closed ⚡🪶 and forevermore, i'll be chasing the storm we had.

[garudas]

Who: Benedikta Harman & Cidolfus Telamon.
Status: Closed.
Where: Cid's workshop, Avaleci.
What: Cid is sad about his daughter being gone and Benedikta is horrible at being comforting. Also adventures later!
Warnings: it's cid and benna 🙂 also ffxvi spoilers, if you can find them.

ice skating, hot springs ♨️
volcano, egis 🔥
the price of freedom 🧵

Comments

[garudas]

[She listens intently, her eyes never leaving his face as he explains, watching for every little shift in his expression. She grins at his correction, huffs a laugh along with him, and not once does her fondness fade. After finding out what really happened, that he still loved her even when she thought he no longer did, it's a bit strange seeing him in this new light. There is still much to work through, and she knows that a part of it is simply being lost in the moment, but her heart races with a whole new meaning as he tells her one of his many stories.

Ones that she longed to hear back then, as they clashed their swords on the practice field.]

So, you were a goodie two shoes, even back then...

[She says it quietly with a laugh, her finger grazing over his cheek.]

Why am I not surprised...

[ramuhs]

I just had decent moral compass.

[He definitely wasn't a mischievous, cheeky brat, too, noooo couuurse noooot.]

[garudas]

[Yeah, she's not sure she buys that—]

And let me guess... it was your decent moral compass that earned you the favour of the swordsmaster?

[ramuhs]

Is it really so surprising?

[A huff.]

Though he thought I was the bugger who stole the thing in the first place. Was running screaming when he drew that sword, but the moment he realized I was returning it and fixed it, well. Sang a much different tune then. Practically bowing his head in gratitude.

[Okay, he is definitely exaggerating.]

[garudas]

[She tilts her head at him.]

Well, you do have that look about you...

[ramuhs]

What? Me?

[garudas]

Is it really so surprising?

[She echoes his words with a chuckle, rolling away from him to lie on her back.]

That roguish, troublemaking sort of look.

[ramuhs]

I wasn't born with it. But I was good looking young lad.

[Hmph.]

In any case. [He leans towards her still on his side.] Turns out it was a watch from his old mate from the old wars, so in repayment of not only finding but fixing it, he taught me how to use the sword and most of my skills. Go out to the old fields where no one could bother us, and he'd tell me his old war stories.

[garudas]

[She grins at him when he leans at her, that same roguish, troublemaking glint in her own eyes.]

And still with the half-drunk bottle of ale in his other hand, or...?

[ramuhs]

Only sometimes. [A wink.] But old as he was, he still knew his stuff.

[garudas]

Well, he had to have known what he was doing, drunk and old or not.

[She turns partway again to face him, her hair falling over her eyes.]

... If I had learned from the best, he had to have learned it from someplace, yes?

[And now for a different tack—]

You had practiced your tinkering before that, then? If you managed to fix his watch...

[ramuhs]

[A light grin.]

Something like that. Not always successful, mind, but I enjoyed puzzles and putting things together for as long as I can remember.

[garudas]

Of course you have. No wonder you've a knack for it these days.

[She gives a light roll of her eyes, but it's more playful.]

Even during your mercenary days? I can't imagine that it would be easy while on the move.

[ramuhs]

[Aaah... A small glance away.]

No, you're right. Was a bit more limited there, especially at that age and those times. Still, I took whatever opportunity I could to observe and learn how everything around me worked, even if it was just the basic understanding. Forges, irrigation, ships, building.

As you know, the Outer Continents didn't have the Mothercrystals so we didn't have crystals or Bearers as readily as Valisthea did.

[garudas]

But you made do.

[They had to have. Valisthea, on the other hand, was a world not ready for a life without Mothercrystals and the magic that came with them, and there is a bit of a sour taste on her tongue at the thought that she quickly swallows down. She did not like the idea of a land without magic, and she wonders, briefly, how she might have felt about his ideals back then if she had known.]

What made you decide to cross the sea anyway back then?

[ramuhs]

[A small pause before he slowly continues.]

Limitations.

[Again that odd, distant look as his gaze moves elsewhere.]

I was young, still trying to figure out how to survive and what to do. Jobs weren't easy to come by at my level, and I traveled from different towns with different groups, taking whatever I could. Then we hear about the wars happening in Valisthea and for a Sells word with barely anything to your name, well, you follow the money.

So I took the first ship I could. Thought I'd have better luck somewhere else and start fresh. It wasn't even to help with the wars but for the jobs that would come after. Crime would be higher, escorts needed, replace bodies lost in the wars. Perfect time for a mercenary.

And I was curious what this so called "blessed land" was all about.

[garudas]

[That distance that she tries so very hard to pull him back from again with a palm resting on his cheek.

She wants to ask him what wars he might have fought in, or if he fought under Barnabas's name and that was how he came to find him, but even that leaves a bitter taste at the back of her throat like bile. That he would go so far as to—no, she has to shake that off before her own thoughts spiral out of control and she goes into a rage.

She brings her focus back to him, her expression drooping a bit.]

I suppose when you've nothing left in one place, it eventually becomes easier to move on to the next...

[She doesn't just mean him.]

[ramuhs]

[It does come back at her touch, and he looks at her for a moment.]

...It does.

[And he thinks of how hard it had been to leave Waloed. To leave her behind. Her refusal to come with him was that last link he had and once it was broken... Only then was it "easier."]

[garudas]

[There's a sullenness that falls heavy between them, all of those extra meanings weighing down on her. Easier for him to leave the Outer Continents. Easier for him to leave Waloed. Easier for her to leave their world behind...]

There was no other family remaining?

[She knows that it must be a touchy subject, especially when her own heart wrenches at the thought, but it's curiosity that has her asking.]

[ramuhs]

[A hollow smile.]

Not that I knew of. My parents never spoke much about relatives even when I asked. My mother just kept mum, but...

[A low hum as his eyes flick down to her pendant and his hand drifts up to slowly lift it.]

My dad said that our family, the Telamons, used to have some old heritage as guardians or escorts or something like that, and this was the old family crest.

[garudas]

[She starts a bit when he reaches for the pendant, lifting it, and her heart both leaps and soars and sinks at the same time.]

This...?

[Her hand moves to clasp over his, her eyes big and round with surprise. She knew it was an heirloom of sorts, but she never asked. She figured that if she did, he wouldn't answer, and so she simply accepted it back then as a promise he'd made to her. That he might one day return to her to take it back...

...]

I had my suspicions that it was important, but... I never knew, Cidolfus...

[That she'd been carrying around a symbol of him all this time. Perhaps one of the last remaining ones.]

Had I known...

[ramuhs]

[A wry grin as he watches her react as he expected.]

You wouldn't have taken it. Which is why I didn't say anything.

[He fingers the gryphon and the two swords, noting how here it's been made whole again. Not chipped like it had been the last he saw it... Her wings, his swords. Was it coincidence or fate that it ended up fitting so well?]

And... Truth is, this is something he gave my mother.

[garudas]

[Somehow, she survives through what feels like a hundred skipped beats of her heart in that moment, her breath catching sharp in her chest. That hand that had been over his slides around to finger over the grooves of the pendant...

The one that had once been his mother's. A gift from his father...

And now, a gift from him to her.

Her brow furrows, a realization trying to chip away at her, and as much as she treasures it more than anything else she's ever owned—]

You shouldn't have...

[ramuhs]

[He just continues to smile a little sadly as he looks at her and then at their hands over the pendant.]

...This crest is called the "Wings of Promise." In the past, it was a pledge for my bloodline to protect who they served. For my father, it was to my mother.

And for me...

[His voice trembles a bit.]

It was to you.

[garudas]

Cidolfus...

[His name falls out of her on a shaky sigh, her eyes trembling as they move from their hands up to connect with his.

The Wings of Promise.

How apt a name, she muses to herself, and she might have laughed at the pure irony of it if she were not already on the verge of tears again, those emotions coming in another tide that assaults her all at once.

She doesn't even know what she feels right now. Is it sadness? Guilt? Regret? Anger? Hell, could it even be joy? Or maybe it's a dangerous mix of each and every one. She knows that were this only a few months ago, she would have thrown this back at him... That is not something she will ever forget.

But now...]

You...

[All she can think to do is lean forward and close her lips over his, so that is exactly what she does, hoping that it might push away those whispers that try to claw forward from the back of her head. And when she does, he'll feel something wet and warm pressing to his cheeks.]