It was midday the following day when Severa entered the ruined house Gaius had taken as quarters. He was in the midst of studying a packet of files that had been brought to him by the leader of the village, said to contain the plans for the construction of more of those demonic ascian towers. Thus far the information contained seemed forged, and Gaius was starting to become agitated, so Severa's interruption was welcomed. He looked up as she entered, her eyes gleaming.

"She says she'll speak to the Black Wolf." Severa said with a smile, slightly breathless from her jaunt.

"Pity he's not with us any longer." Gaius mused, stacking the papers and putting them back in their file. He stood, and took his heavy coat from where he had draped it over the back of the rickety chair he sat in. "Bring her in." he said, shrugging into the garment.

The woman was escorted into Gaius' chosen quarters by the Highlander Hyur whom seemed enamored with her daggers, while Severa followed behind. They placed her in the same worm-eaten chair that Gaius had been sitting in mere minutes before, now set in front of the half-broken desk. Gaius himself leaned against the corner of the desk, his arms folded across his chest.

As soon as the Viera was seated, Severa and the Highlander exited. While the Highlander wandered away, most likely to return to fondling the shinobi's daggers, Severa took up a guard post outside of his door, equal parts to assist Gaius should their guest decide to misbehave, and to eavesdrop on their conversation.

The woman looked around, eyes taking in her surroundings. No doubt looking for an escape route and makeshift weapons, Gaius surmised. She frowned bitterly as her gaze came to rest on him, and finally she spoke; "I said I would speak to the Black Wolf. I do not see him here." she said. Her accent was light, sounding almost Doman with some Dalmascan inflection. Gaius regarded her silently, unsure if she were playing a game of wits. Deciding it would be best to treat it as such until he had more out of her, he shut his eyes and made a derisive sound through his nose.

"I take it you haven't heard then: he's dead." Gaius said with some amusement. The woman narrowed her eyes at him, suspicious. "What business did you have with him?" he watched her reaction carefully. Aye, it was obvious she was there to kill him, but on orders or her own revenge, he wanted to know. She'll have to get in line in either case, he thought, pursing his lips.

Her stony expression faltered for a moment, and it seemed as if she were seeing him for the first time. A slight blush crept onto her cheeks, and she averted her gaze. That's not a common reaction...he noted, one eyebrow lifting slightly. He shifted his stance against the desk, relaxing just a little, giving a display of his guard being down (when really it was not) in an attempt to make her feel more at ease to talk. "Might I know your name, at least?" he was prepared for her to ignore his request, but to his surprise she once again spoke.

"Babette. My father named me after his grandmother. My clan name is Roda, mother insisted I keep it, just in case." she responded. 'Just in case' was a strange way to justify keeping her Viera family name, and Gaius suspected it had something to do with the race's culture.

"A father...I know fair little of the ins and outs of Viera culture, but I was under the assumption that the men were not one to know their children, let alone name them." Gaius said. Babette tilted her head, as if surprised he knew that much.

"My father was a Hyur, and a merchant apprentice in Rabanastre. My sire was a Viera from my mother's homeland. Mother had long since left the mountains when she and father had bonded, but returned when she wanted a child. Father was not strong, his family was a long line of battle-weak Hyur. There was no guarantee his seed would quicken within her to begin with, so she sought out my sire." Her blunt, practical way of speaking threw Gaius off slightly, with how she was so frank about the circumstances of her conception. He moved past it, determined to keep her talking.

"So you're a Dalmascan?" he stated more than asked. Babette tossed her head slightly, in a defiant motion.

"I am Dalmascan by birth. I am Garlean by necessity, and I am Doman by privilege." she responded with more than a little haughtiness. Now Gaius was paying attention. Very few, if any at all, of those whom had been subjugated by Garlemald, actually openly admitted their citizenship. It brought about nothing but woe for most, especially from their kin that refused the rule of the Empire. Their eyes met again, and once again a blush crept into the tint of her cheeks, and she looked away.

"I am interested to hear how you have come to have three opposing citizenships." he said honestly. Babette was silent for so long that Gaius had begun to think she had decided she had said enough, but slowly, hesitantly, she began to talk, her voice catching as if this were a tale she'd never put to word before.

"I was not a young child when Dalmasca ceased to be, but so much happened in so short a time that I've forgotten what life was like before Garlean occupation," she started, her eyes glazing over slightly as she peered into the past. (This alone confirmed to Gaius that she was indeed older than she looked.) "Like many others from the lands that had fallen beneath Garlean boot and sword, Mother and Father sold their souls to the Empire for citizenship, and the hopes of a better life. And, like those who did the same before them, we were regarded as traitors to our own countrymen. It wasn't long before we packed up, forced out or of our own volition I do not recall, and made the journey to here...the heart of the Empire. They hoped life would improve under the safety of the banner of Garlemald..."

"...and it did not." Gaius finished for her. It was a classic tale, the same scene on repeat with everyone who had fallen under the Empire's rule. It had been repeated to him so many times he knew how the story ended, but every time he heard it anew, the stone in his gut shifted, sickened by what he'd helped his country achieve.

Babette's mouth was pressed into a thin line as more of her past played out in her mind's eye. Her expression faltered again, this time to one of pain, and she closed her eyes against it. "Mother and I were a sideshow. If there were other Viera in the empire, we never saw them. Men would leer, women would gossip hatefully, and encouraged their children to act as if we were beasts." Disgust crept into her voice, and she took a moment to compose herself.

"But mother was strong," she stated with more than a little pride, "She was still a Viera after all; a fierce warrior beneath it all. The Empire could never take that away from her. She would not buckle...

...not at first."

Gaius waited patiently as she collected her thoughts, her struggle to mask her feelings was written all over her face by this point. She was delving into something painful. Part of him was amazed she was speaking so candidly of herself to him; a stranger. Perhaps she thought her captors were going to kill her, and was merely telling her tale so that part of her would live on. He almost snorted in laughter at that thought; unless she posed a threat to them, which at this moment seemed as not, she would be released in due time, to return to her life as she saw fit.

But, if that thought is what kept her talking, then who was he to stop her?

Outside his quarters, Severa was leaning towards the door, it's battered state letting sound leak out like water with no dam. Valdeaulin, just now returned from another supply mission into the city, approached her with a loud greeting. She held her hand up in a silencing motion and cast him a warning glare. Frowning, he turned his head slightly in a questioning motion, and she indicated into Gaius' room. Peering in he saw Babette seated in the chair, and understood. Taking up a comfortable stance leaning against the wall of the house, he joined Severa in listening.

"There was a cadet that would patrol the market street of our home district," Babette said, finally able to keep her voice steady. "Emboldened by just being in the army, he would taunt and heckle mother and I whenever we went to shop. Father, a lowly grunt in the magitek factory, would be beaten if he tried to intervene and protect us." She didn't hide her disgust with this fact. "Mother finally told him to stop, worried that it would kill him. Her love was a gentle merchant after all, he was not suited to weather the beatings given to him by our Garlean superiors. He did not want to, but acquiesced, unable to handle the tears shed out of fear for his life."

"And thus, mother and I bore the taunts, the occasional thrown garbage, the uncouth propositions. Mother taught me how to ignore these things, as they were words, and could not kill us as weapons could. I was braver with her, and even though the words thrown at us were hateful, I never felt their sting. Mother, I think, did, and it was eating at her like a rot on the inside."

"I think the cadet grew frustrated as time passed, seeing that both mother and I had become completely oblivious to his presence and voice. One day, in the company of his fellow soldiers, he snatched me away from mother and..." Babette winced in her reverie, "...in the cruelty one would only afford a child, he bent my ears in a taunt to see if I could 'fly' with them. So harsh were his movements that he snapped them both, and as you can see before you, he disfigured me for life."

A bitter smile graced her lips in the next moment, "...and then mother promptly ripped one of his pointed Elezen ears clean off of his head."