Fair warning: Faris has a bit of a foul mouth. Also, there are mentions of uncomfortable subjects, such as Habsburg-grade incest and arranged marriages. You know, the usual sort of thing royalty gets up to.
Also, I did my own translating for this game and have been for the past 20+ years. This is just a birthday present to myself. This fic came out of translating Alexander's background from the Basic Knowledge guidebook, as well as Faris' and Syldra's, and then I decided to play the Faris-dies ending in the game for another fic and here we are.
The sea laps warm and gentle against Faris' bare feet. The sand she lies in is a soft, powdery white. The sun is mild; not so hot as to burn or so bright as to make her shield her eyes. Palm leaves wave shadows across her face every now and then. She can feel her soul's brother nearby—if she gets up for once and reaches out, her fingers might meet with his silvery scales. Somehow she knows that her retirement loot is buried a bit further inland, which is absurd because she clearly remembers burying it in a storm-haunted crag only accessible by sea dragon. There's a general awareness at the back of her mind that this island provides everything she could want, but she has no desire to stand and explore.
Faris is pretty sure by this point that she's dead. The lack of biting sand flies was a big hint, for one. That the sun never moves is another hint. The other hint is that she isn't wearing her binding vest under her shirt and, somehow, that doesn't alarm her. And, finally, no pirate worth his salt would bury his loot somewhere so idyllic. She'd chosen an inaccessible crag for a reason.
It's just as well. She'd done her duty. The world is safe from some possessed tree with delusions of grandeur and Lenna is safe, and that's really all that matters. Her memory will live on—she dove into a whirlpool to save her crew and came back with a sea dragon, she was the youngest pirate captain in history at fifteen and a generous one at that, she was a Light Warrior. She was the princess who drowned and was reborn as the Pirate King whom even the seas obey. It took the ancient conglomeration of hundreds of evil spirits manifesting as a warlock to finally take her down. She was, at the time of her death, a mere twenty years old. It's the stuff of which legends are made; with any luck, hers will last a thousand years.
Syldra's massive head shifts against the sand and lifts up from beside her. He thunders a warning at an approaching intruder, then stills as a man's voice murmurs assurances.
"You have much yet to do before that, Sarisa."
The voice is familiar—she knows it so well that it jarred her long after she thought she'd forgotten it. When she was very young, it was gentle and only stern when she had her fits. She doesn't need to open her eyes to know who it is. Her father had so much patience for her, no matter how much she resisted him and his rules.
"Fuck off, old man."
It approaches her a bit too late that one should not tell their father to fuck off, no matter how well-deserved it is. Yet, somehow, she doesn't feel like apologizing.
He doesn't seem offended when he sits beside her. Reluctantly she cracks open an eye to glance up at him. He's younger than she remembers—fewer worry lines, fuller cheeks, less of a beard. Probably an afterlife thing. Mentally shrugging, she closes the eye and tries to return to idle nonexistence.
He's not having it.
"I looked for you for years," he says. His voice is so full of regret and old heartbreak that she wonders, faintly, if he has taken to haunting her. Her very own personal ghost. If Faris didn't feel quite so detached, she might have rolled her eyes. "Scoured every port and village for a five-year-old girl. The moment word got out, we had years' worth of pretenders paraded before us."
Her response is low and languid; a side-effect of being dead, surely. That she slips so easily into a lower Carwen accent when she's not all there doesn't help. "Missing: one princess. Found: one cabin boy, citizen of no country, in the service of Cap'n Merrick Reid of Carwen." It strikes her that the irony should be hilarious—old Merrick harried Tycoon merchant ships for years and Faris was right under her father's nose the whole time. She had been in a Tycoon prison when she was twelve; Merrick broke her out then. Merrick was dead the second time she turned up in Tycoon's seaside prison, but by then she had Syldra to heave the entire wall off for her. She just doesn't have the energy or care to laugh. "Cap'n's legal name's Mairi. Taught me how to be a boy and hide my girls when they sprouted up. Black socks for pads when my blood came, black trousers to hide leaks, long tunics to hide weird shapes. No one pays any mind to those being washed, an' it's always rank in the bilge besides."
Her father's silence as she rambles is deafening. She's not sure whether she wants a response or not—she knows that what happened to her was an accident, it wasn't his fault, and yet…
"I'm glad you had someone to look after you," he says at last. She finds that she doesn't care enough to discern his tone. Funny, usually she would. Probably another aspect of being dead.
"Whole crew of 'em."
Her father doesn't respond. Not with words, anyway. His despondency radiates off of him and it's just as well that she can't feel her own emotions all that much. Pity is something she had no use or want for, and normally this would irritate her.
Best take control of the wheel before this… whatever it is… ventures into doldrums she can't steer out of. The last thing she wants out of her afterlife is social awkwardness.
Fuckin' hell, why couldn't she be haunted by a lovely young lass instead? Faris has a type, and generally it leans towards short, sweet, eager and maybe a bit impulsive, and…
No, best not go there. 'Specially not here.
"Sorry, Da'." She doesn't sound as apologetic as she should be. Faintly she wonders if it even matters that she can't seem to care anymore.
"For…?"
What does he want, a list? Is the afterlife long enough for her to list her sins? Might as well start at being the family disappointment. "You're the Pacifist King. 'm the Pirate King. Bit o' difference there."
To what remains of her surprise, he laughs. It's short and there's a tone of something in there that she can't be bothered to figure out. "That's how I know you're Sarisa. You're very much like your grandfather."
"It's Faris." Why this insistence on using a name that hasn't been hers since she was five bothers her, she has no idea. But it does, and it's almost enough for her to muster up the wherewithal to do something about it. It takes every bit of energy she has, but she manages to lift her arm enough to hit her father's thigh. Not very hard, mind, but it's the thought that matters. "Name's Faris, old man."
"So it is." His tone is conciliatory, like he wants to drop the subject. Or humor her. Humoring is more likely.
Faris, knowing that blue-bloods tend to get ideas about bilge rats like her unless soundly trounced, continues. "'m not a princess. People don't choose a princess. People choose a cap'n. I earned my name an' title."
"'Pirate King' sounds hereditary to me." There's a hint of humor in his voice, but she has no energy to try physically reacting again.
"Bit o' flourish. I got two ships more 'an most cap'ns, hundreds o' men, an' wi' Syldra 'ere I comman' the seas." Her voice slurs more as fatigue settles further into her bones; hitting her father turns out to be a terrible idea.
Her father is silent again, but at least he's not moping. She's aware, vaguely, of him brushing her hair out of her face. She should be offended; she'd beaten men just for looking at her odd. She should be outraged; she allows no man to casually touch her like this. But there's a part of her that's still five years old, and that part of her finds comfort in her father's touch.
"You're exhausted, Faris. Rest." His voice is gentle and so familiar that a little part of her aches for a time she'd mostly forgotten.
"But Da', what if I fall?" It's the entreatment of a child, five years old, who was too damned scared to ride a dragon. It's the anxiety of a fifteen-year-old deck hand faced with a choice between diving into a whirlpool and her potential death or letting the entire ship be destroyed and dying anyway. It's the existential dread of a twenty-year-old Light Warrior who's not ready to die quite yet.
Her father's hand grasps hers and the weight of it seems to ground her. "Syldra and I are here. We'll catch you."
The temperature is just right and the tide takes her consciousness with it.
.*.
When Faris wakes again, the water is a little cooler and the sun not as warm and bright as it was. The sea now laps at the bottoms of her calves. Her eyes blink open to see her father talking to Syldra and Syldra looking like he understands him.
No one else has ever talked to Syldra before. Not like this. Her men might have hollered their thanks at him or tried to coax him along, but none of them have the connection she has.
He can touch minds like you, Syldra supplies helpfully. His emotions color his words and bolster her spirits. Faris allows herself a moment just to bask in him, the other half of her soul. If she's honest with herself, she hasn't felt right since he died.
Sensing the dark turn her memories take, he moves to touch her and envelop her in his love. He's nearly as big as a brigantine, but he's always just careful enough not to bowl her over in his displays of affection. The roughness of his scales threatens to pull up her shirt from under her belt as he nuzzles lightly against her stomach, and she's never as disgusted as she should be when he touches the tip of his tongue to her cheek. She's still too weak to be any use, but she has just enough energy to reach up and scratch and rub at all the scales she can reach.
Missed you. She doesn't have to think more than that; Syldra knows her well enough to pick up all the anguish and grief tied to the thought of him. He nuzzles her again, deluging her in reassurances, the solid warmth of his presence, and a tangled mess of wordless emotions.
It's only when she feels better, stronger, that Syldra finally pulls away. He doesn't say it outright, but the thought that she should try to sit up isn't hers. It's only because she's tired of lying in the sand that she reaches out to grab a proffered tooth and lets Syldra pull her up enough for her to avoid falling back over.
"Congratulations on being the first Highwind to bond with a sea dragon," her father says with no small amount of pride. He sits next to her again as if he knows that standing will only aggravate her.
Admittedly she doesn't know that much about royalty, but the name doesn't sit quite right with her. Isn't her surname is supposed to be Tycoon or something lofty like that? 'Cause that's blue-blood arrogance for you, taking your country's name as your own.
Something of her confusion must have shown on her face, and her father insists on continuing. "Would it comfort you to know that Highwind is not a noble name?"
"Eh…?"
Without the helmet she barely remembers, her father's hair sticks out at odd places and makes him look even younger. That he pulls a knee up and clasps it in what she assumes is discomfort with the subject doesn't help. "Some of us were dragon knights, landed and otherwise, others simply hunters and farmers. Gelon—your grandfather—believed that the continued intermarriage between noble houses would result in incompetence. He wanted a husband for his daughter outside of the noble houses. A marriage was arranged between the Highwind clan and his daughter to bring the ability to tame and bond with dragons to his descendants. It was after the Dragon War. My clan had no choice. Too many of us were gone, or driven mad with grief when Walse slaughtered our dragons in retribution. I was selected simply because my dragon was the last. At eight years old, I was sent to live with him and be groomed as his successor."
Faris doesn't quite know what to say, so she says nothing. A cold tendril of disquiet slithers down her neck at the subject for a variety of reasons: a past affair with the queen of Karnak when she was all of sixteen and knew nothing of any blood relations between them, the way her grandfather's name tweaks at half-forgotten memories, the implications of you're very much like your grandfather in light of the portrait her father paints of him.
"What was Gelon like?" she asks at last, though she's sure she doesn't want an answer.
There's a moment's hesitation in which it's clear that her father regrets the comparison, but he presses on. "He did everything he could to get what he wanted. He felt the need to prove himself worthy of his throne. These are not, in themselves, bad qualities. I admired those—"
"There's a 'but' in there."
"But, yes, he did think conquering the world by war was better than having the world's nations controlled by one extended family."
For all that Faris likes to strut about her ship and take command, bedevil merchant ships with the threat of thunderstorms and whirlpools under her command and capsize naval vessels, she always had her doubts. How far is too far? At what point does a bit of fun turn deadly? She and Syldra practically tamed each other's wilder instincts, aye, but it could have easily gone the other way.
She remembers bits and pieces of Gelon's legacy now. There are folk songs in Tule of the massacre predating the Dragon War, and in Carwen they still sing of a moment of serendipity when they rebuffed Gelon's army. Get old Walsemen drunk enough and they sing of the princess escaping to Karnak as her family was slaughtered by Gelon's forces to make room for one of his commanders. Old geezers talk sometimes of when the skies were thick with dragons, and there are still places in the highlands where one might trip over dragon bones.
It's like looking into a mirror of what could have been. Was Gelon what she might have been if she never fell overboard as a child?
The thought makes her sick. Or maybe it's the way the world tilts suddenly and it feels like her head split open again.
That's how she died. She was so busy trying to keep Lenna safe that she didn't see the strike coming for her head until it was too late.
The world spins worse than it did when she was nine, feverish and sicking up in Merrick's cabin.
She tries to slump forward, but it only makes the spinning worse. An arm loops around her back in support and the other hand presses her back, until she's lying back in the sand again.
"Sleep, Faris." She almost doesn't hear him, his voice sounds like it comes from far away. "We'll catch you if you fall."
.*.
The water is cool now, and it washes up to her hips before pulling away again. The sun is dimmer and lower in the sky, and the palm fronds no longer wave. The wet sand clings to her skin, making her itch.
Her time must be waning. Maybe she'll finally be gone for good when the water comes up to her head and the sun goes down.
The thought sends a frisson of panic through her. It's not her time. There's too much to do.
Syldra's head looms over her, offering her a tooth to hold on to. Getupgetupgetup, he appeals to her, as if she needs the prompting. His urgency spurs her own.
She grabs the tooth with both hands, letting him lift her until she can get her feet under her. It takes nearly all of her energy to remain standing, but Syldra washes out her panic with reassurances that just standing is enough for now. When she's stable enough to let go, Syldra rests his head close enough to offer support if she needs it.
Part of her wonders where her father went off to, but it's faint and she dismisses the thought with the acknowledgement that he's probably off haunting her sister. The larger part of her wants something to do.
It doesn't take her long to notice it: a small two-octave traveling harp decorated with a lamia carved on the column, lying in the sand and just out of reach. It's not been the best of instruments available to a traveling bard, but she considers its imperfections a mark of character.
The world spins again when she leans over to pick it up, but with Syldra there to grab onto and lean against if she needs to, it's not as bad as it was before and it settles once she stands upright.
Faris takes a moment to thread her arm through the carrying strap, brush off the sand, and tune its strings. That one C string always slips a bit, but all it really needs is a tightening before the next song. A thumb along the strings in a short glissando assures her that she tuned it right and she settles into an old song.
O flower of Carwen, when will we see your like again?
That fought and died for your wee bit hill and glen
And stood against them, proud Gelon's army
And sent him homeward to think again
She doesn't remember the rest of the lyrics, and those she does remember are too piecemeal to patch together right. The notes are the part she remembers, and she strums her way through the song with little regard for anything else.
"You're good."
Her father arrived at some point while she had her eyes closed to focus on the music. With him is a chest that's much smaller than her retirement loot chest. Probably something important he'll go on about as soon as he sees an opening.
"Fire Crystal's doing. Used to be that I couldn't carry a tune." Which isn't quite true, but he doesn't need to know about her repressing that part of herself to be a man. Her singing voice is close enough to a tenor that she might pass if everyone else is drunk, but she was never comfortable enough to use it until she became a Light Warrior and a Fire Crystal shard provided a convenient outlet.
"Would you be open to sharing another?"
Normally, if he was anyone else, she might have countered with something caustic. Here, in some ill-defined afterlife with her father and Syldra, there's not much else to do. She shrugs and leans against Syldra's muzzle to tighten that problem string and strum the calm, comforting lead in to a sailing tune common to the Tule and Tycoon ports. It's a nice tune and one she knows well.
Heel yo ho, boys, let her go, boys
Swing her head round and all together
Heel yo ho, boys, let her go, boys
Sailing homeward down Tycoon-way
What care we how dark the sky is
What care we for wind or weather
Swing her head round, every inch is
Sailing homeward down Tycoon-way
Syldra hums along about as well as he can, considering he's a sea dragon and humming is not typically something a sea dragon does. It's a deep rumbling that she feels more than hears and the accompaniment brings a quick smile to her face as she sings.
When she finishes, her father's expression is more uncertain. "I've never heard that."
"Didn't hang 'round the docks much, did you?"
"Not after…" He falls silent, and suddenly she knows just what he intended to say. Not after she disappeared.
The doldrums loom and Faris takes the wheel again. She has to slide against Syldra to sit, but he doesn't mind. He even nuzzles her back once she's settled back in the sand.
Now that she's closer to the small chest he placed on the sand in front of her, she recognizes it immediately. Still, in the interest of changing the subject, she asks; "What's that?"
"I was hoping you'd tell me." He sits in front of her, in front of the chest, and flips open the lid.
It's her private trophy box. In life, it's probably still in the ships' graveyard if it hasn't already been looted. She sets aside her harp to rummage through all the little tokens of her personal conquests: rings, necklaces, bracelets, anything a lady was willing to part with. Somewhere on the bottom is a tiara from the queen of Karnak, who is at least a cousin of some degree, which she avoids pulling up because that's one secret her father does not need to know. "Just presents, Dad. I made a few adventurous women very happy."
"'A few'." His voice is droll, his eyes almost twinkle.
Faris is suddenly, uncomfortably aware that her father knows exactly what she's implying. In steering away from the doldrums, she scraped against a reef.
"'Fraid I'm an incorrigible tribade," she says at last, with a devilish grin and just the kind of cockiness that got her out of awkward situations.
Her father, whom she has never known very well, laughs. It's the kind of laugh that comes of relief and she's not sure how to take it. She waits, instead, and rolls a ring between her fingers that came from an eager young lady out of Walse with fantasies about dashing pirate captains that Faris was more than happy to fulfill. It's remarkable how many young women are just… like that.
"I knew about Lenna," he says at last, once the laughter stops and he catches his breath. "I didn't dare hope that you might be one, too."
The way he says it makes her stare with disbelief. It's not that he knows about Lenna fancying her own, it's something she and Lenna talked about during their fireside chats, but that… "'Too'. You a nan?"
"I'm not sure what that means," and he does sound apologetic for not being a bilge rat like her and familiar with dock talk. "I did love your mother and I was loyal to her. I just preferred men."
Well this is rich, innit? There's probably a comic opera with just this kind of plot somewhere. Faris can't help but laugh, too. All that worrying she did when she was younger about her place on the ship and whether she was more male than female and how to live up to the role she set up for herself, and it didn't even matter. Her father doesn't sound the least bit ashamed of her. Her sister adores her and she adores Lenna. The other Light Warriors don't care what's in her pants. Even her crew didn't seem upset when her secret came out. It never mattered.
Told you, Syldra says with that kind of smugness that dragons pull off so well. She nudges her elbow against him in a hushing gesture, and he reacts with a slight nudge that nearly bowls her over.
Her father's eyes crinkle with amusement as she quiets down. "I should explain. My entire life was spent undoing everything Gelon did. Peace and diplomacy were my manner of rebellion against everything he wanted me to be."
"Good on ya." She wishes she had a bottle of rum to toast him, because it takes a particular kind of bravery to go against everything you're taught. He went about it a bit differently than she did, sure, but she respects it.
He doesn't need to say the rest. That Gelon Tycoon, who arranged a marriage between children just to integrate a rare talent into his bloodline and avoid perpetuating incest, ended up with two grandchildren who were never going to have children themselves. Gelon's line is dead, and good riddance.
Sudden fatigue strikes, and she slumps against Syldra again. The ring she had been fidgeting with tumbles out of her fingers and rolls to a stop on the sand. Her father reaches over to help her lie down again, and she wonders faintly if the next time she wakes will be her last.
"We'll catch you," her father assures her.
"You better," she mumbles, and then the waves take her away.
.*.
The water is cold when Faris wakes. It comes up to her shoulders now, and her legs are almost completely submerged beneath the surface. The air is chilly and the sun hangs dim and low in the sky. Disgruntled, she pulls herself up and stands. It's not until she walks several paces on dry land that she realizes that she doesn't need help.
A little ways away, her father stands with Galuf, talking about whatever it is old men talk about. He notices her approaching before Galuf does and smiles warmly, as if he'd finally gotten what she's about and accepts her. It's an odd feeling, like a balm across an old wound she wasn't aware she had.
"You don't belong here," Galuf says. His tone isn't nearly as disapproving as he wants it to sound. "It's not your time."
Rather than answer him verbally, Faris cuffs his shoulder on the way to join her father. Not too hard, mind; he's still an old geezer. She and her father are roughly the same height, she notices for the first time. Why she hadn't noticed before, she has no idea.
"Is your energy back?"
"I'll manage." She watches him and he watches her, and neither of them knows quite what to do now. She has to leave before the sun goes out, before she drowns, and this might be the last time she sees her father. Or Syldra. Or Galuf, annoying as he is sometimes.
With a huff of annoyance at herself, Faris pulls her father into a hug. The rigidity of his surprise eases, and his arms wrap around her.
There are a thousand things she wants to say and none of them feel right. There's just not enough time. Faris focuses on the moment instead, because the moment is all she has.
"Take care of your sister," her father murmurs to her. "You're all she has now."
There are a dozen ways she can respond to that—of course she'll take care of Lenna, he needn't even ask—but a nod suffices. To Galuf she gives a one-armed hug, because he's prone to being a pervert at times and she's not inclined to hug him proper without her binding vest. Even if he's dead, she's not going to give him more to fantasize about.
And, finally, there's Syldra. The other half of her soul. Part of her quails from the idea of having to leaving him again, but he rebuffs that before the notion of staying becomes a complete thought. I'll always be with you, he reassures her. Swim with me?
Faris steps out into the water. It's freezing now, and each step out shoots that cold deeper and deeper into her bones. The sun touches the horizon. Syldra wiggles out of the shallow water, turning once he's deep enough to move right, and waits for him to join him. Once she's about waist-deep, she plunges in and swims out to grasp Syldra's dorsal fin. He pulls her out to the open sea for who knows how long—the sun remains in place and the only indication that they went anywhere at all is that the island is no longer in view.
Then, at last, they come to a whirlpool no different than the one she nearly drowned in five years ago. It tugs at her, but still she hangs on to Syldra. She's not as afraid as she was, but—
But Syldra's head cranes over to nuzzle her, and his tongue swipes at the entire left side of her head in his affection. Love you. Please go. Live.
"Fine." She takes a moment to scratch along the scales on the underside of his chin, to memorize the feel of him under her fingers. "I'm going to summon you every time I can and you'll be sick of me."
Never sick of you, he says loftily. He nuzzles her one last time and pulls away. She can't linger and they both know it.
Faris doesn't take a deep breath when she plunges beneath the surface to swim out to the whirlpool. She has to complete what was interrupted fifteen years ago. She has to drown.
.*.
The air is warm here. Sunlight falls in ever-shifting patterns on her face. She's heavier than she was on the island. Slender arms hold her close and her face feels wet. Her lungs burn and she gasps to take in a breath. It smells of flowers and sun-warmed trees and Lenna's perfume. Those arms around her squeeze so tight that she might end up strangled, and more tears end up on her face. Faris manages an almost breathless chuckle as she reaches up to wipe away her sister's tears.
Butz exclaims, with a bit of inanity that she'll forgive, that she's alive. Krile pushes past him to grin down at her and join Lenna in trying to suffocate her with hugs.
Well, of course she's alive, she's gone too far to surrender now.
Faris' songs are Scottish; they are The Flower of Scotland and the Mingulay Boat Song.
Alexander's background in Basic Knowledge is given as thus: the previous king (it's pointedly not said that he and the previous king were related) was a war-monger intent on world domination, and that Alexander worked to do the opposite and reign with peace. That the previous king ruled at the same time that there was a war in which the sky dragons went extinct is not a coincidence.
Syldra is described in the text as being 30 meters long (roughly the size of a blue whale), and with male-specific kanji, so that's why I use "him".