Disclaimer: I don't own Bravely Second, all rights to the owners.
Reminder that this is also a fluff story.
"Is he sleeping?" Edea asks when Magnolia sits down at the campfire again. Magnolia had spent a few minutes waiting inside the tent, just to be sure Yew was actually able to sleep and had everything he needed.
"Yes." Magnolia nods. The sun is just setting. Yew went to sleep quite early, not that she can blame him. He looked exhausted.
"I can't believe we're going to have to drag him across the desert." Edea grumbles, kicking a pebble nearby. "What sort of trap did he hit anyways? Blind, deaf, and silent? That's brutal."
"I'm sure Yew will have a theory." Tiz murmurs. He's sitting a short distance away from Edea, grinding dents out of his axe. It got quite a bit of use in the sandworm ambush, as Tiz was running low on mana before that fight started. "We can ask him when he gets cured."
Edea rolls her eyes a bit. "I just want to know what the trap is, not get a two hour history lesson on ancient Harena trapmaking. Anyway, do you want me to handle Yew tomorrow, Magnolia? We should probably rotate, because it's gonna get annoying to deal with him for too long."
Magnolia scowls at her and crosses her arms. "How rude! He is our companion, not a burden."
Edea blinks at Magnolia's annoyance, then rubs the back of her head sheepishly. "Right, sorry."
"Besides, I can care for Yew myself." Magnolia says. What sort of partner would she be if she handed off her fiancé to someone else as soon as he needed help after all? "I do not mind."
"Tell me that in a month when you've had to lead him around every day." Edea snorts. "Then I'll believe you."
Magnolia holds her head high and looks down her nose at Edea. "I will."
"I'm not trying to be rude there or anything!" Edea says, and holds up her hands placatingly. "Just… well, it's not going to be all Yew blushing as bright as a tomato while you feed him dinner."
Perhaps Magnolia took advantage of Yew's condition a bit in doing that, but his reaction was absolutely adorable and Magnolia doesn't regret it. "I am aware, but you won't hear me complain. I've had to carry people on my shoulders for hours in training exercises, I think I can manage leading and caring for Yew for a while."
Edea shakes her head, smirking. "Yew is a lucky bastard."
Magnolia smiles. "I am quite a catch, non?"
The conversation falls off for a bit. Magnolia sits back down and tends to her glaive, Edea fetches Yew's diary and writes in it, and Tiz continues to repair his axe. Eventually, however, Tiz speaks up.
"Did anyone figure out what was wrong with Yew?" Tiz asks quietly. "Before the trap, I mean."
Magnolia glances hopefully at Edea. Edea mutely shakes her head.
"Did someone say something?" Tiz asks. "Was there an incident this morning?"
Both girls say "no".
"Hmm." Tiz frowns. "Maybe he was scared?"
"Then why would he be rushing into battle?" Edea points out. "Besides, weirder is how insistent he was on being in the lead."
"He is sort of our leader, isn't he?" Tiz says. "Maybe that's why?"
"But he's never had an issue with us taking point before." Edea reminds him. "He didn't argue with Magnolia being first down the ba'al crater, or me leading in Eternia High Command."
Tiz hums again, his brow furrowed in thought. He looks to Magnolia. "You're closest to him. You can't think of anything?"
Magnolia reluctantly shakes her head. As much as she hates to admit it, Yew's thoughts are a mystery to her. For as open as he is about everything else he isn't exactly in the practice of sharing his worries.
Though the same could be said of everyone in the group. Magnolia keeps up a brave facade herself, after all.
"We could always check his diary." Edea suggests, shaking the book in her hand. "He writes his thoughts in here after all."
"That would be a breach of trust, Edea." Tiz reminds her. "He lets us write in there on confidence we won't go peeking around anywhere that isn't the bestiary."
"Bleh, fine." Edea grumbles. "Make it harder, why don't you."
With no new suggestions to throw around they move onto other topics, discussing travel plans and what they need to do better when they come back to the ruins. When they all slip inside the tent after dark, Magnolia sets her bedroll down next to Yew's. She wants to know when he wakes up, and this seems like the best way to ensure that.
"He looks peaceful when he's sleeping." Magnolia notes. It's much better than how stressed he was before. Hopefully the next month won't be too hard on him.
She gently brushes his hair out of his sleeping face.
"I'll try my best to help." She promises in a murmur. "S'appuie sur moi, Yew. Je vais te protéger."
Magnolia closes her eyes, and allows sleep to gradually claim her.
###
Magnolia wakes up when a hand touches her face. The hand is gone in an instant, but she's awake, so it's a bit late to not disturb her. Magnolia sighs and rubs eyes to see what's going on. A lantern is lit in the tent, so she presumes it must be morning. She can hear someone moving outside the tent, which confirms this further.
The hand is obviously Yew's. He has both arms pulled up against his body, looking in her direction with glazed, unseeing eyes with his breath held, probably hoping he didn't accidentally wake her.
Just to let him know that she's awake, Magnolia extends a hand and touches his arm. Yew twitches in surprise and then his shoulders hunch while a grimace crosses his face. He mouths the word "sorry" in her direction, and Magnolia pats him on the arm reassuringly.
Well, she's not going back to sleep now, so Magnolia slips out of her bedroll and tugs Yew's arm to get him out of his as well.
Magnolia does her morning routine while passing Yew items for his own. He can do most of it by himself, and it doesn't actually take that long… which is a problem, because Magnolia's hair-care routine takes a while (you can't keep silky long hair like hers in battlefield conditions without a lot of time and effort; that or magic, but she never learned the spells) and she doesn't want to leave Yew standing there awkwardly as she fiddles with her hair for at least half an hour.
She could hand him to Edea or Tiz for a bit, half an hour is hardly abandonment, but perhaps due to stubborness or just because she enjoys having Yew to herself she instead finds a way to involve him in the process.
This is also part of a strategy Magnolia came up with as she was falling asleep last night. The best way to make Yew's condition bearable to him might be to constantly distract him, or at least always give him something to focus on. He won't be able to do any of his usual hobbies, have conversations, or even look at his surroundings, and Magnolia imagines sitting or standing around in a silent black void for long periods of time doing nothing would be rather awful, so anything she can do to stave off that state of nothingness is good in her book.
Yew looks very confused when she hands him a brush, but when she moves his hands to her hair he gets the idea, even if he very clearly has no idea why he's doing this.
That's fine. As long as he's engaged with something she's accomplished her goal.
Despite his confusion, Yew is very diligent in his work, and also very delicate with his brushing, and takes care whenever he encounters a knot to gently untangle it rather than push through with brute force. It's actually quite pleasant to have him brush her hair for her.
Most parts of her routine necessitate that Yew doesn't brush her hair of course, so when that happens she gives him something to hold. She could just put the items on the table, but this way Yew has something to interact with. She puts whatever item she's going to need next in his hands, and when she needs that item she replaces what he's holding with the next thing. In her mind she hopes the sense of progression and being able to feel each item allows him to more-or-less follow what's happening, as he obviously can't see what's going on or have it explained to him.
It's almost certainly an unnecessary length to go to keep him engaged and distracted, but Magnolia would rather do too much than too little.
Edea wakes up during her routine and raises an amused eyebrow at the sight of Yew curiously feeling a bottle of shampoo. She pokes Yew in the shoulder when she walks out, making him jump in surprise and clutch the bottle to his chest. He would probably yelp if his voice worked.
When she's almost done tending to her hair, Magnolia peeks out of the entrance of the tent to see if breakfast is ready. It's decidedly not, and Edea is arguing with Tiz over how much sugar should be in the soup (Tiz absolutely insists that sugar does not go in soup, and Magnolia is inclined to agree), so Magnolia figures she has at least ten more spare minutes.
She looks to Yew, who is currently holding her flower and feeling it with the utmost care (the preservation spell on it, incidentally the only spell she knows, makes the flower deceptively durable so he needn't actually be so careful, but it's sweet of him to be considerate), and then to the brush still on the table, and has a brilliant idea.
After Magnolia washes out her hair (being able to use the wizard asterisk to make water is a wonderful convenience) she takes the flower from Yew and fixes it in her hair, and then sits Yew down at the table. Yew's hands tentatively search across the surface, probably expecting there to be something for him to hold (or maybe expecting food because of the smell of the soup), but that's not why Magnolia sat him down. She brandishes the brush, well aware of the giddy smile on her face, and starts to brush out Yew's hair.
Almost immediately the tips of Yew's ears go red when he realizes what's happening. His hands come together in his lap and he nervously fiddles with his fingers as Magnolia brushes out his knots. She also takes the liberty of applying a bit of soap and shampoo, if just so she has an excuse for running her fingers through his hair.
At some point Yew brings up his hands to hide his face, his blush having gone well down his ears and onto his cheeks. Magnolia tries not to smile too much and gently pries his hands away so she can see his face in the mirror as she works.
Is this selfish of her? Absolutely. Does she think it's adorable? Absolutely.
With Yew's hands back in his lap, Magnolia can't help but notice an odd motion that Yew makes with one of them. Sometimes he'll turn one of his palm upward, curl his fingers into a fist so tight his knuckles turn white, twist the hand around, then open his fingers like he's releasing something onto the floor.
She can't make heads or tails of the series of motions, but Yew visibly relaxes an inch when he finishes the act. She'll have to ask him about it when he can speak again.
Magnolia happily attends to Yew's hair until Tiz announces that breakfast is ready, at which point she quickly washes Yew's hair of the shampoo and escorts her still-blushing fiancé outside to get some food. Tiz makes no comment about Yew's blushing state and hands them each a bowl of soup. Magnolia lets Yew eat on his own this time. For one, she's made him blush enough for the next little while and wants to give him a break, and second, spoon-feeding someone soup sounds like it would take a long time and even her considerable patience has limits. Besides, the others probably don't want to sit around while she feeds Yew.
With their food eaten and morning routines complete, the group packs up their supplies and Yew's tent (and this time they do give Yew his backpack to carry, now that they aren't as worried about Yew toppling over). Magnolia then loops her arm through Yew's in order to guide him, and the group sets off.
Leading Yew across the desert isn't actually all that difficult. The sand level varies as the group crosses dunes, but the ground slopes gradually rather than sharply and abruptly like in the ruins, so there's much less of a chance of him tripping over something and breaking his nose.
That said, it requires a small but noticeable level of constant focus to guide Yew. Magnolia's own movements are almost unconscious to her, as anyone's own actions tend to be, but needing to keep Yew in mind while moving requires at least a little bit of active thought. Every dip and rise of the dunes is something Yew has to be guided into, lest he miss a step when the ground is lower than expected or suddenly meet a rise before he expects it and stumble or face-plant into the sand.
After a while, even this small amount of constant attention becomes frustrating to Magnolia. She's not frustrated at Yew so much as the constant pull on her attention, not unlike if she needed to brush her hair out of her face every two minutes.
After a few hours it must show in her actions. Maybe she's become a bit more sharp in how she tugs on Yew's arm, because when she glances at him she can see slightly hunched shoulders, an anxious expression, and an intentional distance from her as they walk that results in him accidentally pulling her arm with greater frequency.
Magnolia takes a deep breath to calm herself down. She's a soldier, something like this is nothing compared to the training she's had to deal with in the past. It's frankly embarrassing that she's gotten frustrated so quickly.
When she's sufficiently calmed herself down, Magnolia stops walking for a second. She firmly pulls Yew closer so their shoulders touch and he stops yanking her arm by walking too far away. She also reaches across her body with her free hand to smooth back his hair, which she hopes is sufficiently comforting. She hates to see him anxious, much less know it's probably her fault.
Yew's only reaction is a nervous fidget with his free hand while his unseeing eyes flick vaguely in her direction, which really doesn't tell her all that much.
"Do you want me to take over for a bit?" Edea's voice isn't that loud, but after so long without any talk it's startling.
After a moment of consideration, Magnolia shakes her head. She wants to do this; not because it's fun, which it isn't, but because she wants to be a good partner. She will take care of Yew.
"Alright, but if you get tired I can take Yew for a bit." Edea says.
"Me too." Tiz adds. "He doesn't have to be just your responsibility Magnolia."
"My thanks, but I can care for him." Magnolia says firmly.
"We're not trying to imply you can't." Tiz says, raising an eyebrow just a hair. "But we're a team, right? If one member needs help, we all chip in."
Magnolia exhales. Perhaps she's being stubborn. There's no need to take Yew's weight solely upon her back. Just because she can and would, doesn't mean she should if there are alternatives. "Of course. Thank you. I'll take you up on that later. I can keep leading him for now though."
Tiz nods.
Magnolia keeps her cool for the rest of the walk. She makes a conscious effort to keep calm, treating the walk like an exercise from her days training. She tries to consider this a challenge, a test, something to improve on, and not a mere inconvenience. She focuses on hand cues, raising and lowering their linked hands in order to communicate changes in the slope of the landscape. She consciously reduces the length of her strides, matching Yew's shorter legs so she can walk in sync with him and prevent the constant shifts in speed Yew had to make to keep up with her, which has the additional benefit of causing less tripping and awkward tugs to her arm that irritate her shoulder.
It's not the easiest thing to keep up, but Magnolia knows from experience that if you do anything for long enough, you'll start to do it unconsciously. If she puts in the effort now, the rest of the month will be much more bearable.
Magnolia considers it a testament to her willpower that she remains calm for the rest of the morning. She hands off Yew to Tiz and Edea after lunch. Edea is far too impatient to escort Yew around, and ends up just carrying him on her back rather than letting him walk, and Tiz… actually does rather well.
"It's kind of like herding sheep." Tiz murmurs as he helps Yew up a particularly steep dune. "You just need patience and to provide reassurance." He pauses when Edea shoots an amused smile at him. "Don't tell Yew I compared him to a sheep."
"Oh I absolutely will." Edea says cheerfully.
Tiz sighs in resignation.
Magnolia allows both Edea and Tiz to take care of Yew for the afternoon portion of the walk, mostly to give her arm a rest. She also lets them take care of him for a bit after they settle down for the night, taking advantage of the free time to keep up her weapon practice while someone (hopefully Tiz) makes dinner. She then occupies Yew as best she can for the afternoon, which is easier said than done because there's not a whole lot of things he can do while both deaf and blind, but Magnolia remembers a few childhood games that can be played with just your hands that work well enough. Yew seems to take an interest in a game called "bâtons", and they spend over an hour playing just that game. Even if he can't communicate it to her, she can see how his brow furrows and how he silently mouths numbers to himself while mentally mapping out every possibility for the game.
That's a fancy way of saying that Yew wins every round after the fifth, no matter how hard she tries. Even when she introduces additional rules to make the game more complicated (always demonstrated by grabbing his hands and doing the motions for him, so he understands how it works) and not as easily solvable, that just ends up with Yew winning even harder than before as he figures out how to make the new nuances work in his favor.
Magnolia goes to sleep that night feeling quite content with herself, if exhausted. It wasn't too difficult to escort Yew once she got into the right mindset, and he looked rather calm today rather than the red-eyed stress he was showing yesterday.
She can manage this. Maybe the month won't be so bad.
I've mentioned before that Magnolia gives me trouble, and I think that comes through here. I don't think I butchered her or anything, but Magnolia fits into a certain character archetype I write fairly often, and sometimes outside traits slip in. In this specific case, I think I'm channeling a bit too much Changeling.
Either way I still like this chapter, so I guess it doesn't matter.