Still, Prince Ashe has heard the sinuous whispers winding through the streets of Rabanastre regarding the rise of Captains fon Ronsenburg and Azelas. Although the laws of the land allow them to do so, few women choose to take up the shield. Men far outnumber them in the Order's ranks, and though the Order itself generally treats its lady members as brothers, outsiders are less prone to show them such honor. Basch, who adopts a masculine nickname and wears the stifling plate of a northerner, bears the brunt of the gossip; much is made of the methods by which a foreign woman could have gained the trust of the king so quickly. Azelas, who answers to 'Azelas' and sometimes 'York' but never to her given name, challenges her doubters to prove themselves against her in combat with a curt word. "Meet me at the field" is her phrase of choice. Not all her challengers take her up on her invitation. Some mutter that they would not wish to injure her pretty head. Ashe thinks they have more concern for their own heads than for Azelas's, for those who do meet her in combat are sent away bruised and bowed. Only dull weapons may be used during such contests, but the injuries her opponents sustain are such that King Raminas finally forbids Azelas to issue further challenges after she has routed more soft nobles than Ashe can count. "I will not have you fight my entire court, though some of them could use the knocks," he says; Ashe catches the twinkle in his eye even as he attempts to appear his sternest.
"I shall refrain." Azelas gives a short nod. She smiles only rarely.
Basch values her honor no less, but is less likely to look to the sword as her solution to her critics' voices. "I am respected by my men, and they obey my command," she says when Ashe asks. "I can ask for no more."
Ashe wonders what Basch's given name is. A northerner's name, no doubt, one filled with rows of consonants as harsh as the jagged peaks of fallen Landis.
His royal father will not permit him to enter his name in the lists, even though the tournament honors his engagement to the Nabradian princess. And he is almost thirteen—nearly full-grown. "Men have died in such events before," King Raminas chides him.
"Such occurrences are rare," Ashe protests.
"I will not chance my son meeting such a fate," Father says, and he will hear no further word on the matter.
Ashe watches the tournament from a high-backed gilded chair set beneath a shaded balcony. The wood curlicues dig into his back, and sweat pours down the back of his neck in torrents.
The knights of the Order ride well, though the results of the matches are predictable. Sir Loren tilts valiantly against Sir Cyrene, but flies from his chocobo in the second pass with such violence that Ashe fears he may have broken his leg. Sir Loren hobbles from the field, leaning against his squire for support; his yellow follows after him, clicking its beak in concern. Sir Talos fails to unseat Sir Vynesse, though he shatters two lances in the attempt. The judges award the victory to Sir Talos in the end due to the strength of his blows, though Ashe privately thinks Sir Vynesse showed greater skill in his handling of his chocobo. The crowd cries out as one when Sir Meric's lance rides up and finds the unguarded flesh beneath Sir Jiron's gorget. Sir Meric reins in his chocobo and rides to fallen Jiron's aid; crimson starts to stain Jiron's silver plate before a healer rushes out to the arena, scattering sand in her wake as she runs. The glow of curative magicks restores him and the crowd cheers as he exits the field.
There are some lady knights in the lists, but only four of note: Nyssa Greenfield the Galtean, Sandrine Altas of Nabradia, and his own Captains—fon Ronsenburg and Azelas. Lady Knight Nyssa falls to Sir Cyrene in her second joust. Lady Knight Sandrine acquits herself better, yielding victory to Sir Greywen on a technicality; she rode her chocobo out of bounds. Ashe's voice is among those clamoring for a rematch, but his father and the judges shake their heads. He loosens the ceremonial collar tied around his neck and thinks longingly of ice magicks.
Basch and Azelas fare best of all.
Azelas sits astride a chocobo with feathers black as her hair; its eyes flash crimson in the sun. She exchanges the uniform of a Captain for a suit of black full plate bordered by elegant lines of mythril. If Ashe looks carefully, he can see a shimmer rising from the pale runes enameled on her breastplate. The sigil of her house is stamped in white on her shield, a stark contrast to the black field that surrounds it.
Basch does not wear her family's device on her shield. Her blue-gray plate is polished to mirror-brightness, its only ornament a faded pair of navy wings on the helm. The suit's age reveals itself in small ways—the silver of the steel revealing itself beneath the bluish wash near where the plates overlap—but Ashe likes the look. It adds an air of history to Basch, as though she were a knight of old springing from the pages of a storybook. Her mount is a placid blue, but there is a steely glint in the chocobo's eye that belies its apparent calm.
Azelas unseats two venerable knights of the Order and one overconfident Nabradian youth in her first three matches. A great clang rings through the air as they fall to the ground one after the other; the Nabradian seems to hang suspended in midair for a long moment, held aloft by his disbelief that a woman could trounce him so thoroughly. He exclaims as much as he leaves the field and resolves to challenge her again. Azelas gives no favors to the crowd, but she salutes them with her lance at the end of each joust.
Basch does not have Azelas's trick of popping riders from their saddle, but her blows are swift and hard. She splits the shield of her second opponent and sends him reeling to the ground. Those she leaves seated depart the field as though in a daze. Tilt-silly, Basch calls it when she and Ashe practice at jousting. It happens when your body still reels from the impact of a mighty blow whose aftershocks have yet to fade. After tilting with Basch, he knows its signs well. Many a knight shatters a lance against her shield, but she remains seated.
It comes down to four: Azelas, Basch, Sir Cyrene, and an Archadian Judge named Seimar.
"Why does a judge battle on land?" he asks his father. "I thought they commanded airships."
King Raminas raises his eyebrows. "Judge Seimar seems an unusual member of his order. We shall see how he fares."
Judge Seimar tilts against Basch. When the time comes for him to salute the king, he adds a cry: "No Archadian worth his salt falls before the lance of a desert woman!"
The crowd breaks into furious muttering. None applaud Judge Seimar's words, but none voice their disapproval loudly. Basch's face is hidden by her helm; her expression cannot be discerned. Ashe digs his nails into the armrests of his hated chair and wishes for the opportunity to force the Judge to swallow his words. His father's hand rests on his shoulder. "Be still."
"But Father—"
"Basch does not need you to defend her honor," King Raminas says.
Nevertheless, he wishes he could.
But his father speaks truly. The chocobos thunder down the field, blue and brown streaking towards each other, and it happens in the blink of an eye: Basch's lance finds its mark and twists, deftly scooping Judge Seimar from his saddle, and if Basch uses more force to accomplish the move than is traditional—her lance trembles in her hand from the impact—nobody says anything against her in Ashe's hearing. The clanking noise made by Judge Seimar's armor as it strikes the ground is the sweetest sound Ashe has heard all day. Seimar draws his sword and holds it aloft. His challenge to Basch is almost lost in the noise of the crowd. "Face me in melee and we'll see your true worth!"
"You have no right to ask for the melee," King Raminas calls over the discontented shouts of the crowd, rising from his seat. "You were unseated fairly, and the crowd can bear witness to the fact."
"Do not dishonor yourself further," Ashe adds, but he has not yet learned the trick of letting his voice carry over a crowd's clamor. Someday, he must ask his father how it is done.
Judge Seimar stalks from the field, his long cloak trailing behind him in the dust.
"Doubtless he thought he would find an easy victory against desert knights," Father says to Ashe quietly. "I think he has realized his error."
"What he said earlier…" Ashe frowns. "Are lady Judges rare in Archades?"
"They are uncommon," his father says after a pause. "Perhaps more uncommon there than lady knights are here."
"But both are uncommon enough."
Father nods. "Few women take on the mantle of knighthood. Or Judgehood, for that matter."
"Has it always been thus?" Ashe asks.
Father pauses and rubs his chin, as is his habit when he must spend some time thinking about what his answer is to be. "I cannot rightly say. But we must pause our conversation, for Lady Knight Azelas tilts against Sir Cyrene next."
Sir Cyrene's charger ruffles its feathers as it turns to face Azelas's mount. Azelas lowers her visor without comment; Sir Cyrene blows a kiss to his daughter before turning his attention to his opponent. The first and second passes result in shattered lances for both; the wind kicks up before the third is to start. Sir Cyrene's charger squawks, protesting the grit thrown into its eyes. Azelas grasps her lance firmly as her chocobo sprints forward. Before Sir Cyrene can land his blow, she adjusts her seat—Ashe leans forward, squinting, and sees that she rests most of her weight to the left. The point of his lance skids across her shield; her own lance explodes, and in the fall of splinters, Ashe glimpses Sir Cyrene flat on his back.
Two lady knights will joust for the champion's title. The crowd seems to have realized this, for the whispers break out again in earnest.
"Sir Cyrene rode against the wind in the third pass," someone below him says. "Had there been no wind, surely the victory would have been his."
Ashe glares down at the speaker, but the lord prattles on, taking no notice of him.
"Well," his royal father says, "this should be a sight."
"I think Azelas will take the champion's title," he says. "Her hand is surer."
"But Basch is swifter," Father replies.
"Only a little swifter," Ashe says.
"We shall see." Father adopts the mantle of King Raminas once more and turns his attention back to the field.
Anticipation hangs in the air, thick and heavy. Ashe imagines he has the taste of it on his lips. The crowd draws in its collective breath and holds it, waiting. Even the wind from earlier has died down. In its place is naught but stillness.
The quiet is broken by the thunder of the chocobos. No longer do they hop lightly over the ground; their legs blur from the fury of their motion. And their riders are no less intent—Basch and Azelas both shift forward, readying themselves for what is to come, for the clash that may well decide the victor of their contest…
…but it does not. Basch's lance snaps in twain. Azelas's simply shatters. Ashe's ears still ring from the sound of lance striking shield. A sharp noise, almost like the report of a gun.
In the second pass, Azelas attempts her shifting trick, but Basch is too quick for her and matches her movements with a deftness that seems out-of-place on her muscled frame. Azelas reels in her saddle; she struggles to maintain the straightness of her back. But she does not fall—Ashe suspects that her grip on her chocobo's reins is iron in more ways than one. She leaves her shield in its guard position, which Ashe finds puzzling until his father taps him gently on the shoulder.
"Her shield-arm is numb from the blow. Look how stiff it is."
He speaks truly, for Azelas has yet to lay her arm to rest at her side. Perhaps she cannot do so.
"Will it remain so?" he asks.
"For the third pass? I doubt she will regain feeling in it before then. I also doubt that the injury is permanent," Father says.
Conversations draw to a close as Basch and Azelas take up their positions for the third pass. Even their detractors cease spewing their venom; the sight of the sun glinting from the lady knights' armor, its rays spilling gently to the floor of the arena, seems to have stilled their tongues. It begins with a blast of noise and a flash of tailfeathers. Azelas's oaken shield splinters and cracks in twain. The pieces fall to the ground heavily and without ceremony, as the stiffness in Azelas's fingers must keep her from clinging to her shield's remnants.
But it is Basch who soars through the air, aided in her flight by the skillful aim of Azelas's lance, and it is Basch who lands on her side in the dust.
Azelas lifts her helm, and the crowd is hers.
Basch favors a hand-and-a-half sword she names Longmarch. With a blade forged from mythril, it is somewhat lighter than most swords of its size, and she wields it with enough force to send all manner of beasts sprawling. When Ashe first tried to lift it, his arms protested mightily until he dropped it to the ground, wincing as needles of pain stabbed through his muscles.
He has not attempted to test Nightmare, Azelas's greatsword. She wears it strapped to her back, for it is too long to be worn at the hip.
"How can you bear its weight?" he asks her after one grueling practice on the eve of his fifteenth birthday. Basch and Azelas insist that he train with a monster of a sword, a claymore with a lion's head mounted on the guard. When rested on its point, it stands almost as tall as he does. Basch says that after practicing with such a heavy blade, a lighter one will be easier to wield, though he must take care not to move with too much force when he uses a lighter weapon.
"Arm exercises," Azelas replies. "Twenty minutes after I rise and dress, and twenty minutes at dusk."
"Which ones?" If he adopts a similar training regimen, perhaps his strokes will gain more ferocity; as they are, he cannot chop with overhand blows the way Basch and especially Azelas do. No matter how he tenses his arms, he cannot achieve the same results—though Azelas tells him it is because tensing his muscles will only cut short the motion of his blade and that he should seek to connect his strokes in a pattern, as though he were moving through the steps of a dance with his blade as his partner. He feels as though he is composed of nothing but elbows and knees these days, though all in the palace assure him that it is only a phase of growth and will pass in time. He wishes the time would come sooner.
"Push-ups," Azelas says, dropping to the ground to demonstrate. "If you keep at it long enough, you will be able to perform them on one hand—" she shows him "—and you may place a clap between each repetition, like so."
Ashe drops to the ground to imitate her. He has performed these exercises before, but not each day, and not for twenty minutes of each day. But if it is what he must do, he will do it. He grits his teeth and straightens his arms, doing his best not to lock his elbows in the process.
"Do not let your elbows bend too much," Basch adds. "And keep your back straight."
"Is this the only exercise?" he gasps before lowering himself to the ground again.
"I add in curls, presses, and lifts," she says. "If you wish, I can obtain a good set of weights for you and show you the exercises I have found most useful."
"I would be indebted." He sits back on his heels. "And I must keep at this each day, for as long as you do?"
"That would be wise," Basch begins, but Azelas cuts her off.
"Perhaps not," she says. "Men acquire muscles in their arms more easily than women do."
"Why is that?"
"I cannot rightly say," Azelas confesses. "It simply is."
"But this fact does not give you leave to grow careless with your exercises," Basch adds.
Azelas nods. "Building strength requires work, regardless of your sex. It is the amount of work that sometimes differs, not the principle behind it."
"I will not grow careless," Ashe promises.
"No," Basch concedes, smiling faintly. "You are diligent, Highness. And if you remain so, the exercises will bear fruit."
A warm feeling grows in the pit of his stomach as Azelas nods her agreement. He looks at Azelas's powerful shoulders. "I see the results."
"They are evident," Basch says, "though it means she cuts a poor figure in a dress."
Ashe eyes Basch's biceps, notes how the ropy muscles of her calves ripple as she walks, and doubts that a flimsy garment of silk could do justice to the figure she cuts.
"Neither of us is particularly suited for dresses," Basch admits.
"Did you wear them when you were younger?" he asks.
"When I had to," Azelas says. "I appear in them now when your royal father requests that I do so. It is not a request he often makes."
Basch pauses and shifts her gaze to the horizon. She says little enough of her days in Landis. "I was forever tearing mine," she says. "The hems always caught on brambles and briars when I tramped through the woods. And I have heard you have a similar problem," she adds, her eyes growing warmer, "if what Mariah tells me about the state of your trousers is true."
Ashe remembers Mariah's lectures about grass stains on his knees and sand in his tunics and scowls. "I should hardly do anything if I fretted so over the state of my clothes."
"Truer words have never been spoken." Basch tries for gravity with her pronouncement but falls rather short of the mark.
"Still, try to show care as to which clothes to stain," Azelas notes. "Some items in your royal wardrobe are costlier than others, and much time and gil would go to waste were you to track mud on them."
"I do try," Ashe says, lifting his chin.
"We know you do," Basch says. "You do very well for yourself, Prince Ashe."
Basch and Azelas are close—closer than sisters, some whisper, hiding their titters behind their hands. "Well, what man would desire them?" Lady Faera asks her companions, who shriek with laughter. Ashe wants to see every inch of her go up in smoke, from the soft brown curls piled atop her head to the stiff golden cloth lining the bottom of her skirt.
"A different sort of man than the ones who would desire you," he snaps before he takes his leave of the lot of them.
He does his best to keep his cheeks from flaming when he hears such talk, but there are times when he is alone, truly alone in his chambers, and he is free to picture it. Is he a hypocrite for decrying Lady Faera and her sort? No, it cannot be; they find amusement in the thought of Azelas and Basch together, but he sees beauty in it.
No silken touches for them: their kisses would be hard and hungry, a release of the thousand stresses and tensions that must plague them during the day. Azelas's teeth graze a collarbone, Basch's thumb brushes over the curve of a breast, and they are twined together, Basch's fair limbs wrapped around Azelas's browned ones. Both would be slick with sweat, and the sheen on their muscles…his mouth runs dry thinking of it. He wonders if Basch knows tricks to coax a smile from Azelas's lips, if she traces the lines of Azelas's body with her calloused fingers again and again the way Ashe would like to, were he given the chance. He imagines the knots in Azelas's back loosening under Basch's hands, pictures her pressing kisses to the insides of Basch's thighs.
And then he envisions himself sliding between them, Azelas nipping lightly at his earlobe as Basch kisses the hollow of his throat. He takes himself in hand and sees it unfold in his mind: his lips swollen from their attentions, Azelas's arms firm and warm around his chest as Basch presses her cheek to his calves. He and Basch turn their focus to Azelas next—Basch shows him how to use his fingers and tongue to coax forth low moans from Azelas's lips until she finally growls that she has had enough and has Ashe…she has Ashe sink inside her, and only Basch's lips on his keep him sane for this, this explosion of heat and light and all the wonderful things in the world. And they would both see to Basch afterwards, for her loyal service deserves reward. Basch arches beneath them both; Ashe wants to bury his head in her golden hair and rest it there forever—
He comes back to the world and lies flat on his back, breathless.
If only it could happen like that.
They speak of a woman's perfidy after it happens. The seductive charms of women, the treachery behind a woman's smile, the hooks that only women know how to bait properly.
Basch was not like that, Ashe wants to scream, but it occurs to him that he cannot say what Basch was like. Not truly. Not after this.
"It has nothing to do with her sex." Azelas smiles even less these days; she keeps her lips pressed in a thin line, and her eyes scan the room continually. "Were she male, they would claim it was foolish to place their trust in a foreigner. Anything to prove that she was never truly one of us."
"Was she?" Ashe asks. He peels the bark from a twig and lets the crumbled bits of brown fall into his lap. It gives him something to do with his hands.
Azelas says nothing.
It is the first time they have openly spoken of Basch since the events at Nalbina, but she seems to lie beneath every conversation they have; she, and King Raminas, and his dead princess.
"I suppose I must lead them now," he murmurs. The men and women assembled around her are hardly a kingdom, only a motley collection of survivors and scavengers. But they are still his people, and he still has his duty.
"Yes," Azelas says. "You must."
"Will you aid me?"
Azelas regards him with a gaze as deep as the seas of Ivalice. "My sword is yours, Lord," she says quietly. "Ever has it been so."
I know another who made that oath, he thinks, but he dares not say it. Such words would cut deep, and Azelas has been hurt enough. They have all been hurt enough.
An eternity later, Azelas bids him rest.
"Will you not do the same?" he asks.
She shakes her head. "I have drawn the first watch."
"Night has fallen, then."
Azelas hesitates. "Let us instead say that the time for the first watch is upon is. It is more difficult to measure the passage of the sun."
Ashe wraps himself in a thin green blanket and beds down behind a dripping stone pillar. He dreams of sun-dappled fields and evenings spent in laughter and practice. He dreams of his captains most of all, sees them as knights and friends and women and protectors and more, so much more, and thinks if only.