told, he's been putting this conversation off. It's clear enough that Dion hasn't made up his mind what to do yet. Cid doesn't want to push him into making a decision before he's ready, especially if that might mean he makes the wrong one.

"I should go back to Oriflamme. I must face the consequences of my actions."

Yeah, like that.

"Funny you should say that," Cid replies. "According to everything I'm hearing from out that way, you're a hero."

Dion jerks his head up to stare at Cid with confused brown eyes.

"What?"

"Well, it's not like anyone else was down there with us in the Inner Sanctum, is it? So far as the good folk of Oriflamme are concerned, some outlaw—" Cid flattens a hand dramatically on his own chest. "—destroyed Drake's Head, and then Bahamut chased him off into the Blighted lands - and didn't come back. They're looking everywhere for you, and it's not so they can clap you in irons."

"But that's… not what happened," Dion protests. He takes a deep breath, lifts his chin with resolve. "I have to go back and tell everyone the truth."

Ridiculous child. How the hell did a self-serving piece of shit like Sylvestre raise a son with such unwavering principles?

He didn't, Cid thinks bitterly. Left that to the household staff, didn't he? It's a miracle the boy's not a heinous brat with delusions of grandeur.

Maybe Ramuh's right. Maybe Dion just has a noble soul.

Regardless, he deserves better than he'll get if he follows his conscience.

"And what’ll that accomplish?" Cid asks.

Dion blinks, determined expression faltering into uncertainty.

"Think about it," Cid goes on. "You know the truth now about the Mothercrystals, and you know what your father is capable of in service to his ambition. Are you going to sit back and leave Sanbreque to the mercy of the Council of Elders and the Blight? 'Cos that's what you'll be doing if you make a martyr of yourself. They'll have you in crystal fetters before you can blink, and if they ever take them off again it'll only be when they're sure they can control you some other way."

"My father wouldn't—"

Dion falters before Cid even has time to raise his eyebrows. He stares down at his hands again, clenching them slowly into fists in his lap.

"So you are suggesting I should live a lie?"

"I'm suggesting that you should play your cards close to your chest, whatever else you decide to do. Be careful who you trust, and who you believe."

Dion glances up at him with narrowed eyes.

"Even you?"

Cid laughs.

"Especially me. I'm the idiot with the mad plan to take down the Mothercrystals and plunge Valisthea into the dark ages, remember? You shouldn't trust me as far as you can throw me - which, we've already established, is about the length of Oillepheist Bay."

Dion chokes back a laugh, ducking his head to hide his smile.

"Anyway," Cid goes on, letting his tone become more serious. "What I came to tell you is that I need to leave for a while. I've a mind to go and look around what's left of Phoenix Gate."

Dion goes still. He swallows hard, fists clenching again.

"Why?"

"Might find something interesting. Might find something useful. Might find something no-one else did. Any way you slice it, there's a lot happened that night we don't know about. I'd like to have a look for myself, see if I can't sniff out a trail or two."

Dion is silent for just long enough that Cid opens his mouth to say something else. Dion beats him to it.

"I will come with you."

Cid gapes gracelessly for a moment.

"What?"

Dion looks up at him, that quiet resolve back in his face. Cid has a sinking feeling that this time, it's there to stay.

"I, too, wish to see it for myself." Dion takes a deep breath. "I have to."

It's a terrible idea, for an uncountable number of reasons.

"All right," Cid says anyway. "We'll get you some gear."

Chapter Text

Clive wakes to a nightmare, as he has every day since his world was torn apart.

The soldiers don't always kick him awake, but they take sadistic pleasure in it when they do. The brand is still so fresh on his cheek that the skin is red around it, but its presence has transformed him in their eyes: he's not a person anymore. Not really. He's a Bearer, and one they have permission to torment.

His mother's permission. He cannot seem to feel anything but a dull acceptance of her treachery. He doesn't know if that's because he is truly unsurprised by it, or because he feels so little else.

At least the gruelling march to Sanbreque has been halted for the last few days. Clive isn't sure what the hold-up is, only that the Imperial forces made camp in a hurry due to some urgent news from the capital. They chained him to a hefty tree - the branches are his only shelter - and left him there like a dog.

The tension has been palpable ever since. Clive has caught some muttering about trouble in Oriflamme, some incomprehensible whispering about Drake's Head. If he could bring his mind to bear on it, he could probably learn more. Maybe he could even use their distraction to his advantage.

He cannot seem to care. Joshua is dead. Joshua was murdered before his eyes by a being that should not exist, and Clive did not protect him.

The rest of the world can go to hell, as long as it takes that other Dominant of Fire with it.

As if summoned by the thought, he hears a murmur in a language he cannot understand, but recognises at once. Shock explodes behind his eyes; he jerks his head up, stares wildly between the tents.

There - the hooded man! Sinister smile on his shadowed face - something so familiar about him even as Clive flinches from his malevolence - raising one gloved hand to crook a finger at him, beckoning.

Clive shouts. He throws himself forward, straining against his shackles, a flurry of flame curling uselessly at his fingertips.

The hooded man is somehow gone between one blink and the next, but Clive doesn't stop flailing and howling his fury until his guards punch him out and leave him sprawled on the muddy ground.

He's not ungrateful to sink back into unconsciousness.

Despite everything, Dion finds himself enjoying the novelty of travelling with Cid.

There is no retinue of servants fussing around them, no legion of dragoons who salute whenever the Crown Prince and the Emperor step out of their tent. No tents at all, in fact: Cid shows him how to make camp in a sheltered spot, teaches him the knack of stowing a bedroll and how to fill a waterskin from a stream without also collecting mud and grit.

It's strange, lying down to sleep in the open air without even a sheet of canvas between him and the world, but Dion likes it immensely. Even the hard ground and the chill that creeps in a few hours before dawn are paradoxically pleasing: feather beds have always made him feel like they will suffocate him in his sleep.

Cid notices. Dion is starting to think that Cid notices everything.

"Taking to this like a duck to water, aren't you?" he comments, amused, when he gets back from hunting down dinner to find that Dion has proudly got the fire going and prepared a pot for the stew. "Or like a dragon to the wind, I suppose. Good work, lad."

People have spent most of Dion's life piling flattery on his head, but Cid's praise is gruff and warm and real and makes him feel like he's done something that's actually worth doing.

They journey northwest through the Greatwood like that. They're heading for the Kingsfall, Cid tells Dion, scratching a rough map in the dirt; they'll cross into Rosaria there, meet up with a scout he's sent on ahead, then wind their way through the foothills towards Phoenix Gate, avoiding the major trade routes.

The thought of reaching their destination fills Dion with sick dread. A part of him wishes this journey could simply go on forever. He knows he must decide, and soon, what he is to do with himself, but he hopes guiltily to put it off as long as possible.

They've left the Greatwood behind and are climbing towards the higher ground of western Sanbreque when Cid throws out an arm, stopping Dion in his tracks. A moment later, Dion hears a repeat of the sound that must have alerted him: a soft whimper.

Cid cocks his head, frowning thoughtfully. He rests his hand near the hilts of his swords, but doesn't seem inclined to draw. He moves cautiously towards the sound, which is coming from a thick stand of bushes a short way ahead.

Dion trails after him as soundlessly as he knows how. Another whimper and a sort of sneeze lead them to the right spot in the bushes; Cid sweeps aside a branch to reveal what is beneath.

"Oh," Dion says.

"Huh," Cid agrees.

It's a puppy, with thick shaggy fur like a wolf, and ears too large for its head. It startles at their appearance, scrambling away from them with a ferocious growl that is undermined by its big, terrified eyes and the way it's favouring its left front paw.

"Poor little thing," Cid says. He crouches down and whistles softly, holding out his hand. "C'mere, we won't hurt you."

It takes a while to convince the puppy - some bribery with leftover stew is involved - but once they've won its trust, it throws itself at them with desperate affection. Dion's experience with dogs has mostly been limited to the Imperial hunting hounds, which are usually more interested in whatever scent they are chasing than in him, but he swiftly finds himself with his arms full of warm, wriggling canine whilst Cid tends to its injured paw.

"Nothing too serious," Cid says, winding a scrap of bandage firmly above the pad. "Cut himself on a bit of broken glass or a sharp rock, most likely. It's clean enough to heal quickly. He'll be fine."

The puppy tilts its head directly up at Dion, opens its mouth in a big doggy grin, and licks his nose.

Dion looks pleadingly at Cid, who snorts a laugh that he tries to turn into a cough into his hand.

"Yes, all right, we'll take him with us. Wouldn't mind having a dog around the place, to be honest. And Mid'll love him."

It does mean that Dion has to carry their new friend in addition to his own gear, but it's a burden he will bear gladly.

Even if the puppy keeps trying to eat his hair.

They make camp that night half a day's march from the Rosarian border. They stop at a small village first, where Cid charms the locals into selling them a bit of food and tobacco, and even manages to get hold of a nice bone for the dog. That's where they learn that there's half an Imperial legion camped over the next ridge. Dion goes cold; Cid just nods like it's mildly interesting information, and steers them both out of the place before anyone can ask too many questions.

"We'll be keeping well away from them, I think," is all he says about it later. "Doubt they'd recognise you without all the princely flair, but in my experience Imperial soldiers have never needed an excuse to cause trouble."

Dion has grown up hearing about how brave and noble and good the troops of Sanbreque are, but Cid's words have the ring of truth, so he swallows his protest with a pang of shame.

But Cid notices everything, so he goes on, gently, "Armies everywhere have the same grubby underbelly, lad. They're made of people, just like the rest of the world. Some of them are good, some of them less so. All of them make mistakes. And it's easy to get in the habit of thinking the world owes you something for putting your life on the line."

The puppy thumps his tail against Dion's foot. Dion drops a hand to stroke the silky ears.

"You were a soldier, weren't you? In Waloed."

"Aye. To my regret, I know what I'm talking about."

"Why did you—" Dion catches himself about to say desert, corrects it at the last minute. "—why did you leave?"

Cid is silent for several seconds, staring into the fire.

"I thought we were doing something good," he says finally. His voice is low and weary. "More fool me, I thought I'd found a man with a vision of a better world. Thought it was worth following where he led, even if I disliked the road we were taking. But I found out the truth, eventually. What he really was. I couldn't change his mind, I couldn't stop him, and I wouldn't be his weapon any longer. So what else could I do, except leave?"

Dion has no answer to that, except to nod, and bury his fingers in the puppy's thick fur.

"What if I didn't go back?" he finds himself blurting out.

"You tell me," Cid counters.

"What would I do?" Dion scrubs desperately under the dog's fuzzy chin, taking comfort in the happy whine he gets in return. "Where would I go?"

"You'd do whatever you wanted. Whatever you feel is right," Cid says. "As for where… I told Otto to find you a bed, before we left. You're welcome at the Hideaway, for however long you like."

Dion blinks, and then blinks again, and then swallows hard and sniffles a bit.

Cid is decent enough to pretend not to notice.

"Now, we should get some sleep, it's rough terrain up by the Kingsfall—"

He's interrupted by an impossibly loud, impossibly bestial roar. Over the ridge, the sky lights up crimson with towering flame. Dion thinks he hears distant screams.

They're both on their feet in an instant. Cid has his sword in his hand, is scanning the nearby tree cover in case of closer danger. The puppy starts barking frantically, dancing on three paws, snapping at the sky. Dion is staring at the distant inferno, trying to understand how such a huge fire could appear out of nowhere.

Something gets a grip on his heart and squeezes until he can barely breathe.

"That's— it can't be—"

"Titan's tits!" Cid growls, scrambling to grab the most important bits of gear. "Don't think about it, lad, not yet. Don't get your hopes up. We need to move, now."

"We're leaving…?"

Cid snorts as he stamps on the campfire.

"Now where did you ever get the idea I'd have the sense to do something like that?"

He pauses to squint at the blazing skyline, tracking with his eyes the best way to get over the ridge.

"Come on. Let's see what sort of trouble the Imperials have started. Though I'd wager trouble might have found them, this time."

It's not the Phoenix.

That's clear the moment Cid gets a good look at the carnage that used to be an Imperial legion. The thing laying waste to what’s left of the camp has the horns and tail of a demon of legend, the bipedal squat and craggy shoulders of a giant.

There's little doubt, however, that it's an Eikon. And given the flames licking its charred black hide, the blaze that is rapidly turning trees and tents and soldiers alike to ash, it would be a stretch to presume it anything but an Eikon of Fire.

Not a fairy story, then. Bloody hell.

"What is that?" Dion whispers.

"Something that's not supposed to exist," Cid mutters. "I've never heard of two Eikons with the same elemental affinity, have you?"

Dion shakes his head. Cid can only spare him a quick glance, but he notes the grim set of the boy's jaw, face pinched from the death of a hope he's barely had time to form.

Fuck. Cid shouldn't have brought him.

"Doesn't look like it's stopping any time soon," Cid goes on, as the Eikon tears a huge gash in the earth with its burning claws, howling like a wounded wyvern. "I don't think it's planning to leave survivors."

He senses more than sees Dion straighten at his side. Cid throws a hand out blindly just in time to grab the daft boy's shirt and pull him back down when he tries to leap up.

"We can't just—"

"No," Cid agrees, "we can't. But the people who are still alive will sure as hell recognise Bahamut, and then where will you be? Stay here. Keep the dog out of trouble. I'll deal with this."

He plunges down the slope before Dion can protest.

Second time he's primed in under a week, and hells does Cid feel it. Tarja's going to have a fit. He might even let her dose him up with the good stuff this time, assuming he survives.

It's an automatic qualifier, but as the unknown Eikon turns on him with a roar, Cid's getting the measure of it, and he doesn't see anything that worries him overmuch. For all its ferocity and raw strength, this Eikon moves like it's still figuring out how. Its blows are clumsy and poorly-aimed; its fire is spilling off it without any sense of conscious direction.

Cid catches a glimpse of its eyes, a sulphurous yellow that can only mean one thing: its Dominant is not in control.

Twice in one week, Cid thinks. Is there something in the air, or is it just my natural charm?

Ramuh dodges the first blow with barely a twitch to one side, retaliates with a levinbolt that sends the demon crashing to the ground. It lies there for a moment, stunned, and Cid wonders if that's all it's going to take.

Unfortunately, what the Eikon lacks in skill and experience, it makes up for in tenacity. It claws itself to its feet and hurls a barrage of fire at Cid. He dodges most of it and deflects what he can't, wincing as the flames lick up his staff.

He doesn't think he's going to be able to talk this one down. Doesn't even know the thing's name, or the name of its Dominant. He doubts he can use the kind of tactics he used on Bahamut, either, not when all the nearby cover is so flammable.

It'll have to be brute force, then, and as quickly as possible, to minimise the collateral damage.

He calls down another bolt of lightning. The Eikon thrashes on the ground like a stranded fish, but scrabbles back up again. It flings itself at Ramuh, but Cid has already moved aside.

He raises his staff. Thunder tears the sky apart. He moves. He waits. He does it again.

It takes an unreasonably long time to wear the other Eikon down, but eventually, the demon pitches forward on its face with a long, tortured moan. It lies there for a few seconds, its flames dying to embers, and then it collapses in on itself with a burst of fire.

When Cid blinks away the afterimages, he can just make out someone lying in the mud and ash in its place. It's clear at a glance that it isn't Joshua Rosfield. Not that Cid really expected it to be, at this point. The clothes, though… they do look Rosarian…

Cid drifts down to the ground and lets Ramuh's aether drain away. He stumbles as he returns to his own body, forced to bend over with his hands on his knees for a moment, gulping smokey air and coughing it up again. There's a metallic taste on his tongue that he doesn't care for.

While he's still getting his bearings, a blur of scrambling paws and high-pitched barking goes tearing past him. Cid straightens sharply, cursing, but the puppy is making a beeline for the fallen Dominant. Even on three paws, it's too fast to catch.

Not that Dion isn't trying. He races past Cid before Cid can draw breath to shout at him to stop. Cid groans, braces his hand against his ribs to try and steady his own lungs, and staggers in pursuit.

Cid's not sure what he thought the dog was going to do - rip the guy's throat out with its adorable little teeth, maybe? - but he's certainly not expecting to find it frantically licking the fallen man's face and whining.

Nor does he anticipate Dion stopping dead and gasping, "I know him!"

Cid drags himself over to his second unconscious Dominant of the week - turns out this one's barely more than a kid as well, fucking hells - and kneels to turn him onto his back. There's a fresh brand on his cheek and the tracks of tears in the grime and soot that coats his face, but he's dressed like nobility, even if the clothes have seen better days.

"Care to introduce us?" Cid prompts, gently elbowing the puppy aside while he checks the guy is actually breathing.

"It's— he's Clive Rosfield. Joshua's brother."

"Is he, now." Cid shakes his head. "Really does run in the family, then, doesn't it?"

"What?"

"Two Dominants of Fire." Cid is in no shape to be doing this again, let alone with a teenager considerably taller and heavier than Dion, but he grimly hauls Clive over his shoulders and totters to his feet. "That was one of the rumours out of Phoenix Gate. Though I'll admit, not one I gave any credence to."

There's shouting somewhere in the distance. Maybe the soldiers are regrouping, or maybe people from the village have come to investigate. Cid doesn't feel like stopping to chat either way.

"Look lively, lad," he says to a still-stunned Dion. "Grab that dog and let's beat a hasty retreat."

"Torgal," Dion replies absently. He hoists the puppy into his arms. It doesn't protest this time, eyes still locked on the unconscious Clive. "This must be Torgal. Joshua wrote to me about him."

Dion's face crumples for a moment and he buries it in the puppy's fur. He takes a shaky breath before he straightens and comes to Cid's side.

"Torgal," Cid repeats. The dog in question perks up, thumping his tail against Dion's chest. "Bet you could tell us a thing or two, if you could talk."

"Where are we going?" Dion asks.

"Closest safe place I know about. If we hoof it we can be there by morning. And if we're lucky, we've had our share of trouble for one night."

Chapter Text

Dion thinks he remembers passing through this place on the way to Rosalith for the Remembrance Ceremony last year. Martha's Rest, Cid tells him it's called. Not that anyone bothered naming it in Dion's hearing when he was travelling with the Imperial household. It was just another 'pisspot village', as his valet used to say with a sniff of disdain.

Martha greets Cid by slapping him hard across the face, then ushers the three of them up the stairs and out of sight. Cid grumbles, but seems to accept it as deserved.

Dion decides not to ask. He's too tired, anyway, to do more than crawl into the bed he's pointed to and fall into fitful sleep with the dawn light sneaking through the shutters.

At some point a warm, fuzzy weight burrows under the blanket with him. He sleeps better after that.

He wakes in the afternoon, ravenously hungry and with dog hair all over his shirt. The culprit is now dozing at the foot of the other bed, where Clive Rosfield is still asleep, or still unconscious. Dion finds that someone has left him some bread and an apple (carefully placed out of Torgal's reach) alongside a pitcher of water. The bread is plain and the apple is a little too sour, but they're both fresh, and Dion gratefully eats them as he sits on his bed staring at Joshua's brother.

He remembers being impressed, when they met last year. Clive was on the cusp of being seen as a man rather than a boy. To Dion's eyes he looked enviably tall and mature. Not to mention that he took his responsibility to keep Joshua safe so seriously; Dion admired his dedication to training as a Shield, and the way he kept a close eye on his brother throughout the days of the ceremony.

Most of what else he knows about Clive comes from Joshua's letters. Joshua loves - loved, Dion corrects himself, closing his eyes against the pain - his older brother with such vehemence that Dion has suffered more than the occasional pang of jealousy.

Though he couldn't have said, then or now, which Rosfield brother he envied more: the one so cared for and protected, or the one so adored in return.

Clive's taller and stronger now than he was then, but he looks much younger, somehow, lying so still in the narrow inn bed. His face is pale and drawn, except for the black ink of the brand and the angry red skin around it.

It turns Dion's stomach to look at it. The insult - the outrage - of putting that mark on someone who isn't a Bearer! Someone who, it seems, may even be a Dominant in his own right.

Assuming it is even possible to have two Dominants of Fire, each with their own Eikon.

Cid questioned him all the way to the village, probing for every last scrap of information about the elder Rosfield brother. Dion has told him everything he could recall. How the Phoenix passed Clive over to choose Joshua; how their mother spurned her firstborn as a result; how Clive strove and trained and proved himself fit to serve as Joshua's First Shield; how he received the Accolade of the Phoenix.

No mere Accolade can explain what they saw last night. He primed. And the demon he became… Dion has never heard of any such Eikon.

He wonders if Harpocrates has. Then he wonders, with an unexpected pang, if he will ever see his tutor again.

Because he… he doesn't want to go back.

He fears it's a cowardly choice. It's certainly a selfish one. His heart starts racing just at the thought of confronting his father over the betrayal of Rosaria - or worse, saying nothing, ducking his head meekly and pretending his loyalty has not been shaken to its foundations.

But it's not only that. Dion feels as though he has been staggering under an impossible weight his whole life, and has only recognised it now it has been lifted from his shoulders. As though he has only been able to carry it until now because he must, because to falter would mean being crushed beneath it.

The thought of picking it up again is like trying to imagine himself to the moon, and he doesn't have Mid's talents in that area.

Clive stirs. Torgal's head comes up at once, a little whine escaping his mouth. Dion sets aside the apple core and jumps to his feet, approaching the other bed cautiously.

"Lord Rosfield?"

Clive's eyes flutter open, then fall shut again. His face sheds the serenity of sleep, contorts into an agony that Dion recognises all too well.

"No," he croaks. Tears spill from under his clenched eyelids. "No, no, no—"

"Lord Rosfield—" Dion hesitates mid-step. "Clive?"

Clive makes a sound no human being should utter, a hoarse wail torn from deep inside his chest. He rolls onto his side, nearly catapulting Torgal off the bed, and clutches at his head as he curls in on himself.

"It was me," he's saying brokenly, "it was me, it was me, it was me…"

Dion looks helplessly at Torgal, who is trying to clamber over Clive to get at his face, probably on the assumption that a good licking will fix all problems. Clive flails at the puppy, knocking him to the ground, where Torgal shrinks back with an unhappy yelp.

He should get Cid, Dion realises, moving towards the door. Just as he turns the handle, a clatter and a crash spin him back around.

Torgal starts to bark wildly.

Cid doesn't immediately panic when he hears the crash from the inn's upper storey - he can think of at least three explanations that don't need his intervention - but the ensuing commotion has him off his barstool and halfway across the room before Martha can even finish saying, "What's going on up there?"

The dog is damn near hysterical, and as Cid takes the stairs two at a time he can hear what sounds horribly like a struggle.

The door is ajar, in the process of swinging slowly open, so he gets an instant impression of the scene beyond. It freezes him on the threshold.

Clive is sprawled on the floor in a tangle of sheets; Dion is standing over him. He's holding a knife, Cid sees with horror. There's blood on the blade.

But Dion is moving, is staggering backwards with the momentum of some sudden action, hand flying out to the side, and the blade is pointing the wrong way for an attack. Clive is convulsed with sobs, bleeding extensively from a gash over his heart, right hand still groping for the knife that Dion - Cid now realises - has snatched away from him. Torgal is crouched low, whites of his eyes showing, barking fit to raise the dead.

Oh, hell, Cid thinks, taking a step forward.

"I killed him!" Clive howls. "It was me! I killed him! I killed Joshua!"

Dion jolts like he's been hit with an electric shock. For an instant, white light flares under his skin. Something like the ghost of a pair of wings flickers behind his shoulders. Cid stops in his tracks again.

Fuck.

Then Dion takes a deep breath. The light fades. He grips the knife tighter, but only so he can toss it to the other side of the room. He swiftly crosses the gap between him and Clive, drops down beside him, and hauls him into a sitting position.

Clive falls still. Dion fumbles in a pocket, pulls out a handkerchief that Cid recognises. It's been cleaned since he handed it over in the Inner Sanctum of Drake's Head. Dion wads it up and presses it to Clive's chest, holding firmly to stop the bleeding.

"If that is true," Dion says quietly, "then I will kill you."

Fuck, Cid thinks again, with even more emphasis.

"But I should like to be very sure of it first."

Clive is shaking his head like a dog with water in its ears. The actual dog has finally stopped barking, though the way he's now snuffling and whining is almost worse.

"I am sure," Clive croaks. "I'm sure, I know it, I know it was me—"

"All right, that's enough of that." Cid has finally found his voice. Dion jumps, casting him a startled look; apparently he hadn't even noticed Cid come in. "Dion, go and get Martha, would you? Tell her to bring her medicine chest."

Dion hesitates for a moment, looking at the already blood-soaked handkerchief. Cid moves to join him on the floor with Clive, takes over holding the makeshift dressing in place. Dion nods, scrambles wordlessly to his feet, and bolts out of the room.

Clive is a mess, shaking and crying and so damn young. Not really a child anymore, not in a world like this one, but with so much growing left to do before he's ready to shoulder this kind of grief.

Not that anyone is ever truly ready for it.

"Clive Rosfield," Cid says, as gently as he can. "You don't know me, but I'm a friend. My name's Cid. We'll get you somewhere safe, get you healed up, and talk about what to do next."

Clive shakes his head hard.

"There's nothing— there's nothing I can do— I should be dead—"

"None of that," Cid interrupts sharply. "Dying's too easy, and a bit too permanent to choose in a hurry."

He gropes for something he can say to make an impression; it'll have to be tough love with this one, he thinks, at least while he's in the first throes of despair.

"Besides, if you really did kill your brother, don't you owe it to him to get the truth out there? Everyone thinks it was the Phoenix who laid waste to that keep."

Clive moans like he's gut-struck, but he does at least stop babbling his guilt in favour of taking heaving, shuddering breaths.

Footsteps on the stairs herald Martha's appearance, Dion hurrying behind her with the medicine chest in his arms.

"Founder's sake," Martha mutters, taking in the scene. "Put it down there," she adds, pointing Dion to a spot on the floor, "and help Cid get him back in his bed."

Dion does as he's told. Between them, he and Cid manoeuvre Clive off the floor whilst Cid keeps pressure on the handkerchief jammed against Clive's chest.

Just as they're trying to get him to lie down, Clive grabs Dion's arm, meets his eyes with a feverish intensity.

"Give me your word," he rasps.

Cid blames his lack of sleep for being slower on the uptake than Dion, who knows at once what Clive is asking.

"You have it."

… for fuck's sake.

Strangely enough - or perhaps not so strangely - Dion's quiet, unflinching promise gets through to Clive the way Cid's been failing to. He calms down enough to let them settle him against the pillows and restore the spilled sheets. Martha takes over then. One of her people comes in with hot water and cloths, which she uses to mop up the blood and clean the wound.

"It's shallow," she reassures them, pulling salve and bandages from her medicine chest. "A lot of blood for not much consequence. He'll be fine."

Cid does not think that Clive Rosfield will be fine any time soon, but at least he hasn't managed to stab himself in the heart.

And Cid will not be taking his eyes off him for the foreseeable future.

Or off Dion, for that matter. The younger boy has retreated to the other bed. Torgal has immediately climbed into his lap; Dion is soothing the puppy - and probably himself - by pulling gently on Torgal's ears and digging his fingers into the thick fur of his scruff. Clive's blood is still on his hands and his shirt, which means both he and the dog are going to need scrubbing after this.

Cid is not in favour of murder-vengeance pacts between teenagers, thank you very much. He hopes like hell that Clive is overstating his culpability out of misplaced guilt, and that Dion has the compassion to see it that way. Otherwise he might have to lock one or both of them up in the Hideaway's rudimentary jail cells until he can talk some sense into them.

Martha retrieves a small bottle of liquid from the medicine chest, holds it up with a questioning glance at Cid. Cid recognises it as a sleeping draught. He nods. He's not normally a proponent of drugging someone for their own good - always a bit questionable, in his opinion, as to how much good you're really doing them - but Clive's at too much risk of hurting himself, intentionally or by accident, and Cid's still got to get him back to the Hideaway somehow.

Clive drinks the potion without protest when Martha presses it to his lips. He's out like a light shortly thereafter.

"Poor, poor Lord Rosfield," Martha murmurs, stroking Clive's hair out of his eyes and tucking him in carefully beneath the blanket. "It's a miracle he survived when his father and brother both perished. He cannot forgive himself for that, I take it?"

"Aye, seems like it," Cid replies with a glance at Dion.

"He would never allow Joshua to come to harm," Dion states. He meets Cid's eyes with unexpected certainty. "Not if he could prevent it. Not if he was in his right mind. Either he's mistaken or— or there was something more at work that night."

Cid breathes a silent sigh of relief. Maybe he won't need to clap both of them in irons, then.

"We'll see what he can tell us when he's in a better frame of mind," Cid says. "For now, we'll have to give up on our fact-finding expedition. We can't take him with us like this, and I'm not leaving him here."

"You certainly are not," Martha confirms with a scowl. "I'd shelter Lord Rosfield in a heartbeat if I could, but too many people here know his face, not to mention those passing through from the capital. He won't be safe, and he'll put others at risk."

Her Bearers, she means: not all of them were legally purchased, and the punishment for runaways is death. Cid's hoping to coax her into a closer relationship with his own operation. He wouldn't want to jeopardise that even if he were feeling cavalier about other people's lives.

"No, we'll be on our way as soon as I hear from Gav. Assuming I can find a chocobo to haul Lord Rosfield back down south. I doubt he can walk, and I'm not carrying him all that way."

"I'll ask around for you," Martha replies, packing away her things and picking up the medicine chest. "As for your scout, I'm expecting him tonight or tomorrow morning."

"You'll be rid of us soon enough, then," Cid says with a grin. "Thanks, Martha."

She glares at him uncharitably as she reaches to pull the door shut behind her.

"Like I'll ever be rid of you, Cid," she mutters. "You're a bad penny, always showing up."

Cid decides to take that as a compliment. He throws a wink at Dion, who looks offended on Cid's behalf, then catches himself stifling a yawn.

"Right, I've got to get some shut-eye. Hop off that bed so I can have a turn."

Dion scoops Torgal up in his arms and gets to his feet.

"What should I do?"

"Stay out of trouble," Cid suggests. The drying blood on Dion's shirt catches his eye. "Maybe give yourself and that dog a bath."

Torgal's ears flatten at the word bath and he whines unhappily. Dion looks doubtfully down at the puppy, but nods and starts for the door.

"And, Dion—" Cid glances at Clive. "You did well. Shouldn't have had to - I should've been here when he woke - but you did the right thing."

Wish you hadn't promised to kill him on demand, he adds silently, but we'll work with what we've got.

Dion nods again as he wrangles the door open with his arms full of Torgal. His ears have gone red. Cid is struck by a wave of fondness for the boy. He's a good kid, in every way, and it's clear he's starving to be told as much.

"Do you think he can tell us what happened?" Dion asks, pausing at the threshold.

"I think he can tell us what he thinks happened," Cid replies with a grimace. "The state he's in, I don't know how far I'll trust his memory."

"So… we'll still need to go to Phoenix Gate, later?"

The real question is transparent. Cid's fondness threatens to reach crippling levels. He hides a smile in his hand as he starts to unstrap his swords.

"I'm sure of it, lad. Afraid you'll have to stick around a bit longer."

"It's fine," Dion replies at once. "Sleep well."

He closes the door behind him quickly enough that Cid doesn't have to pretend not to chuckle.

His amusement fades as he glances over at Clive.

This one, he thinks, is going to need careful handling.

It's getting dark by the time Dion emerges from the wash house, mostly triumphant, also half-drowned.

Apparently puppies do not care for baths, regardless of how enthusiastic they may be about dirty puddles and muddy streams.

Fortunately, they are also quick to forgive, especially when they've had the satisfaction of kicking the bucket of water over you not once, but three times. Torgal trots happily - and soggily - at Dion's side as he walks around the side of the inn towards the front door. Dion's hair is dripping, but that's fine, because his shirt is also thoroughly soaked (though he hasn't quite managed to get all the blood out, unfortunately). He's not sure if he's actually cleaner than when he went in, but he feels much better for it. It's hard not to find your heart lightened when you've spent a considerable amount of time locked in giggling combat with a rebellious, waterlogged hound and a bar of soap.

Just as they reach the steps up to the inn door, Torgal halts and lets out a low growl.

Dion freezes as well, looking around quickly for danger. He finds it, or something like it: a cloaked figure in the shadows across the lane. It's impossible to see anything of the face beneath the hood, but Dion is certain that the watcher's gaze is locked on him.

Possibilities flash through his mind. A spy from the capital? An assassin? Here for Clive, here for Cid - here for Dion himself?

Anger pulses in his chest like one of Bahamut's flares. He clenches his fists and strides across the lane.

The person in the cloak takes a hasty step back, but Dion has them boxed in against the opposite wall before they can turn and run. He barely comes up to their shoulder, but they seem pleasingly intimidated all the same.

"Who are you?" Dion demands. "What do you want?"

"Forgive me, your Highness, I did not mean to give offence."

Alarm courses down Dion's spine.

"You know me?"

The figure hesitates, then bows.

"Your Highness, Prince Dion Lesage, Dominant of Light," they recite, quietly enough not to be overheard. "Please be assured, we mean you no ill-will. We shall not spread rumour of your presence here."

"We?" Dion repeats pointedly.

"We are…" The person hesitates again, glancing towards the inn. They lower their voice even further before continuing. "We are the loyal servants of House Rosfield."

"Oh," Dion says. He manages to stop himself from looking towards the room where Clive lies unconscious. "What is your business here?"

"I believe I need not tell you, your Highness," the figure replies. "If I may ask but one question… do you intend to return to Oriflamme from here?"

Is he planning to take Clive prisoner again and hand him over to the Empire, the hooded person means. Dion glares at them.

"I do not," he says.

"Then we have nothing more to discuss." The figure steps away and bows low. "Our thanks and our blessing, your Highness. May the Phoenix's flames light your way."

Dion chokes. The hooded figure slips away into the darkness before he can recover. Dion takes a step after them, but stops when Torgal barks softly at his heel.

He shivers, suddenly cold in his wet shirt.

"Let's go and get warm," he tells the puppy, turning towards the inn. Someone's stomach rumbles: he's not sure if it's his or Torgal's. "And perhaps, if we are lucky, Martha may have some supper for us."

By the next morning, Cid has had enough sleep to get by, Martha has found them a chocobo, and Gav has turned up as bright and early as the dawn chorus, so things are looking up.

Cid is less happy with Dion's wide-eyed report of a mysterious cloaked figure or two skulking around the place, but concludes there isn't much to do about it except what he already has planned, which is to get Clive back to the Hideaway and lie low for a time.

Despite his assurance to Dion, he suspects there's no pressing need to get to Phoenix Gate for now. The rumour that one of Duke Elwin's sons survived has been proven true; it's just not the one that Cid hoped for.

No offence to Clive.

He takes Gav aside to hear his report, even though he's pretty sure they've found what they were looking for.

"Let me guess," Cid says as they're checking over the chocobo's gear. "Your trail leads east, in the company of a legion of Imperial soldiers?"

Gav snorts.

"Not hardly. South, is what I'm hearing, and a crew of shady types at that."

Cid stops what he's doing to stare at the young man.

"Shady?"

"All in robes and cowls, the lot of 'em. Like monks. They were close by Auldhyl two days ago, but a rumour started that they were Ironblood spies, and they made tracks out of there in the night."

"Now that," Cid says thoughtfully, "is either one hell of a coincidence, or nothing of the sort."

"Aye? Shall I get on their tail, then?"

Cid tightens the chocobo's saddle, checks the straps they'll need to use to keep Clive on its back. It's going to be a gruelling journey, even with a mount to do the heavy lifting.

"Not yet," Cid says finally. "I've got a feeling it's about to get very lively around these parts, especially when the Emperor gets word from what's left of those soldiers. I don't want you out here on your own, not until things settle down. Besides, I want to know what young Lord Rosfield can tell us."

"It's really him, then? The Duke's oldest son?"

"In the flesh. And in pieces." Cid sighs. "He's convinced he's to blame for his little brother's death. As if he could have fought off the Empire by himself."

Gav jerks sharply, turning his face away before Cid can see his expression. Cid makes a note to find out more about the lad and how he came to the Hideaway. He can't be much older than Clive himself.

"Poor sod," Gav mutters. "Let's get him home, shall we?"

"Aye," Cid says, slapping the chocobo on its feathered rump and receiving an indignant squawk in return. "Let's all go home."

Chapter Text

Clive would not have believed that the nightmare could get even worse, and yet here he is.

True, no-one has kicked him recently. The last few times he's woken up, he's found himself lying in a bed instead of on the muddy ground, and someone has been coaxing water and thin soup into him on a regular basis.

But he remembers now.

Not all of it. Not even most of it. That awful night at Phoenix Gate is as fragmented as his memories of what he did to the soldiers dragging him back to Sanbreque. Some of it still feels like something he watched from a distance, like there really was another Dominant of Fire there, like Clive himself stood idle as the Phoenix screamed in pain.

Idle. If only he truly had been. If only Ambrosia had let him die under that piece of falling masonry, or Murdoch had let him run into the flames before it was too late.

If only he had never been born. Joshua might still be alive, then.

There are manacles chaining him to the bed frame. He's glad of them. He doesn't want to hurt anyone else.

He drifts in and out of consciousness, not truly trying to wake. Sometimes he hears people murmuring nearby - the gruff voice of the man who brought him here, the lilt of the woman who tends to him.

Then, at some unknown time of day or night, he's roused by a soft step, a slight figure creeping to his bedside with a child's caution. For a heartrending moment, he thinks it is Joshua. But no - Joshua isn't that tall yet. Will never get that tall, now.

The person puts something down on Clive's nightstand and turns to go. Clive tries to ask a question. What comes out is more of a rasp.

All the same, his visitor spins back to him at once.

"Clive? I mean— Lord Rosfield?"

Dion Lesage, of all people. A jumble of memory straggles into Clive's brain. Dion was there before, wasn't he? When Clive first awakened to this unbearable new truth. Dion staunched his wound. Dion promised to avenge Joshua where Clive has failed.

He… he knows, then. What Clive did.

Dion disappears for a few moments, returns with a cup of water. Clive turns his face away when it's proffered. They may have been pouring it down his throat while he's lain helpless, but that doesn't mean he has to accept it now he's awake.

"Clive," Dion says softly. "Please."

Maybe it's the note of genuine pleading in Dion's voice. Or maybe Clive does it for Joshua's sake: his brother was so very taken with the prince, wrote to him with such fierce dedication, wanted so much to see him again. Clive shuffles himself onto one elbow, the manacles clinking, and accepts the cup with a shaking hand.

Dion keeps hold of it, helps him guide it to his lips. Clive means only to sip, but finds himself horribly thirsty as soon as the water touches his tongue. He empties the cup before he knows what he's doing.

"More?" Dion asks.

Clive nods, ashamed of his own weakness. Dion goes to refill the cup. While he's gone, Clive squints at the nightstand.

Dion has placed his ear cuff there, he realises. No doubt it was filthy with blood and soot and Founder knows what else; it has been cleaned and polished, set carefully down on a small square of linen.

He supposes its twin is melted to slag beneath the rubble of Phoenix Gate now.

His vision blurs into tears that burn.

Dion doesn't seem surprised to find him crying when he returns. He just sits on the edge of the bed and helps Clive drink through his anguish.

Strangely enough, that alone calms him a little. It's hard to sob and drink at the same time.

And despite himself, Clive is slowly waking up to the strangeness of the situation. That Dion, of all people, should be here - and where is here, exactly? This is no inn, nor a room in any noble house. Dion isn't dressed like the Crown Prince of Sanbreque: he's wearing a plain shirt and trousers, like any commoner child.

"Where are we?" Clive manages to croak once he's slaked his thirst.

"Cid's Hideaway," Dion replies, placing the cup aside. "I can take the manacles off, if you wish. They were only to stop you hurting yourself in your sleep."

A stubborn part of Clive wants to insist they remain, but actually, his arms are really uncomfortable in this position, and his wrists are sore.

"Please."

Dion reaches for Clive's hands and springs the latches one after another. Not even locked, Clive realises; they really weren't intended to hold him captive. Dion pries the cuffs off and drops them on the ground with a clatter, frowning at the reddened skin they were covering.

"A moment, I think Tarja has a salve…"

He jumps up again. This time Clive is awake enough to watch him cross the small, ramshackle infirmary to a desk and a cluttered shelf. The latter holds jars and bottles that Dion peers at one after another. He pauses to check something on a piece of paper lying on the desk, then picks up a jar and carries it back over to Clive, already twisting the lid off.

He sits down on the bed again and offers Clive the open salve. It smells reassuringly like the sort of balm Clive has always used for armour chafing and the blisters left by a sword hilt. Clive scoops some out with his fingers, awkwardly smearing it first on one wrist, then the other.

It helps.

"Thank you."

Dion takes the jar back and screws the lid back on. Clive wipes his fingers on the sheets and then feels guilty about it, but he supposes they will need to be washed anyway.

"How did you get here?" he asks Dion.

Dion regards him for a long moment.

"I walked," he says, with just the faintest spark of mischief in his eyes.

Clive is so surprised that he snorts a laugh far out of proportion to the joke. He's only met Dion a handful of times, but the prince was always so serious. Except when Joshua could coax a smile out of him, which the young Rosfield heir always treated as his most important hosting duty.

The Remembrance Ceremony seems so long ago now. Lost far away on the other side of the end of the world.

Clive touches his chest, feels the bandage under his shirt.

"You gave me your word," he says quietly.

"I did," Dion replies, just as quiet, but with resolve. "And I will keep it, if it comes to that. But first, I want to know everything."

Clive closes his eyes and shudders.

"I'm… not sure that I know more than part of it myself."

"Then Cid will find out the rest," Dion tells him with conviction. "Shall I fetch him, or do you wish to sleep again?"

Clive wishes for very little at this time, except a reprieve from the howling inside his head. He supposes holding a conversation will serve as well as sleep, even if it's about the very thing causing his soul to scream.

"Who is Cid?" he asks, belatedly.

"Cidolfus Telamon," Dion replies, as if that's supposed to fully answer the question.

Clive stares at him blankly.

"Ramuh's Dominant," Dion adds.

"I thought Ramuh's Dominant served Waloed—"

"Not anymore." Dion gets to his feet. "It's… probably better if he tells you about it himself. All of it."

All of what? Clive wonders, curiosity stirring even through the fog of despair.

"All right," Clive says. "I'll talk to him."

"Well," Cid says, sitting back in his chair, "that makes everything as clear as mud."

He fishes out his cigarettes and occupies himself lighting one with a crystal that's definitely on its last few charges. He'll need to get hold of another soon. Hypocrisy at its finest, Cid thinks, given his intentions to end the supply of them for good, but a bit of hypocrisy's what makes you human, after all.

"So. In summary." Cid pauses to savour the first taste of smoke as much as to order his thoughts. "The rumour that the Duchess of Rosaria conspired with the Emperor of Sanbreque to murder her own husband and betray her country: true."

Clive, pale and exhausted in the bed, closes his eyes and nods.

"The rumour that a second Eikon of Fire somehow emerged and fought with the Phoenix until the whole place burned to the ground: also true."

A tear slips from under Clive's closed eyelids. He nods again.

Cid pauses to consider his next words carefully. He won't be able to take this back.

He glances at Dion, hunched over where he sits on the other bed, fists clenched on his knees. Cid has faith that Dion's not going to do anything stupid, even after Clive's raw, hopeless admission of how the second Eikon of Fire beat the Phoenix into the ground, but the boy is in pain. And as for Clive…

Tarja's always saying you can't do much for someone who doesn't want to be healed. She's usually making a point about Cid's reluctance to spend time in the infirmary, but… Clive needs something to hold onto. Something to hope for. Anything. If it turns out to be false hope later… well, Cid will just have to deal with that future possibility if it arises.

He has to make sure Clive has a future first.

"All in all," Cid goes on, "I'm thinking that if two out of three tall tales from that night have turned out to be fact, it's time to give some serious consideration to the third."

Dion frowns, looks up at him questioningly.

"What do you mean?"

Last chance to keep his bloody mouth shut. Cid looks at Dion's red-rimmed eyes and Clive's clenched jaw. Even Torgal looks devastated, ears drooping where he's curled at Clive's feet.

One of these days, Cid thinks, but not today.

"Clive," he starts gently, "what's the last thing you remember from that night?"

Clive flinches.

"I told you. Hitting my brother, again and again."

"Your brother? Or the Phoenix?"

Clive opens his eyes to frown blearily at Cid.

"They are one and the same."

"For some purposes, aye. For this, maybe not." Cid sighs. Better not dance around it. "Forgive me, Clive, but I'll be blunt: do you recall landing a single blow on your brother, Joshua Rosfield, or do your memories end with the defeat of the Phoenix?"

Dion chokes on a gasp. Cid spares him a glance; from his rod-straight back and sudden stillness, he's picked up the implication with his usual insight.

Clive has not, but that's understandable, all things considered.

"What difference does it make?" Clive demands, anguished. "I killed him!"

"Did you?" Cid flicks ash from his cigarette onto the neatly swept floor, even though Tarja will have his hide for it. "No body was found, is what I've heard. No trace of either of Elwin's sons in the wreckage. Presumed dead, of course, but we already proved them wrong about you."

Now Clive has gone as still as Dion, eyes locked on Cid like a man drowning a handsbreadth from shore.

"And if I'm not misremembering," Cid finishes, "there's a certain trait the Phoenix is particularly known for. Something about rising from the ashes? Ringing any bells?"

"He—" Clive whispers. "He—"

"Is that why you wanted to go to Phoenix Gate?" Dion bursts out. A hectic flush has bloomed on his cheeks. There's a snap of anger in his words, but it's a puppy snarl, shock as much as anything else. "To see if he— if Joshua— you didn't tell me!"

"Didn't want to give you false hope," Cid says, letting a touch of apology creep into the words.

He looks back at Clive.

"Don't want to give either of you false hope, but… better than no hope at all, I reckon."

"No, but he…" Clive shakes his head, but Cid can see it taking root in him, the first thread of healing doubt, the first spark of new strength. Fuck, Cid's really gambling everything on the unlikely chance of a three-card flush. "He was never… strong, his body— he took sick so often, he was so easily tired— and I— that thing— it tried to tear his heart from his chest—"

"You'd be amazed what you can tear off an Eikon and watch it grow back," Cid replies. Shifts his legs reflexively, wincing at the memory. "It's not a lot of fun, mind. And I'm not saying it's a certainty. Just… maybe hold off on taking any drastic action until we've had a chance to look into it, what do you say?"

He's talking to both of them, though he keeps his eyes on Clive. Clive holds his gaze with watery eyes, takes a shaky breath, and nods once sharply.

"But if your brother did survive somehow," Cid goes on, "I doubt he walked out of there and vanished on his own. I'm confident the Empire doesn't have him, nor your mother - they'd be telling the world, not keeping him hidden. And it seems to me there's a few too many hooded folks running around Rosaria these days."

Dion sucks in his breath.

"The person I saw at Martha's Rest— they said they were loyal to the Rosfields."

Clive turns to him.

"Who?"

"I didn't see their face…" Dion's eyes widen. "And they told me— they said, may the Phoenix's flames light your way."

Clive makes a startled sound.

"That's—"

Clive stops, like he knows he's not supposed to talk about it. Cid sees the moment he glances around the room and realises how far away he is from the necessity of keeping such secrets.

"There's… an order of knights who serve my family. They're called the Undying. They exist to safekeep the Dominant of Fire. Some of them would have been at Phoenix Gate for the ceremony— they could have—"

"It's a thought," Cid cuts in before Clive can get too excited. "But I'm mindful of your mysterious stranger, too. You don't seem to feel he was benevolent."

Clive is silent, staring at nothing as he searches his own memories.

"I don't… I don't know if I can trust what I remember. If it wasn't just my mind conjuring up someone else to blame."

He frowns.

"I saw him again," he realises. "That last day in the imperial camp… he appeared and disappeared like a dream whenever I was alone… and then when night fell, he came to me and said—"

Clive screws his eyes shut and shudders, clutching at his head.

"I don't know what he said. I didn't understand it. But he reached for me, and awoke… Ifrit."

The name falls heavy into the air, like Clive is speaking it into existence. His eyes fly open, full of remorse for breathing life into it, but Cid has always thought refusing to name a thing gives it undue power.

"Ifrit? Can't say I've heard of him. Good to know what to call you next time I need to smack you over the head with a thunderbolt or two, though."

Clive flinches. Too soon, Cid thinks. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. Best to move on quickly.

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Perhaps there's a few more Eikons kicking about than we've been told." Cid frowns thoughtfully at his half-smoked cigarette. "Wonder what a second Eikon of Thunder would be like? Some sort of electric eel, maybe?"

Dion doesn't quite smother a small laugh. Clive doesn't smile, but his eyes relax at the corners. Cid's paying attention, so he also sees how the slight relief of tension paves the way for exhaustion to hit Clive like one of Titan's fists.

"Right," Cid says briskly. "Enough talking. You," he points at Clive as he gets to his feet, "need to rest, and you," he turns to Dion, "need to eat something, don't think I didn't notice you missed dinner. And you…"

He regards Torgal, who gives him the biggest, softest, sweetest puppy eyes ever imagined by a sentimental watercolour painter, and thumps his tail comfortingly against Clive’s ankles.

"… you're doing a great job. You can stay."

Dion lies awake in his new room late into the night, listening to the sounds of the Hideaway gradually subside into nocturnal tranquillity.

In all honesty, calling it a room is generous: it's scarcely more than an alcove with a bed and a small storage chest. It doesn't have a proper door, just a curtain that separates it from a wider space beyond, where Otto is planning to set up more beds in the other alcoves in future. Cid's Hideaway is too small and rudimentary for much more privacy or space than this: everyone has to accept a certain amount of rubbing elbows with their neighbours.

Even so, Dion loves it.

He's slept in so many luxurious bedrooms, and never felt at home in any of them. There is some complicated alchemy of status and favour, some equation he has never wholly understood, but which has resulted in his father telling him offhandedly from time to time that his things have been moved to new chambers. Dion dared to object only once; it was swiftly made clear to him how ungrateful and disloyal he was for having an opinion on where he slept.

Here, there is no sweeping view over the bay, nor a balcony from which to enjoy it. No scent rising from the gardens with sunset, no pretty crystal chandeliers lit by servants as soon as the light fades from the sky, no water kept hot for his bath by a crystal or some poor, exhausted Bearer. No dressing room full of pristine clothing or valet to button him into it and brush away the tiniest speck of lint. Dion has, in fact, recently had to learn how to wash his own linen, and he can't say he cares for it much.

It doesn't matter. This tiny space has one precious quality: it is his. In all the days since they brought Clive back to the Hideaway, not a single other person has entered without permission. When Dion is elsewhere, nothing is disturbed. If he does not make the bed, the sheets remain rumpled until he returns. If he sets something down, he finds it where he has left it.

If he comes here to be alone, no one lets themselves in to bustle with the fireplace or ask if he wants tea. Cid might call him from the passage outside, but he doesn't barge into Dion's space uninvited, either to wait on him or to demand his obedience. Even Mid stops outside the curtain, bouncing up and down impatiently as she demands his attention.

This morning, before Clive woke up, Mid presented Dion with a piece of paper covered in highly complex scribbles, and told him it was a diagram of the room she's going to make him on her airship, which she says will have fifteen windows and its own private swimming bath. Dion has managed to beg some pins from Otto, and it's now proudly displayed above his bed. He likes it better than any of the oil paintings that used to stare at him while he was trying to sleep.

The fact that he's not sleeping now isn't the fault of Mid's picture. It can only be blamed on how full his head is with everything Clive has told them.

How full his heart is with the hope that Joshua might be alive.

He's not angry with Cid for keeping it from him, not really. He can already feel the painful edges of this hope, the awful terror that it will turn out to be just an illusion. And if it does, wouldn't it be better never to have had it at all? Can he live through the heartbreak a second time?

Dion rolls over, plucks absently at a loose thread in the blanket. He's been trying not to think about Joshua all day, the sweetness of hope almost worse than the pain of loss. But his thoughts have churned their way through everything Clive had to say, have tossed about each strange new detail like driftwood in a storm, and finding no answers to the mystery, they have turned to Joshua like they're seeking harbour.

Could he be lying awake right now; could he be thinking of Dion in return? No, Dion tells himself, more likely Joshua will be worrying about Clive - or his own future - or grieving the loss of his father and his home. If he's awake at all; maybe he's fast asleep, somewhere in some other humble bed, in some other humble hiding spot.

Or maybe he's neither awake nor asleep. Maybe he's lying deep unconscious, as pale and still as Clive has been these past few days. Maybe tears dampen his cheeks as they did Clive’s; maybe he half-wakes at times, crying out from the nightmares.

Or maybe none of these. Maybe he is dead, just as Dion has believed until now. Maybe Dion is only telling himself stories to soothe his fears, like the nurse who was gone from his childhood too soon.

I wish I could fly to you, Dion thinks, fierce and fervent in the silence of his own head. I would find you, wherever you are, and I would never let anyone hurt you again.

It feels almost like a prayer, though not one he'd ever offer up to Greagor. More like a promise, perhaps.

I will find you, he thinks, sleep claiming him at last, softening the edges of his thoughts. I will bring you home.

Joshua dreams.

He mostly does not know that he is dreaming, because that is the way of dreams, but strangely, there are times when he finds himself quite cognisant of the fact. Perhaps it's when he rises close to the surface of consciousness; when he thinks for a moment he will wake, when he hears snatches of low-voiced conversation, senses that his body is being fed and watered and kept whole and alive, though his soul can hardly remember the way back to it.

It's so dark here. He can't seem to summon even the smallest flame.

Joshua knows he's dreaming, so why can't he take control of the dream? Why can't he fill this darkness with pleasant memories? He tries to conjure flowers blooming in the midday sun, stars overhead as he and Clive creep giggling to the kitchens in the middle of the night, that one little corner of the castle library that is always so perfectly warm and quiet.

The darkness feels like the space between two walls, a narrow gap never meant to be explored. On one side is the nightmare: fire and blood and screaming, panic and pain and despair. On the other side is something worse, though Joshua doesn't know exactly what it is. There is something about waking up that is too terrible to comprehend. Something that pushes him back every time he thinks of reaching for consciousness.

Once, he thought he heard someone call him. Call his name - not his name - call him in a language beyond names - call him like the scream of a falling star begging for one final reprieve. Joshua knows he tried to answer, knows his throat burned with his cry, but he doesn't know if that was just another dream.

Once, he heard Clive weeping - sobbing like Joshua has never known from him, his voice cracking and rising until it was a beast's tormented howl. Joshua would have beaten down the walls with his hands or his wings or his own voice, if he could only tell which side it was coming from: the nightmare or the waking world.

Joshua doesn't know which direction he's facing anymore. He can feel lucidity slipping away, can feel himself forgetting that he is dreaming. He fights it, knowing what horrors await, but he is weak, and weary, and it is so very dark.

Until it isn't. Until, just for a moment, there is light: not firelight, not his own flickering flame, but the good white light of the stars he always loved to watch on clear winter nights.

I will find you.

Joshua dreams again, then, and no longer knows it - but, for the first time in a long time, the nightmares keep their distance.

Chapter Text

It's a strange little council of war, Cid thinks: three half-grown kids, two of them Dominants, clustered around an idiot who should know better but still thinks he can change the world.

It makes him feel old.

Mid's here too, because she refused to be left out: Cid allowed it, on the basis that she's too young to really understand what they're talking about, has no-one to accidentally spill their secrets to, and will probably just fall asleep anyway.

She makes it ten minutes, then crawls under Cid's desk with Torgal and passes out blissfully on a pillow of contented puppy. Cid is trying not to look at his feet too often, lest his heart melt out of his chest and join them on the floor.

He has other business to attend to. Clive has been interrogating Gav for the last half hour about every scrap of rumour he unearthed in Rosaria. Gav has been remarkably tolerant, but has finally reached the point of telling Clive that maybe he should go and sniff things out, if he's so sure Gav must have missed something.

"Maybe I should," Clive mutters, jumping to his feet and pacing. "I have to find Joshua."

"Sit down," Cid orders him. "If you start bleeding again, Tarja will be after my blood in recompense."

Clive shouldn't even be out of bed, really, but it turns out he's about as good a patient as Cid. Particularly now he is consumed by the possibility that his brother needs him, right this moment, somewhere in the world.

Cid locks eyes with him pointedly.

Clive reluctantly returns to his chair.

"No-one's going anywhere until things quiet down," Cid goes on. "Particularly not anyone who's being hunted by half the realm."

Which is three out of four of the people in this room (not counting Mid, who as far as Cid knows is only being hunted by Otto for stealing his ledger paper again). As he predicted, both Rosaria and Sanbreque are now swarming with soldiers. News of the fall of Drake's Head has spread to every corner of the Twins. There's panic in the air in Dhalmekia and the Crystalline Dominion, and Cid dreads to think what Waloed or the Iron Kingdom may do to take advantage of the chaos.

He'd be seizing the opportunity himself, if it weren't for the inconvenient fact that the remaining Mothercrystals are now under heavy guard for fear of him doing exactly that.

Cid the Outlaw. It has a ring to it. He had hoped to keep a lower profile for a few years until he'd built up more allies and resources, but there was never much chance of keeping his name out of things after Ramuh's open engagement with Bahamut.

"And that includes your brother, if he's out there," Cid continues, still holding Clive's gaze. "Whoever's keeping him hidden won't want to be caught on the road any more than we do. They'll find a bolthole and stay put. It'll give us time to work out where we should be looking for them. And who we're dealing with."

Clive has a certain mutinous look in his eyes, but he nods, and Cid thinks he's got enough sense not to run off the second he can make it further than the stairs. Probably. Cid hasn't quite got a handle on Clive yet: he's a lot more impulsive than Dion, and though he has three extra years of maturity, his self-control has been through the wringer of late.

Dion himself shifts nervously in his chair, staring down at his feet.

"Would it help if I… went back? I could divert them with some false tale—"

It hurts Cid's heart how much Dion clearly dreads the thought, and yet how genuine the offer is.

"Best not," Cid replies, not even stopping to consider it. "Right now, they're looking for an outlaw, a missing prince, and an escaped prisoner, and I doubt they've guessed we're all together. I'm sure someone will think of it sooner or later, but for now it works to our advantage that they're pulled in three different directions."

Dion doesn't sag in his seat, because he's been appallingly well trained, but his shoulders lose their stiffness and he breathes more easily.

"Besides," Clive puts in with a knowing glance at Dion, "you're a terrible liar."

"I—" Dion seems about to protest it, then realises he doesn't particularly want to declare himself untruthful. Particularly when it would, paradoxically, be a lie. "I suppose that's fair."

"Some history there?" Cid asks, partly just curious, partly hoping to steer the conversation away from reckless endangerment of the participants.

Clive snorts in amusement and mutters something that sounds like fruit tarts. Dion turns beet red and glares at him with a refreshingly childish indignation.

"That was—

"—Joshua's fault," they finish together, laughing until they suddenly aren't. Their faces fall and they look away from each other, both haunted by the same wound, not even scabbed-over yet. If anything, new hope has only made it more tender, Cid suspects.

Still. It's good to see them laugh, even for a moment.

"No-one's hunting for me," Gav puts in. Cid thinks there's a touch of resentment in the words, like he's feeling left out by the Holy Empire's failure to put a price on his head. "I could have a quiet look around—"

"Not yet," Cid says firmly. "They don't have to be hunting you to decide to give you grief, and I'm going to need you and your nose ready at a moment's notice."

Gav's a lot easier to mollify than Clive, mostly because - and Cid means this kindly - he's a good bit slower on the uptake. He straightens proudly and nods to Cid like they're the only two adults in the room.

Cid's not actually sure whether Clive or Gav is older, come to think of it. They're both too mature for their years in different ways: Clive from the weight of heavy expectations, Gav from scrambling to survive for so long on his own.

"I have to do something," Clive insists, which pretty much sums it up, in Cid's opinion: when has the lad ever not had to do something?

"Oh, you will." Cid grins. "Plenty of things need doing around here, and the more of them we take care of now, the fewer problems we'll have when it's time to move. You're not doing any heavy lifting for a bit, but Otto has ledgers to balance and stores to tally, assuming you know your figures."

Clive's expression makes it clear that he doesn't count any of that as doing something. Cid takes pity on him.

"We also need to know more about that Eikon of yours before the next time you call on its power. As soon as you're fit, you need to start training with Dion to see what you and Ifrit can do."

Cid doesn't much like that part, if he's honest. He wishes both of them could forget as much about battle as they've already learned. But the road ahead is unlikely to be a peaceful one, and besides, he knows it's the best thing to keep them both out of trouble. He can see it in the way they immediately shoot assessing glances at each other, the spark of interest and the seeds of rivalry in two pairs of eyes. Clive has the advantage in strength and years of experience, but Dion has far better control over his Eikon. They might be closer matched than they seem, though Cid can already see both of them deciding firmly that they will be the victor.

Cid hopes he's not wildly miscalculating here. He doesn't want them to bring the Hideaway down on everyone's heads. Especially with how little they know about Clive's unprecedented awakening.

"I'd give a lot to spend some time in the libraries of Oriflamme or Twinside," Cid adds, half to himself. "In eight hundred years there surely must have been some mention of this Ifrit and his Dominant."

Dion fidgets.

"I may… know someone who could help?"

Cid casts him an interested glance.

"Who'd that be, then?"

"My tutor. Master Harpocrates. He has so many books, and he knows everything."

Chance'd be a fine thing, Cid thinks.

"Problem with that is, he's presumably in Oriflamme along with his books, yes?"

"Yes, but…" Dion bites his lip. "I might write to him. He would not give me away. Though I do not know how he could write back—"

"That, we can manage," Cid replies, considering it. "I've a few contacts outside the Deadlands who're willing to handle discreet correspondence for me. It might be worth the risk. Let me think on it."

Dion nods, unable to hide his delight at having offered a useful suggestion.

Cid shoos them out after that, first retrieving a dead-to-the-world Mid so they can take Torgal with them. As he's carrying her over to her bed - wondering if she's going to wake up just as he gets her settled, as is so often the way - he hears Clive cough behind him. Cid glances back; the others have gone, but Clive is hesitating by the door.

"Got something else you need, lad?"

"Would it… be possible to send a letter to someone in Rosalith?"

"Terrible idea," Cid tells him. He sets Mid down carefully in her usual nest of pillows and pulls the blanket over her. She doesn't stir. "Unless you've got a tutor with a pile of books and all-encompassing knowledge to call upon, we're better off letting them think you're dead."

"… right."

Cid sighs, looking down at his sleeping daughter for another moment before turning away.

"Who is it?"

"What?"

"Who do you want to write to?"

Clive fidgets and avoids his eyes.

"My— my father's ward. Jill. She… we've grown up together, she and I and Joshua— he's always been like a brother to her— if she believes him dead, and me as well—"

Cid notes silently that Clive does not claim the title of brother for himself in relation to the young lady, which given the rest of this conversation - and the faint blush on Clive's cheeks - does not entirely surprise him.

"Hmm." Cid glances at his desk, at his own pile of correspondence. There's a few details he could do with passing on to his allies that he doesn't trust to pen and paper. "A letter's too risky. But I might be able to do you one better."

Clive's eyes widen.

"You mean—?"

"Been thinking I should invest in a Stolas for a while," Cid confirms. "Maybe it's time I dug into the coffers."

He winces as he remembers his earlier conversation with Otto about the state of the Hideaway's provisions.

"Assuming we've anything left, the amount you lot eat."

Clive has never had much of a head for figures, truthfully, but the work Otto gives him isn't particularly complex. The Hideaway's resources are as limited as Cid implied. It's nothing like as difficult as when Murdoch used to walk him through the logistics of feeding and supplying the Ducal Army.

Besides, Dion does more than his share. He isn't under Tarja's watchful scrutiny, so there's nothing stopping him helping with more physical tasks around the place. Which he does, but he also joins Clive most days, helping tally up provisions and people, keeping track of where the food comes from and goes.

Otto starts leaving them to it once they've proved their competence. Sometimes Torgal keeps them company, though he's not much help with the sums. Other times, he can be heard racing around the main hallway with Mid, who has almost as much energy as a puppy herself.

Clive appreciates having something to occupy his attention, but his skin itches with the enforced idleness all the same. He wants to pick up a sword and train until he's too tired to think. He wants to jog around the Hideaway until he's gasping and dizzy.

He wants to find Joshua. He has to. He has to.

(If he's alive. Could he be alive? He must be, please, he must be alive. If he's alive, then Clive… then maybe Clive can forgive himself just a little. Not entirely. Not even all that much. But if somehow Ifrit's frenzy stopped short of the Phoenix's total destruction…)

Clive closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath.

When he opens them again, Dion is looking at him with a small furrow of concern between his brows.

"Do you remember the first time you primed?" Clive asks.

Dion's mouth tightens. He nods.

"Was it… what was it like?"

"Awful," Dion replies, like he can't stop himself. Then he shakes his head, "but… wonderful, at the same time."

He fidgets with a corner of the ledger, staring unseeing at the page.

"I was… about Mid's age, I think," Dion continues. "I'd proved myself a Dominant in the cradle, but my father… wanted there to be no shred of doubt. Not when he was so close to being elected to the throne."

A bitter note creeps into the words. Clive feels suddenly, desperately sorry for him.

He remembers, last year, rolling his eyes inwardly at Dion's eager devotion to the Holy Empire, the way he boasted - or, more charitably, was truly convinced - of the virtues of his 'noble' father. Clive was already enough in his own father's confidence by then to have doubts as to the extent of Sylvestre Lesage's honour, but Joshua had found Dion's loyalty charming - had found everything about him charming and been disinclined to hear anyone else’s opinions - so Clive had largely bitten his tongue.

He takes no satisfaction now in being proven correct about the Emperor. Nor in seeing Dion so far removed from the role of dutiful prince he played to the hilt at the Remembrance Ceremony.

Though… Clive thinks that it suits him. This new edge to him, this spark of defiance; even these ramshackle surroundings and this humble work that he does with such heartfelt dedication. It is more in keeping with the Dion that Joshua talked of so endlessly, the side of him that Clive never really saw, that only Joshua had been able to coax out of him.

"They took me up to the top of the Whitewyrm's Lair." Dion's voice goes soft with memory, laced with both dismay and wonder. "Half the city was gathered in the streets below. They had me leap from the parapet. I was terrified. I'd never done it before… never fully primed… I was so afraid of letting everyone down, of disappointing my father."

He pauses, half-smiles.

"And yet… I wasn't afraid of falling. I'm not sure I can explain the difference. I thought I might somehow fail, but I never doubted I had wings and that they would carry me."

Clive remembers Joshua saying something similar, once. He had never primed before that night at Phoenix Gate - no-one was inclined to endanger his health by pushing him into it - but he always used to like to go up to the highest part of the castle towers and look out over Rosalith, over Rosaria beyond.

"One day I shall fly over all of it," he'd told Clive, with that fierce determination that sometimes lit him up from the inside. "I can feel how to do it. Once I'm strong enough, I shall take to the skies, and I'll carry you anywhere we wish to go."

Clive's heart aches and twists and threatens to shatter. He holds on tightly to the tiny embers of hope that Cid has raked up from despair.

"And?" he prompts, realising that Dion has gone quiet.

Dion sighs, eyes distant as he looks into memory.

"I… had no trouble priming. And it was… glorious, to become Bahamut. To feel as though I had found myself. To soar high above Oriflamme - higher even than the peak of Drake's Head - and then turn and see the city so small below me, the sea sparkling beyond, the rest of Sanbreque stretching away to the south. But…"

Dion bites his lip, ducks his head, fidgets with his pencil. It reminds Clive of Joshua again.

"But it wasn't mine," Dion finishes softly. "None of it was mine, not even for a moment. Half the city watched me jump, but it was Bahamut they cheered for. The Council of Elders confirmed me as Dominant - judged my father fit for the throne. There was a feast that night in my honour, but my father sent me to bed after the briefest time at the table. He had too much to discuss with the cardinals to have me underfoot. And I… I had no one I could tell, no one to share it with. It already belonged to everyone else."

It couldn't be more different from Clive's own jumbled memories of his violent awakening to Ifrit, but he feels a rush of kinship all the same. It has echoes of his journey to becoming First Shield: everything he did always under scrutiny, his worth as a person measured by how well he might serve Rosaria and her Dominant.

But he always had Joshua. Joshua, who wanted to know everything about Clive's training, his practice fights, his first fumblings with magic after receiving the Accolade of the Phoenix. Joshua, who took so little notice of what anyone else said about his brother, always more eager to hear what Clive had to say for himself. Joshua, who trusted Clive and Clive alone with his own doubts, his fears that he would never be truly worthy of the Phoenix's fire.

Clive misses him so much it's like someone has chopped off one of his limbs.

"Becoming Ifrit didn't feel like finding myself," Clive admits with a shudder. "It felt like I was lost beyond all hope of salvation. It still does."

"It was like that for me when I lost control of Bahamut at Drake's Head," Dion replies, guilt threading through the words. "As if I were clinging to his back - like trying to tame a runaway steed that would not obey the reins. And yet, I feel ashamed to deny my own responsibility for my actions. I still remember - doing it."

Clive nods, swallowing hard. Yes. It's exactly like that.

At least Dion didn't kill anyone. Didn't kill - or try to kill, flames, please let it be tried and failed to kill - the person he loves most in all the world.

Although, destroying an entire Mothercrystal is… certainly a hell of thing to have on your conscience. Even with everything else Clive has learned since coming here.

"Do you… believe Cid?" Clive asks. "About the crystals?"

Dion hesitates.

"I don't think he's lying," Dion says slowly. "But I… can't help but question if he's mistaken. The Mothercrystals are… they are a gift, we've always been taught. Their light is… our salvation."

The words trail off into uneasy, unspoken doubt. Clive nods again. He knows what Dion means. It feels so wrong to reject the notion that the Mothercrystals are there to nurture and protect, to accept that they might instead be parasites feasting on the very aether craved by those who cluster in their shadow.

But then, Clive has some experience with exactly such a maternal betrayal. So perhaps that's why Cid's claims make an awful sort of sense to him.

"All my life," Clive says finally, "the Ironblood have raided our shores. They come, and they take, and they kill… all in the name of the Mothercrystals. Since they wrested Drake's Breath from Rosaria's grasp, all anyone could talk of was how to get it back. My father—"

Pain grips his heart again. Clive swallows and blinks several times. Dion is polite enough - empathetic enough - to wait.

"Father didn't want another war," Clive goes on. "Not after so much bloodshed in the north. But he could do nothing else. If… if things had not gone as they did at Phoenix Gate… we'd be aboard ship by now, making for Mount Drustanus. Joshua, too… we couldn't go to war without our Dominant… even if the sea air or the journey made him sick. Even though the Ironblood would focus all their hatred on him as soon as they knew he was there."

Clive takes a steadying breath before he continues.

"I remember thinking that it would be better if there were no Mothercrystals at all. If a nation's strength and security did not depend on taking possession of one. It felt blasphemous. But if it kept Joshua safe…"

He can't go on, consumed all over again by the knowledge that he did not keep Joshua safe, that they never even got as far as going to war. That as it turns out, one's mother might not just be distant and unloving, but full willing to destroy her own children in service to her greed.

No, Clive does not find it so very hard after all to believe what Cid has told them.

"We have to find him," Dion whispers.

Clive glances up, struck by the catch in his voice. Dion is staring at - or through - the paper on the table in front of him, lips set in a firm line as if to stop them wobbling, eyes blinking a little too rapidly.

"We will," Clive says, and is surprised by his own certainty. But then, he's always found it easier to set aside his own doubts in service to soothing another. "He would… he will… love this place."

Dion breathes a shaky laugh, glancing up at the doorway, the glimpse of Fallen architecture in the great hall beyond.

"He did say he wanted to explore the ruins when he was old enough."

"Never mind old enough, he tried to get Father to take us out to Lostplume so many times last summer he was forbidden from speaking the name for a month."

This time it's a real laugh, one that brings warmth and light to Dion's face. Clive can't help smiling in return.

"We'll find him," Clive says again. This time it feels even more real: a promise, not a hope. And it feels right to add, "Together."

Dion holds his gaze and nods once, sharp and decisive, renewed conviction flaring bright in his eyes.

Dion is eating supper in the Fat Chocobo with Clive and Gav when Cid strolls over. There is a familiar-looking bird perched on his arm; Dion gasps at the sight of it. Clive drops his spoon into his bowl and splashes himself with stew.

"Did you know," Cid begins, clearly pleased with himself and with their reaction, "that there is a thriving market in counterfeit Stolases? You would not believe how many people have tried to sell me a screech owl with a bit of coloured glass glued to its forehead."

The notion has never occurred to Dion. It makes him laugh, though he feels bad for the poor owls.

"But this is—?" Clive starts breathlessly.

"Aye, this is the real thing." Cid sits down on a spare stool and rests his arm on the table to show off the Stolas. "You can tell by the way it’s not trying to peck my eyes out. Not terribly well-behaved, your average screech owl, it turns out. Bit of a giveaway."

The Stolas regards them placidly. Gav fishes a lump of unidentifiable meat out of his stew and offers it on the edge of his spoon. The Stolas ignores him.

"Plus I already tested it with a message to Otto," Cid goes on.

He holds the Stolas out towards Clive.

"All yours. Though I’ll need it back after."

"Thank you," Clive breathes, jumping up from the table and taking the Stolas carefully onto his own wrist. "I’ll just—"

He hurries off to find a quiet corner to compose his thoughts. Gav is still forlornly holding up his spoon; Cid takes it from him and eats the bite of stew before handing it back with a wink.

"I’ve had your letter passed on as well," Cid tells Dion. "We’ll see if this tutor of yours has anything to share. And if he’s inclined to do so."

Dion can’t imagine that Master Harpocrates wouldn’t be. He’s always subtly encouraged Dion to question his assumptions about the world. If he doesn’t already know something about a second Eikon of Fire, he’s bound to want to find out.

Dion looks in the direction Clive went and wishes that there were a way to send the Stolas to Joshua, but he knows enough of the birds to know that their strange magic would not allow it. They will not carry a message to one who wishes to remain hidden. How they know such things before ever taking flight is a mystery Dion has never heard explained, though he’s read of a number of historical occasions when it has been fruitlessly attempted in order to track down a fugitive.

Though he supposes it’s for the best, overall. No one can find him that way, either.

"Anyone you want to send a letter to? Or an owl?" Cid asks Gav.

"Course not," Gav mutters, scraping his spoon around in his bowl.

A few minutes later Clive reappears in the doorway, now without the Stolas, and crosses the room to take his seat again. Dion thinks he looks like someone who has just been trying very hard not to cry, but also like a small weight has been lifted off him.

Cid watches him as he sits down. Dion has already noticed over the last few days that Clive has stopped wincing when he reaches for things, that his movements have regained most of their usual ease and confidence.

"What’s Tarja’s latest assessment?" Cid asks.

"She says I may leave the infirmary tomorrow," Clive replies, with the eagerness of someone who wishes it were today, and the resignation of someone who has known Tarja for longer than a few hours. "As long as I don’t strain myself."

Cid snorts like he has a low opinion of Clive’s ability to follow that order, but nods all the same.

"I’d better find you two an out-of-the-way spot to train, then," Cid says, to Dion as well as Clive. "You can’t use magic in the Deadlands unless you prime, and I do not want any of that going on in the Hideaway. There’s a couple of quiet corners just outside the reach of the Blight that might suit, assuming they haven’t been taken over by beastmen or bandits since I last went out that way."

Gav perks up at once.

"D’you want me to scout them out, Cid?"

Cid claps him on the shoulder. Dion thinks Cid didn't miss Gav's reaction to his earlier question.

"You read my mind, lad. What would we do without you?"

Jill has taken to spending most of her days in the furthest corner of the gardens, even though the weather is beginning to turn.

No-one looks for her here.

Truthfully, no one really looks for her at all, most of the time. The castle - the city - the realm - is deep in the throes of grief and panic. Duke Elwin's retainers are doing their best to manage in the absence of leadership, but his most trusted people died at Phoenix Gate, and there is a sense of despair and dismay amidst those who are left.

Jill is glad to be forgotten. She is terrified that someone will, sooner or later, decide to send her back to the Northern Territories, to a home she barely remembers, except that it was always cold and she was always afraid.

She is certain that if Duchess Anabella were here, it would have happened already. So she's grateful for the small mercy that the Duchess departed for Sanbreque before the rest of the city even learned what tragedy had befallen their Duke and his sons.

Jill screws her eyes shut and wraps her arms tightly around her knees.

Everyone says that Clive and Joshua are dead, but she can't believe it. She just can't. It's too much - too terrible - too big to fit in her thoughts. It has to be a mistake. A bad dream. Soon, she'll wake up from it, won't she?

Please, can she wake up from it?

She barely notices the flutter of wings as something lands in the tree above her head. There are plenty of doves and crows in the gardens. It's nothing unusual - until she hears a soft, hooting trill.

Jill sits up, craning her neck towards the sound. She isn't wrong: it's a Stolas, third eye glimmering with magic, watching her patiently with the other two.

Jill stares back at it. She has never received a Stolas before. She thinks for a moment that it cannot be for her, but it shows no sign of departing, so she tentatively holds out her arm.

The owl flutters down to land on her wrist. Its talons feel strange and cool against her skin, but it is careful not to scratch her. Jill reaches out and touches the crystal embedded in the owl's feathers.

It's hard to explain how the message unfolds in her mind. It's not words, exactly. It's just a sudden knowing, another's thoughts offered up to her in a rush of familiarity.

Clive. It's like he's kneeling in front of her, like he's taken her hand. Like she can almost hear his voice. It's I'm here and don't cry and can you keep a secret, just like it's always been between the three of them.

The three of them. Joshua. There's hope still, though she can feel Clive's pain and doubt. She was right to keep faith. She was right to refuse to give them up for dead.

Jill is crying again but she's smiling through her tears. The Stolas tilts its head, waiting to see if she will send a reply. She's never done this, either, but she knows the words, only stumbles a little over the archaic syllables.

"O mia lost elan. Tu isag elythe."

The Stolas's eyes glow.

Come and get me, she pleads. Come and take me away from here. I'm afraid and I'm alone and I don't know what they're going to do with me. Please.

She tosses the Stolas into the air as she's seen others do; it takes wing with an easy grace and wheels away over the castle walls. Jill wonders if anyone else has seen it come and go - but Stolases aren't an uncommon sight in Rosalith, especially these past few weeks.

Unease curls suddenly through her relief. Does Clive know of the turmoil in the realm? The Imperial soldiers whose orders seem to change from day to day? Does he know about the rumours - that Drake's Head is gone, that Sanbreque has lost its Dominant, that the Ironblood are mustering for a war of vengeance in the name of the fallen crystal?

Should she have told him?

She squints to try and track the Stolas, but it has already vanished against the cloudy sky. There's no calling it back now.

Jill gets up from the grass, brushes her skirt free of debris, and makes her way back to the castle. She is already considering what she will pack into a small bag that can be easily hidden and retrieved when she needs it.

She doesn't know how long she will need to wait, but she intends to be ready, whenever Clive finds his way back home.