56
Guttatim pelagi defluit omnis aqua
L.N. 9
I
"Silia, the car's ready."
"Thanks."
Silia threw down her third whiskey. She shouldn't have drunk before setting off, and she would have severely punished any person from Hammerhead who would dare to do it, but oh, the role of chief couldn't always just swallow shit.
Miles looked at her shaking his head, without hiding a marked vein of disapproval in his voice. "Healthy breakfast, huh?"
"There's no one with me so I only risk myself. And it's only a few hours by car to Hammerhead," she justified herself. She got off the stool at the counter. The room was still completely empty so she had helped herself.
Her comrade clicked his tongue as she passed by to exit. "Listen, Silia, if you're still pissed off about Luc..."
"No, you listen," she pointed out. "What you do with Lucius is your and Gregor's problem. Only the Six know how much I've tried to avoid him in these years. It was easy with Gregor, as he shuts himself in his container when he knows I'm around. But Lucius is almost thirteen, he's not an idiot, and he wants explanations from someone about why there are more questions than answers about his father. Now he has also discovered that I'm from Ambrosia, and he continues to ambush me saying that his dad and I had to know each other."
"It's Gregor who doesn't want to. I would have told him the truth last year," Miles said as they left the diner.
"I bet he doesn't want to. He still doesn't believe it either."
People were starting to show up, but it was too early for the daytime lights to be turned on. Silia put on the jacket she had under her arm, because a cold wind came from the woods. Every time she'd come to Longwythe, ever since Gregor Gaunt got tired of the chaos of Lestallum and accepted Miles' offer to move there with Luc, it was the same story; Gregor carefully avoided her, which she was extremely grateful of, but the child - now almost a teenager - liked to pursue her, always looking for information about his father that didn't come from Miles. Silia had been too busy in those years to think about what had happened with Marius, but Luc, who continued to be identical to him when he was a kid, painfully reminded her of him.
"In a while I'll tell him. Greg will have to make up for it. Thirteen years are enough, what the hell. He's almost a man, especially these days," said Miles as they headed for the car. "Anyway, I bet it's not Luc that's your problem. Do you want to tell me what it is?"
"There's no problem," she cut him short.
"As if." Miles sighed. "You stayed in Longwythe for the night, Silia. Once upon a time you'd stop just for a coffee or a drink and a chat face to face. You had whisky as breakfast before driving out there. And by the way, how long have you been missing from Hammerhead?"
"Six days," she admitted reluctantly. "But it's all right. I've heard from Gladio and Ignis every day. They're doing great. And I've completed some mangy EHSO quests around. Even Cassandra the Witch is satisfied."
"You care 'bout Cassandra Gavril less than nothing and another Sworn Sword could have done those EHSO quests. But Hammerhead accounts to you."
Silia felt a shudder of spite, accentuated by a sense of guilt. "Miles, you've been in charge of Longwythe for how long, six months, and d'you already feel entitled to give me lessons of responsibility? Thank you very much, but there's been the Immortal for that, punctually, for almost ten years. I've had Hammerhead on my back since the end of 756. I know indeed how to rule myself."
Miles frowned. "I've been running Longwythe for six months, you're right, but it's enough to know what the fuck it means in terms of responsibilities and burdens. And I know you've always done well, very well, Silia, with Hammerhead, everyone says so. Precisely for this reason I ask you if everything's fine. In the past few months you've been going out more and more often."
Silia opened the car door. She didn't reply as she would have liked, because she didn't want to formulate that simple concept in clear terms that would force her to take note of it.
It was Miles who formulated it for her. "Silia," he held her, placing a hand on her side. "You're tired. I know that. We're all tired." He sighed. "It's still early. Stay for another two hours. Let's go for a walk to the Peak, so those fucking whiskeys wear off."
"Make up your mind," she said, moving away. "Am I escaping too often from my responsibilities or do I need to escape my responsibilities a little more?"
"I just wanted to have two words, what the fuck. I didn't say that you're avoiding your responsibilities. But you can't run away from Hammerhead on the excuse of the EHSO quests."
"I'm not running away from Hammerhead," she retorted, getting into the car. "But I can't freak out in public, since I'm the chief, so when I see that I'm about to freak out, I take the car and go and do something. Driving alone for hours helps me. I can't sleep, but at least I can fucking think. It just so happens that I freak out often, recently."
Miles surrendered, because he closed the car door. "Just warn me when you're safe in Hammerhead."
~~~XV~~~
She had been in Hammerhead for a couple of hours when an urgent personal call came for her from Old Lestallum. She guessed it was Balth, or August, with some other EHSO trouble on his hands, so she sat down on the radio with a sigh. It wasn't Balthier and it wasn't August. It was Anthea.
It was a short conversation, at the end of which Silia only managed to say: "I'll be there as soon as possible". She closed the call and exited immediately, but as soon as she was out of the radio room, she found herself unable to move even a step. Only a few seconds later she realized that Frank was speaking to her.
"Boss, you're taking the headphones with you. Bad news?"
She still had the headphones in her hand, in fact, the cable stretched almost to the max. Shaking her head slightly, Silia handed them to Frank. "Sorry, Frank. It's all right."
Frank asked no more, but took the headphones gently, as if he feared that, for some reason, she would jump to his jugular. "Must I keep the line free? Waiting for urgent communications?"
Silia ran a hand through her hair. "No, thanks. I'm done."
She went numbly to the diner to look for Ignis. She found him in the kitchen talking to Takka and Mac. "Ig," she said hastily, poking her head inside. "Gotta go away again for a few days. Take care of everything, please. Thank you."
Ignis turned his head in her direction, surprised - and even a little annoyed, it seemed to her. "Again? Did something happen? Where are you going?"
"Old Lestallum," she replied without adding anything else. She would have liked to tell someone, but her throat hurt. She knew that sooner or later it would happen, everyone knew it, but now that it had happened she couldn't accept it. She flapped her heels before Ignis could ask more and went to look for Gladio.
Her husband was at the camp training the guys. Silia leaned against the fence and, as soon as she got his attention, nodded. Gladio joined her, sweaty and smiling, but when he got near, he had to notice her look, because his expression changed.
"What happened?"
"I must go to Old Lestallum for a few days," she replied. Her throat still hurt and she couldn't explain to him. "I... Watch out for the guys. Tell Iris to keep looking after the kids. I'm leaving now. See you soon."
Gladio jumped over the fence and took her arm before she could leave. "What the fuck, no," he said, lowering his voice. He looked around. "You just came back after a week. You can't do this, Silia. What's going on?"
"I'll tell you later," she replied. "Nothing serious happened. Just a personal matter."
"A personal matter," he replied sourly. "What's this, the justification for an absence book? I'm your fucking husband, so your personal matters are mine as well. Tell me what's going on. Carson?"
Silia was too dazed to get angry, and she didn't even understand his zinger. She just nodded.
"Dead?"
"Worse."
"Infected?"
"Worse. Paralyzed."
Gladio pursed his lips, shifting the grip from her arm to her hand. "Shit. Shit. Silia, I'm so sorry."
"Yeah. That asshole wants me in Old Lestallum."
"You've known each other for twenty-three years. I know it'll be damn hard to see him like that, but..."
Silia shook her head. "You don't understand. He wants me to kill him."
Gladio remained with his mouth ajar. "Are you shitting me?"
"No. Balth's not in a bed with just his legs immobilized, Gladio. He doesn't speak. He doesn't move for almost anything. He's a vegetable. He was out on a mission and had a stroke worse than the others. He's been like this for three days. Anthea called me. She said she was sure it was time."
"But what the hell is he thinking?" he got pissed off. "He has a fucking wife who's also a doctor. August's in charge of Old Lestallum. Why it must be you?"
Silia didn't want to discuss it. She just wanted to be in Old Lestallum and get over that story. "A few years ago, Balth told me that if his brain bailed out, he would want me to think about it. Precisely because we're friends."
"I'll drive you to Old Lestallum then."
"No," she replied categorically. "It's something between me and him. I don't want companions. I don't want spectators."
"Silia, it's eighteen hours by car. More, there may hindrances along the way. And you've just driven here from Longwythe."
"Gladio, don't piss me off," she snapped. "I want to be alone. Eighteen hours will be enough to come to terms with what he asked me for."
Gladio's hurt and forlorn look made her feel even worse. She knew how much he desired to share her grief. Still, as far as she had let him enter almost all the corners of her life, there were some he could not - and must not - break into.
"I'll get in touch with you. Take care, Beast."
II
M.E. 741
"Again."
Magellano is inflexible. Silia's arms tremble with fatigue and her hands are swollen and heavy. She feels like some muscles that she wasn't even aware of are burning. She's wheezing so hard that she fears she'll throw up.
"Yessir." She recovers the training sword and gets back on her feet. Balthier Carson is ten steps away, his sword lowered. He pants too, and his blond curls are stuck to his forehead, but compared to her he's as fresh as a daisy.
Silia prepares a low-guard stance, as she has been trained to do. She regulates her breath and waits.
"Now!"
Carson lashes at her. Silia jumps sideways and spins to avoid his lunge, parries the second, the third touches her right ear.
"You can't just dodge and parry!" Magellano's full-chest voice is rough like sandpaper. "Attack, Hartwood!"
You make it sound so easy. Carson's arm extension is much greater than hers and doesn't let her get near. He blocks every blow with no trouble, and she no longer has enough energy or concentration to rage.
"Attack, Hartwood!"
Carson aims at her left thigh, but Silia manages to intercept his sword with hers. She feels the backlash as the wood of Carson's weapon slid over hers.
Attack.
Carson has bent while attacking, his face is close now. Without thinking about it, pissed off, exhausted and unnerved, she headbutts him. Along with the pain in her forehead, she hears the sound of something crumbling. Carson kneels on the ground, holding his hands to his face. A lot of blood is dripping on the wooden floor of the gym.
"That's enough."
Silia pulls back. Her forehead is blood-stained as well, she discovers while passing a hand over it, but she doesn't know if it's hers or Carson's. I'm in trouble, she realizes, and looks up at Magellano.
"I..." she starts to justify.
"Carson!" the instructor yells. "Stand up at once."
Carson stands up, taking his hands off his face. It's a mask of blood, and his nose looks like a shapeless mash. She doesn't think she had hit him so ferociously.
"D'you think we're training you for fucking fencing duels? Told you to always be ready for anything!" He hits him on his right side with his stick. Not a warning blow, but a fierce beating. Carson moans and collapses on the opposite side. "Go to the infirmary and get your nose fixed. Ya're lucky, fuckin' lucky, that you can count on the fuckin' magic of the King to heal your wounds. On the front we just kept them as they were."
Nevius approaches Carson, perhaps to pull him up. There's a blow for him too. "Who the fuck told you to help him, Levin? Get back in line with the others or I swear I'll break your white teeth. Carson, if you're not able to stand the head butt of a 90 pounds girlie, perhaps it's the case you get the hell out."
Carson gets back to his feet painfully. Without turning around, he drags himself along the courtyard to the infirmary. The other recruits stand aside, without looking at him. Alternatively, it's up to all of them to bite the dust, whether by the hand of a comrade or a trainer, and they respect his pain and his shame.
Magellano looks at her. Slowly, swinging his stick, he gets near. Silia is ready to receive her part.
"Hartwood, you're much faster than Carson. When a stronger opponent is pressing you, you must not retreat, laying yourself open. You must use his strength to your advantage."
Without any warning, Magellano lashes at her using his stick like a two-handed sword. Silia has just one moment of hesitation, but now she doesn't move back. She lowers, creeping into the opening in his arms, and points her sword against his ribs.
For a moment she thinks she can do it. But then the end of Magellano's stick, the part closer to his hands, hits the back of her neck. Flashes explode at the corners of her eyes, and she finds herself on the ground between his feet.
"That's better." Magellano's voice sounds satisfied, but perhaps it's because of the blow she received. She's dizzy, and she feels like throwing up again. "Much better, Hartwood. Stand up."
Silia doesn't believe she can do it. Her ears are buzzing. She swallows, and rolls on her side to lie on her back.
The shadow of Magellano's stick falls on her. Silia realizes that she still has the training sword in her hands, so she uses it to parry. A couple of wooden splinters fall into her face.
"D'you see that you still have stamina? Stand up, now, before I tan you good."
This time, slowly, Silia manages to stand up. The ground swirls around, but she grits her teeth trying not to faint. She moves away, staggering, but without leaving her sword. By now she has known Magellano long enough to know that every moment is the right one to be attacked from behind.
But Magellano doesn't attack her from behind. "Give Achim that sword and get back in line with the others. Jayber, your turn."
Silia reaches Vanja and hands the sword to her with a sympathy grimace. She's eleven years old and almost as short as she is, even if sturdier. Magellano likes to arrange training couples where one of the two opponents is clearly at a disadvantage, in order to have the opportunity to humiliate the both of them. The favorite rookie for winning against a weaker comrade, the disadvantaged one for not being a worthy opponent. Sometimes it's the stronger rookie, as in Carson's case, to be beaten, and then the disgrace is double. Nobody, in any case, seems to come out victorious.
Vanja takes the sword, licks her lips with the look of a guilty dog who knows she's about to be punished, and advances towards the center of the gym. Silia takes her place, between Tredd Furia and Ingmar Alberich.
"Lucky as always, Hartwood," Furia whispers. He's one of those who gives her more trouble, among the recruits, and what is worse he seems to have settled his mind on Marius, because he follows him everywhere. "Carson's strong, but he's as clever as a Galatoad. Why don't you come back to your district and play with your dolls, little girl?"
Silia's too focused on not fainting to answer him. She's improving, she knows it, even if not as fast as she would like. The day will come when she'll knock in Furia's teeth. He talks too much but is a brilliant recruit. That day, she hopes, is not too far away.
~~~XV~~~
M.E. 761 (L.N. 6)
"Worried 'bout tomorrow?"
Silia stretches. "Not that much. Same dangers, more daemons. We land on the roof of the hospital, protect the doctors as they track down and dismantle the equipment, reload them on the airship and come back. Easy."
A short circuit in the hospital of Lestallum burned three mechanical respirators, an ECMO, an electroencephalograph, a dialysis machine, two incubators, a transfusion device and other surgical equipment Silia can't even pronounce the name of. There was some death among the patients, a lot of confusion, but above all it's necessary to repair or replace the devices gone. Apart from the armored Insomnia, in Lucis there are no other equally equipped hospitals. It was thus decided that a group of Sworn Swords will go to Gralea with some specialists. The squad will be leaded by Highwind, who is from Niflheim. This really pisses Silia off, but she has bitten the bullet and volunteered.
"Yeah, of course." Balth, with his six feet, has managed to get stuck on the recessed windowsill that until a few minutes earlier she occupied by herself, reading. He's in shorts and a tank top, it's eleven in the night, and he has his bare foot resting against her left side and the other next to her right shoulder. Cor's call came while Silia was in Old Lestallum, so she stopped by the Carsons for the night before they all meet in Lestallum. Balth had a fierce argument with August in order to go to Niflheim, but in the end he got his way."
"Why aren't you asleep or fucking your wife, bro?"
"I'm not up to sleep or fuck. Anyway, I had fallen asleep. But I dreamed of Hans. Perhaps 'cause you're here. But who knows why him, of all people. I couldn't get back to sleep so I dropped by to see if you were still awake."
"Hans," she whispers, feeling odd to pronounce his name after so long.
"Do you ever dream of him?"
"Sure," she replies. "Not so often, I must tell you. It's all in the past. It's the present and the future that worry me."
She is suddenly reached by childish voices beyond the glass and turns to face the window. On the street, at that time of the night, there are two children playing.
"Isn't it a little late to play tag?"
"Let 'em play. They have little to be happy about. The girl's mother died last week. She was a hunter."
Silia looks at the girl chasing after her playmate. They're fast. "Was it a pleasant dream?"
Balth kicks her side. After all, Cor's right when he repeats that the Kingsglaives never grew up, in some ways. "No. Always shitty dreams. Tachycardia. Anxiety attacks."
"What a wreck you are. What did you dream of?"
"We were in Bors. I was fucking you instead of Hans. You were shouting Baalth, Baalth, again!"
Silia shows her teeth. "Yeah, lower your voice so you won't be heard by your wife. You don't have the guts to make these jokes in front of her."
They laugh. Balthier doesn't tell her the actual dream. It must not have been nice. "We went through a lot, but I'll never forget that night," he says instead. Silia believes he's talking about Hans' death until he resumes talking after a long pause. "Hans was the only Glaive of our squad to try to end it on his own."
"As far as we know," she points out. She was half right, after all.
"As far as we know," he concedes.
Silia purses her lips. "It wasn't the first time he did it, perhaps."
Balth jerks his head towards her. "Seriously? You said that night you had no idea what the fuck was going on in his mind."
"And it's true. I thought about it later." She shrugs. "But maybe not. Maybe I already knew it then."
Balthier gives her another kick. "C'mon, spit it out, sis. How many years have passed, twelve?"
Silia spits it out. Most of the time, Hans is such a distant shadow that he may have been a stranger accidentally crossed many years before, but it still happens, from time to time, that she dreams of him. Whatever she said to Balthier, those with Hans are never pleasant dreams. "We all thought Hans was reckless. So reckless that he was almost out of his mind. Do you remember when he threw himself against the MA-X that was about to self-destroy without casting a protect?"
"Of course."
"Here. Maybe it wasn't foolhardy. Maybe he just wanted to kill himself. D'you remember what he always said in the evening, when he lay on the cot?"
"Yet another day is gone, isn't it?"
"Exactly. He said it every fucking evening. We all thought it was a superstitious way to be happy that we were still alive and hope to be alive the following evening. Perhaps, in retrospect, he meant that again that day he hadn't succeeded in getting himself killed."
Balth doesn't answer. He seems focused on a point below her chest. "He took the pills the day after he almost died."
Silia nods. "He was fucking dying, do you remember? His heart had stopped. We took him back by the skin of his teeth. The next day he wakes up in the infirmary, smiles, and thanks us for saving his ass. That very night, after returning to the tent, he swallows a bottle of barbiturates thinking we're all asleep. Instead, since he had almost died, we all had one eye open fearing he would feel sick."
"Well, perhaps we should have let him do it, if it was his decision."
"Perhaps," Silia admits. Now that they are talking about it, everything turns extremely clear. Panic, disbelief, anger, the smell of blood and vomiting. "But at that moment I didn't give a shit that it was his decision. I only thought that the asshole had been harboring the desire to die for a long time and I had never noticed it, and I wouldn't have allowed him until he had the guts to tell me. We fucked every night, we talked a lot, yet, I found out that evening, there was a Hans I didn't know who didn't want to live anymore. So, I stuck two fingers in his throat without giving a shit about what he wanted."
"What a mess." Balthier smiles. "Sam wandering around the tent like a madman. Legato holding Hans' arms locked behind his back for fear that he might attack you to prevent you from making him throw up. The uproar drew the others from the tents and even the Cap... Drautos," he corrects himself.
"Sarah was great on that occasion, do you remember? She looked Drautos in the face and lied shamelessly. Captain, we were just about to call you. Castor had a relapse. Convulsions. We just revived him, but we have to take him to a real hospital."
"I wonder if he believed it."
"It doesn't matter. He gave us a van to take him to Volund without further investigation."
"Along the way you gave him so many punches to keep him awake that I feared you wanted to kill him with your own hands."
Silia feels suddenly sad. "When he recovered, he asked for forgiveness. We fought furiously. I didn't want none of him anymore. I told him he was a fucking coward, the most coward I had ever known. That a man can be born weak and coward and that's okay, but a coward with his skills was the worst of the cowards. A coward so coward that he couldn't even tell me he wanted to give up."
"But it didn't end between you."
"No."
~~~XV~~~
M.E. 764 (L.N. 9)
Anthea didn't like Silia, but in those years they had inevitably ended up getting to know each other and had come to a mutual respect that went beyond personal sympathies. Anthea couldn't like Silia, because she was tied to a part of her husband whom for years she had struggled to cure as if it were a disease, just to see it arise again when the Long Night had begun. On the other hand, Silia liked Anthea. She was a tough woman, she understood perfectly why Balth had fallen in love with her, and in other circumstances she would have been an excellent military doctor.
When she opened the door, Anthea didn't greet her. "There you are," she said simply.
"Here I am," replied Silia.
"Thanks for coming."
"As if I could have refused."
"You could have."
Silia grimaced. "Did you really just say that?"
"I say that."
She let her in. They looked at each other for a few moments in silence, Silia with her arms crossed, Anthea still leaning against the door she had closed.
"Is he in the bedroom?"
"He is."
"The boys?"
"We're here."
Xavier and Matteus entered the room. Silia hadn't been in Old Lestallum for at least four months and was amazed at how much Matt had grown up in such a short time. Of the two, he was the one who most resembled Balth, with his short blond curls, while Xav had gotten his looks from his mother. She examined their physique with a critical eye: Balthier, August and whoever had trained them had done an excellent job.
"My word, guys, you're getting taller and taller," she smiled.
They didn't smile. She had always gotten along with Balth's sons since they were children. As the kids did in Hammerhead, when Silia happened to be in Old Lestallum they stalked her so she would tell war anecdotes. Now they were looking at her with hostility. They knew.
There were no words she could say to console them about their loss. Matt was about eleven, Xavier had just turned thirteen, so they were no longer children, but they were not old – or perhaps marked – enough not to see her as the woman who would have killed their father.
"Are you sure it's irreversible?" she asked Anthea.
This time it was Anthea who made a face. "I'm a doctor. I was a neurologist. I followed such cases. Some are irreversible, some are not. Balthier has been like this for three days and there's no improvement. Ten years ago, in Insomnia I could have had him undergo a CT scan, an MRI, an angiography and a thousand other specialized clinical tests that would have told us for sure what has jammed and if it's possible to do something about it. But I know what he would have decided in that case as well."
Silia nodded. "Sorry I asked."
Anthea shrugged. "Do you want me to take you inside?"
"No."
"I've to warn you, it's not a pretty sight."
"Anthea, you were a neurologist, but I was a soldier. I collected pieces of my comrades on the battlefield. I think I can do it."
She entered. She had collected pieces of her comrades on the battlefield, but when she saw what had once been Balthier on the bed she thought this was worse.
"Hi, Balth. Sorry if it took me so long. The Wennath was overflowed and I had to deviate a lot."
Actually, at a second look, he was not such a terrible sight. She no longer knew what she had imagined during the long hours in the car - perhaps twisted mouth, wide open asymmetrical eyes, stuff like that. Balth was simply intubated and on a basic life support. Yet that sight horrified her. Cor always said that not all fighters die fighting, but she couldn't simply accept that a fighter could end up like this. She wanted to look away and run out of that room. She wanted to end it immediately.
"I just met your kids over there. They're so fit. And beautiful. They definitely didn't get it from you. They'll turn girls' heads soon. Or boys', if they prefer so."
Instead of running away, she sat on the edge of the bed and started talking to him. Balth couldn't answer, but she kept talking to him. She told him how they were doing in Hammerhead. How the other Glaives were doing. She went back to the front, to the training at the Facility, summoning old stories and people long dead. She talked to him, holding her hand under his, trying to make sense of the slight pressures she sometimes felt, if they made sense. On the radio, Anthea had told her that she believed he could understand, and that was the worst.
III
M.E. 741
"Hey...? …Kitty?"
Silia jerks, grabbing the wrist of whom, at a second glance, turns out to be Carson, and flips him to the ground. She's numb, but her senses are already perfectly alert. While Carson swears, Silia gradually registers that she is outdoors, in the courtyard, that she has fallen asleep on the ground and that, judging by the darkness, it must be two or three in the morning.
"What the fuck you're up to, Carson?" she growls in his face, without letting go of his arm or moving her knee from his throat. If he's looking for revenge for the morning training session and hoping to surprise her while sleeping, she'll give this kid a lesson he'll never forget.
Carson looks at her resentfully but makes no gesture to free himself. Someone rearranged his nose with a heal, but it's still swollen and crooked. It'll probably remain crooked. "Next time," he spits softly, "I'll let you sleep here. If you don't show up at the morning head count, it's on you."
"Oh, so you've come here in the middle of the night to do me a favor? So sweet of you."
Neither of them moves.
"Will you let me get up or do I have to throw you on the ground?"
"Will you tell me what you want, or do I have to break your arm?"
"Just talk."
"Just talk? Nothing to do with this morning?"
"It has to do with this morning, but I just want to talk."
Silia moves her knee from his throat. She squeezes his arm a moment longer, then slowly gets up. Her legs tremble so much that she fears they can't bear her weight. She can hardly do it. "If you play tricks," she warns him, "I'll tan you good. You may be stronger than me, but you're slow, Carson."
"Fuck you, Kitty." He gets up too, but without hostility.
"If you call me that again, I'll break your nose. Again." She still hasn't managed to get rid of that damned nickname.
Carson sighs, rubbing his throat. "Hartwood, cut it out. I'm not one of them."
"Oh yeah? And who would them be?"
"You know. The dangerous ones."
"Yeah. You're one of the stupid ones."
This time Carson jerks, as if he wants to hit her. Silia jerks too, defensively, but Carson lowers his arms.
"You know what? It doesn't surprise me that you have to watch your back from everything and everyone. It's not because you're a girl and because you're small. It's because you're a bitch."
Whatever he wanted to tell her when he had looked for her, he seems to have changed his mind, because he's walking towards the dorms.
Bitch, Silia can accept. Better than Kitty. She follows him.
"What did you want to tell me, Carson?"
What he wanted to tell her, he doesn't tell her. "You must stop this going out at night after the evening head count," he says instead.
"I must, or I'll be kicked out in a year or so because I'm weaker and frailer than the rest of you."
"If you get hurt and start skipping workouts, then they'll kick you out for sure."
"I'll take the risk."
They slow down because the dorms are in sight and even if there's no one to guard it, you can never be sure that Magellano, or Amelia Wilt, or maybe Saul Harris, won't think to plan a surprise inspection around the pavilion. The week before she almost got caught on her way back.
"Why did you come looking for me, care to tell me?"
"Because of Emil Nardus."
"So nice, that guy. Your friend? What does he want?"
"He's not my friend. And you're lucky that tonight it was me and not him."
Silia stops. Carson is tall and sturdy, and he would have hurt her a lot that morning if he had hit her. But he's a kid. Nardus is fifteen years old, and it's another matter entirely. "What're you saying?"
Carson shrugs. "Nardus came to me today. With Raudus."
"Nice one, that, too."
"They wanted to know if I was one of them, given what happened this morning."
"Of them for what?"
Carson nudges her. "They targeted you, Hartwood. Anyway, I said no. They replied that I'm a pussy and that I deserved what happened to me today." He looks away. He seems embarrassed. There's something else that he doesn't tell her. "Hartwood, listen. Just be careful, that's all."
"I'll be careful. I'm always careful," she replies, rubbing the junction of her nose with a sigh. It's all a mess. Aside from the training, which is already hell in itself, she has discovered that she's already at war. At first she had tried to stay on hers, but it's impossible: if you react they target you, if you don't react they target you. If you're big they target you to show they're stronger than you, if you're small they target you simply because they can do it. Nobody escapes. It's an ongoing struggle, and the instructors don't care, or perhaps, sometimes she thinks, they even encourage it. And Marius has estranged himself - not that she'd ask for his help - so they barely talk lately. "What assholes, anyway. Three against one. What are they afraid of?"
"Not of you, of course. It's that, it's easier to not be discovered." He scratches the back of his neck. "Well, there'll be two of them anyway. If they don't find others. It wouldn't surprise me."
Silia looks at Carson and his broken nose. She smiles. "Thanks for the warning, Carson. And don't worry, we've never talked to each other."
Carson starts walking again. "Do as you like. I'm not afraid of them. Actually, I wanted to punch them. They would have beaten the shit out of me, but I would have done it anyway. I didn't like how they spoke. But you know how it's here. If I had sided with you, Hartwood, it would have been worse for you."
She reaches out, amazed. Carson is a good guy, and he may be slow, but he's not stupid at all. "Hey," she says truthfully. "Thanks, man. Seriously."
He shrugs without answering.
"I know it's very late, but how about a cigarette?"
~~~XV~~~
M.E. 761 (L.N. 6)
They're silent, watching the two children chasing each other through the alley. Silia has the feeling that the girl doesn't really want to catch the boy. Balth stares at them gravely. He's certainly thinking of his own.
"He had been thinking about it for three months, he said."
"Do you think that when he finally died, he...?"
"When I put his stuff away, there was a bottle of barbiturates again," Silia replies. "But maybe he wouldn't have used it. Victor, who was near him when he died, said no one could do anything about it. Doubt remained. Then I realized it didn't matter. There was nothing more to do about it."
"Three months," repeats Balthier. "He tried to kill himself in June. In March…"
"Yeah."
Balthier covers his eyes with his hand. "Every time I think I blocked it out, that story, and every time it falls on my head like a grenade."
She also never forgot Dawson's little girl. It's impossible to forget. "You're telling me. Sometimes I think we were too young to make war."
"No, I think that's exactly what saved us from going completely mad. Synaptic plasticity, or whatever the hell they call it, Anthea would say." Balth scratches his trimmed beard. "However, I didn't think Hans was so upset about it. He didn't pull the trigger."
"No. Legato pulled it. He was the one with the coldest blood among us all. It was a good thing he did it. There would have been more casualties."
Balth puts his hand on her knee and starts to stroke it carelessly. "None of us believed that the Niffs were capable of something like that. Using a girl stuffed with explosives."
"Hans was the closest. He should have stopped her. But she looked like his sister, he confessed to me later, and nobody had told him in training that he would have hurt girls. He could have stopped her without killing her. But he couldn't."
"Hans was as responsible as all of us. Someone else could move to incapacitate her... we were fucking Kingsglaives, right? Someone could have landed her without killing her. Cast a protect, for fuck sake."
She knows it perfectly. They all failed to act properly. And they all covered each others' back. There's no way to come clean from a war. "There were other children. Legato had to reckon quickly and draw conclusions."
Balth looks out the window, continuing to touch her knee, and she too looks back out. The two children have moved away, but their loud shouting is still heard. Silia doubts that someone will scold them. Nobody's annoyed by the noise of children anymore. There are too few of them left.
"What about Thomas?" she asks point blank. "Do you ever think about him?"
Balthier turns abruptly towards the door, as if fearing that his wife might enter at any moment. "Sure," he replies. "You all noticed, huh? I was a jerk. Tom must have told you that too."
"You're wrong. Tom never spoke of you again if not by chance, after you retired. You never sent a line to the front, Balth, never a fucking call, but we all understood and respected, especially him. Do you know what he said? Better for him to get away from this fucking war with his mind as well. So we asked Drautos for your news for a while, but we never looked for you."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. The night they deported you to Insomnia, Tom came to me. He said he was so happy that you were alive and that you had managed to escape from hell with an excellent alibi that would have allowed you to sleep at night in peace with yourself. He said no more."
In Insomnia there are still his broken glasses in a box, among the personal effects that Silia left in her apartment on the day of the attack. When she went to look for Balthier shortly after her return, she had thought about bringing them to him, but then she had decided not to. Seeing how Balth had reacted to her presence, she had done well after all, but now she would have liked him to have them, as she would have liked having Hans' plate. Who's left to remember Hans and Tom, apart from these two tired and mutilated people tangled in a windowsill like two teenagers?
"You know I've always refused to do it with him? That's why I said I was a jerk."
"Yeah, you and your claims of heterosexuality. I'm not so sure that heterosexuality exists, let alone on the front, where sex has nothing to do with tastes, lust, love, and all that bullshit that we remember only in the bourgeois world."
"I didn't want to do it with a man. I don't like men."
"But you liked Tom."
Balthier shrugs. "He was my best friend. The first back I'd watch as soon as we took the field; no offense, Coeurl."
"Not at all. Each of us had some backs to watch more than others. Are you really telling me that you haven't fucked even once?"
"No. We got close to it a lot of times, but the moment came when I stopped. At that point Tom would put his pants on and say, Balth, sooner or later you will drive me crazy. One day you'll have to make up your mind. Well, I still have not made up my mind."
"You're right. You've been such a jerk."
"Yeah, huh?"
Balth is crying. Incredible how certain things can hurt again, treacherously, after so many years. "Post-traumatic Stress Disorder," he justifies himself with a grimace, wiping his face. "I was diagnosed by a shrink at Insomnia."
Despite the situation, Silia laughs. "Did you really see a shrink?"
"Anthea said it was necessary."
"Did he go to therapy after talking to you?"
"Shrinks are already in therapy, Silia."
"You've become an expert."
"When it's all over, there will be a need for a bunch of shrinks for everyone."
"No, because we will all have our heads so screwed up that we will become the normal ones."
They laugh again. Silia returns to him the affectionate kick of just before. "Do you know, Balth? Except for Gregor, Marius' father, who hates me, you're the living person I have known for the longest time."
"Oh, enjoy it. I don't know how long it will last. Even if I live long enough to see the end of the Long Night, Silia, my head is literally screwed up. It doesn't take a genius to assume that I will hardly see my children grown up and I will hardly grow old with Anthea. I knew it even before the fall of Insomnia. She knows that too. That's why she didn't object too much when I came to Orior to reunite with the other Glaives and I joined the Sworn Swords."
That thought, which should depress her, amuses Silia. "Growing old? Why, do you think any of us will grow old?"
Balthier shrugs. "Who knows. Anyway, just so you know, Silia, if I become a demented, I prefer to end it. I'm telling you because, if I couldn't do it alone..."
"Dad?"
Balthier's youngest son, Matteus, enters without knocking. Balth turns for a moment to the window and rubs his face, then hurries to disentangle from her and get off the windowsill. "Why are you still up, Matt?"
~~~XV~~~
M.E. 764 (L.N. 9)
Silia looked at her watch and saw that more than an hour had passed. She had talked alone, almost continuously, and felt better. Now she wondered if Balth, on the other hand, wasn't feeling any worse, waiting for her to do what she had come to do. If Anthea wasn't feeling worse, waiting in the other room to hear a shot.
"Fuck, man, tell me if you want me to stop talking," she smiled. "Blink right for yes, left for no."
She caught a slight tremor in his left eye.
"You say so? Then I'll take advantage of it. Sorry, you know, but I don't know whom to complain to. I don't want to distress Gladio with other thoughts. Do you remember the story of the shitmus test? Here, it's still me. If I panic, Gladio panics, Ignis and Prompto panic, Iris and Talcott panic, they all start panic in a cascade. Except for ol' Cid. He never panics. He would be my shitmus test, but he's more and more apathetic, as if by now he doesn't give a shit about what's happening around him. And if a litmus paper never gets colored, it's useless, isn't it?" She clicked her tongue. "Actually, Cor is my shitmus test. But I can't complain to him, he has got a hundred times my headache."
She sighed, lying next to him so as to look him in the face, being careful not to crush the pipes of the life support. Sometimes it happened, in the tent, as youngsters, that they lay talking on the same cot by night. They usually talked about bullshit to escape what really mattered.
"Balth, do you know that I can't really remember if we ever had sex?"
His right eye blinked.
"Well, if I don't remember, I'm sure it wasn't so great."
Left eye. Three times. Silia laughed.
"Look, I'm serious. I don't remember. Wait up. Didn't you take advantage of me while I was blown away by morphine after an injury?"
Left eye.
"I was drunk then."
Left eye.
"I should have known. You've always been such a gentleman. Maybe we haven't even really had sex?"
Left eye.
"Did I jerk you off?"
Left eye.
"A blowjob."
Right eye.
"Fuck, if your wife hears me, she'll kill me. Was Hans already dead?"
Left eye.
"Before Bors, then. Hans was one of those who don't like sharing. Did it happen at the Facility?"
Right eye.
Silia chuckled, remembering at once. They were damn young, and they still didn't know fuck about that stuff. Balth was fifteen or so by then, she was a year older. Balth had just found out that someone else could do with the mouth what one could do with their hand and was too shy to ask around. They had become pretty good friends by the third year of training, and sex was such a trivial matter for her that she had simply said, why not, it doesn't bother me, just don't get me dirty. Needless to say, he had gotten her dirty.
"I've remembered now. But how can you remember that? You must have lasted, like, thirty seconds."
Left eye. Three times.
"Keep believing that," she snorted. "I'd bid you farewell, but I'm afraid you can't feel anything, do you?"
The joke was starting to get bad taste, but she knew Balth wouldn't hold back. He was the king of the jokes of bad taste on the front, even if he was easily embarrassed as a kid, and however much his life at Insomnia had tamed him, in those years he had shown that he had not lost his verve. Always when Anthea wasn't around, of course.
"Anyway, I'm going to tell you something I've never said to anyone else. Do you remember that girl from Quirm? The one who towed me in the bar, thinking I was a young man, a couple of months before your accident?"
Right eye.
"Sam has never stopped harassing me over the years to find out how it ended. It had become a superstitious motto before going on a mission. He never knew how it ended. Do you want to know?"
Right eye. Four times.
Silia raised her eyebrows conspiratorially. "Well, we made it, of course. I let her believe I was a boy right up to her house. She was a little hurt when she found out I didn't have a cock. But just a little, and only at the beginning. She didn't regret it too much, I think."
For the first time, Balth made a sound. Silia decided to interpret it as a laugh, and she laughed too, resting her face on his shoulder. Then she realized she was crying, and hurriedly rubbed her eyes before Balth could see her. Although, unlike Darius, Balthier would have hugged her instead of punching her mouth, if he could have moved.
"Balth," she said, shivering. "Try to make me understand when the time is right. I'll call Anthea for you. You said goodbye to your kids, I guess?" Too many questions. Silia started again. "Do you want us to keep talking?"
Left eye.
"Do you want me to do it now, then?"
Right eye.
"Fine. Do you want me to call Anthea and your kids?"
Left eye.
"Just Anthea?"
Left eye.
"I don't mean they have to stay here and watch. But don't you want to say goodbye?"
Left eye.
Silia sighed. After all, she too would have preferred to leave without any fuss. "Does Anthea already know we're doing it now or will she try to scratch my eyes out when I exit this room?"
Right eye.
"I take it as a yes to the first question. Balth, are you sure?"
Right eye.
Silia got up from the bed. She had already decided how to do it. She wouldn't have made Anthea find a room soaked in her husband's blood. But she wouldn't even cover Balth's face with a pillow. She leaned over him to brush his lips with hers, encircled his neck with both her hands and searched with her fingers for the cervical vertebrae.
"Bye, bro. See you soon. Not so soon, if I can help it."
IV
M.E. 741
"Hey, Hartwood, tell me."
The cigarette is almost finished. Magnanimously, Silia hands it to him for what she believes may be the last puff.
"What?"
Carson sucks greedily, checks that all the smokable has been smoked, then resigns himself to putting the cigarette out on the ground. He picks the butt up and makes the ash disappear with his foot to get rid of the evidence. "How can you do it every day?"
Silia leans her head back towards the night sky. Everything hurts - legs, back, arms, head. Unhealed wounds and bruises still blue. It's the same for Balthier Carson, she's sure, even if he weighs at least 60 lbs more than she does. She raises her arms and look at her hands – her joints are sore, her knuckles peeled, there are swollen calluses on her palms where for hours she held the handle of the training sword. Every day she wonders how her body will hold up the next day, and every day it happens. "It's simple," she replies, "I don't just wait for all this to end, as I know many others do."
"Really?"
Silia nods. "I'm afraid of being kicked out. I'm afraid of going to war and dying. I'm afraid of going to war and being afraid. That's why I focus on what I can do every day to avoid it. Every hour. Every minute. On the calluses. The bruises. The wounds. The pain. The fatigue. The others throw themselves on the cot in the night and wait to throw themselves on the cot the next day. I don't."
Balthier relaxes at her side and stifles a yawn. "Know what? If I really had to watch my back from someone, Hartwood, it would be you. Furia, Raudus, Nardus, Bellum, they're vicious and brutal but they take the training as some tournament. They could hurt a lot, perhaps end up killing someone. But you look so serious 'bout it that you creep me out. That's why they targeted you."
"You said it was 'cause I'm a bitch."
"You are a bitch."
She giggles. "Now you tell me. What are you doing here, Carson?"
"Do you really want to know? My father forced me."
Silia remains with her mouth half open. "What? But the Glaives are volunteers."
Carson grins. "Well, yes. It's not that he forced me literally. I mean, he didn't tie me up and dumped me in the barracks telling the Captain to keep me there. But he said that at home we had enough mouths to feed and what they pass here, even in training, it's a lot of money. He said I must think about my sisters, since I'm sturdy but I'm stupid. And if it didn't suit me, well, that's the door."
"What an asshole."
"A real asshole. In fact, I don't want to have anything to do with him anymore. But I send the money to him anyway. For my sisters, you know. They're children, what fault do they have?" He grimaces. "Jeez, I'm never having children. I don't want to become an asshole like my father."
"You can't have children. You heard the Captain."
"Yeah, but I believe that having children is something you can hide, if you're male."
Silia snorts. "And why didn't you leave home? The street is better than here, right?"
Carson gives a half smile. "You say? And in the street what do I do, Hartwood?"
"You don't take Magellano's blows behind your knees, to begin with."
He chuckles. "True. And I confess that I've thought about going away at first. You know we're free to do it. But now..." He flexes his arm. "It makes you feel good, doesn't it?"
"What?"
"The idea that, in a few years, we won't depend on anyone to protect ourselves. Fuck the Wall, fuck the magiteks, fuck the daemons. It's you with your sword and the magic of the King. Maybe I'll desert, oh. But I want to get as far as I can in this training. If we don't die first."
Silia, in spite of herself, is full of admiration. "Next time they tell you you're stupid, Balth, punch them."
"You called me a stupid a little while ago."
"You can punch me, if you want."
Balthier smiles. "No, I'm tired now. On the field, Hartwood. Silia. In front of Saul Harris, in a regular match. Harris won't give you a blow if you lose."
"Huh, no. Not him. But I think he… how do others say, copping a feel? More or less everyone has noticed."
"It never happened to me."
"Me neither. He does that with the older kids."
Silia gets up. She has no clock, but from the light she imagines it's more or less four in the morning. One night without sleep. Tomorrow will be pain for both.
"By the way, Hartwood, I haven't told you yet. Nice, that headbutt. I didn't see it coming."
~~~XV~~~
M.E. 761 (L.N. 6)
"I can't sleep, dad. What if you don't come back?"
A bitter grimace deforms Balthier's fake smile for a moment. "Of course I'll be back," he lies, reaching him in three steps and pulling him up with his only arm.
Silia would never lie to him. She would have told him that she would probably come back or that she would do anything to come back, but she would never lie to him. Maybe she thinks this because she's not a mother. She'll never be.
Matt clings to his father's waist and harpoons his shirt, sinking his face against his shoulder. "Some don't come back from missions."
"I do. But this time I'm even more sure. Do you know why?"
Matt shakes his head.
Balthier turns on himself and points in her direction. "Because I'm going on a mission with the Coeurl. We've known each other since we were kids and I've seen her survive everything. Did I ever tell you a Jormungand ate her leg?"
"Liar," Matt replies skeptically. "It's there."
Silia plays along, although the child is too immature for her taste. "It's because I grew another."
"Cut legs don't grow back. Dad's arm didn't grow back."
"Because I'm not the Coeurl."
"Can you use the sword already, Matt?"
"Next year," replies the boy. "Dad and August teach me, like Xav."
"And are you going to learn by holding on to your father like a monkey on a tree?"
Matt jumps down, humiliated, and Balthier laughs. "Let him go, Silia." He places his hand on his son's head. "However, had it been for me, I would have made him a doctor like his mother or a chancellor at the Citadel. But it's not for me to decide, is it? He's been haunting me for months because he wants to learn to fight too." He pulls the child against his waist. The same gesture he does with her, halfway between a hug and the desperate need for physical contact. "It shouldn't be like this," he whispers, with a broken voice. "When everything is back to normal, it must not be like this, anymore."
"It will always be like this, Balth," she can't help reminding him bitterly. "The Prince will come back sooner or later. The Draconian has not kidnapped him for a poker. Izunia will be thrown back into the cesspit where he crawled out from. And we will get the light back. And maybe we will be at peace for a while. Five years? Ten? Maybe twenty. Maybe fifty. Then there will be nations again because there will be enough people again to repopulate them. Think about the Solheim civilization. Canceled by the Astral War, yet as soon as humanity recovered and returned to thrive..."
"We'll make sure it doesn't happen," he interrupts her. "I don't know if I'll be there, if my children will be there or their children. But we'll have to learn from our mistakes, sooner or later." He takes two steps and opens the door. "I'm going to put him to bed, Silia. Sorry, but..."
Silia shrugs. "Don't even joke. Stay with your family, Balth. See you tomorrow morning. Goodnight, Matt."
"See you in the morning," he nods. "Remember. If I can't do it alone, I'll send for you, Captain."
"What the fuck, Balth!" she exclaims, exasperated.
"Stop swearing in front of my son."
"You stop saying..." She bites her tongue. "We'll talk about it another time."
"No, Captain." Balthier stares at her for a moment before closing the door behind him. "We won't talk about it anymore."
~~~XV~~~
M.E. 764 (L.N. 9)
Silia found Anthea where she had left her. Sitting in the kitchen, hands on her lap. She waited. The boys were not with her, but August was there now, sitting on another chair with his arms tightly crossed. Silia hadn't heard him come.
"Hi, August," she said.
"Hi, Hartwood," he answered. He was pale, grieved. Balth and August had become good friends over the years. She had witnessed more petty bickering between the two of them than the ones she had with her husband. Get a room, you two, she'd always said. August would punctually tell her to fuck off.
"Is it over?" Anthea asked.
"Yeah," she simply said. Only then did she feel the exhaustion of the long drive. Her legs threatened to cede, but she wouldn't lay herself open before August and Anthea. She gritted her teeth and sat with them. She hadn't eaten or drunk or slept since the previous day.
"He didn't suffer, I guess."
Silia grimaced. "I'm not a doctor, Anthea, but I'm a Kingsglaive. Balth was a Glaive too, although he thought not for a few years."
"Cut it out, Hartwood," August said dryly. "It's not the time."
Silia was about to tell him that he hadn't had to kill him, so he wasn't supposed to decide what time was for what, but she felt too tired to argue. "You're right."
"How did you do it?" Anthea asked.
"Does it matter?"
"I just want to be prepared for what I'll find in there."
"You'll find your husband in peace. If you want the details, fracture of the second and third cervical vertebrae."
"A clean way. Did he ask you to do it so?"
"No. I think he would have preferred the sword."
Anthea took off her glasses and wiped a tear. No hysteria, no blatant crying. Only silent tears. With a sense of horror, Silia realized that she wouldn't be so restrained if it were about Gladio. What was she turning into? "Thanks. Will you stop?"
"I must," she admitted, swallowing that sudden awareness. She was simply tired. Deadly tired. "I drove here without stopping from Hammerhead, and until yesterday morning I was in Longwythe. I'd go back immediately to Hammerhead, but I seriously fear I'd kill myself falling asleep at the wheel."
"You can rest in the kids' room, as always."
No, not as always. "Thanks, but I need tranquility," she lied. She could perfectly sleep in the kids' room, but she didn't want to impose her presence to Anthea. "I'm going to find myself a quiet place elsewhere by myself. Do you think you will do something for…?"
The woman covered her eyes. She didn't answer.
"If it doesn't bother you," she said, both to Anthea and August, "I'll call my mates before going to sleep. Miles, Delilah, Luka, Sadda, Tabul, Elea, Libertus. We'll have a drop here in Old Lestallum in Balth's memory. He was one of us, after all."
"Hartwood," August warned her. "We all know your Glaives way to downplay things. You can gather here, but we don't want drunken guys singing and yelling dirty jokes while two kids are mourning their father. And a wife mourning her husband." He paused. "And a friend mourning his friend. If I hear a voice over the tunes, I'll kick you all off Old Lestallum. Are we clear?"
"You're the boss here."
All she needed now was sleep.
