Author's Notes: First chapter in... hrm, not a series, per se. Well, call it an ongoing story. This contains serious spoilers for Suikoden III, and most the dramatic impact will be lost if you haven't played it; you've been warned. Skip to the bottom for more. If you like this, hate this, are largely indifferent to it, whatever -- please leave feedback. Please. Even if it's just "you suck". I'm a shameless whore, and I like knowing what people think of my stuff.
Heavy rains washed Caleria free of grime and dust, po%uring down for a solid fortnight. Lacking an assignment after their latest mission, unit twelve had been cooped up with the other sodden, huddled masses, taking refuge at their usual inn.
Joker was juggling egg yolks in a shot glass for his not-so-secret hangover cure when Aila wandered down into the common room. Queen poked warily at an omelet by his side. They'd been in the exact same chairs the night before. No reason to think they'd gone to bed, or even moved once they'd settled down to serious boozing.
Queen looked up when Aila's shadow crossed the table and cracked a tired smile. "Morning. Looks like someone actually got a night's sleep around here..."
"Only half of one." Aila pulled up a chair; Joker didn't say anything, just pushed a basket of muffins and a glass of orange juice across the table: they'd ordered for her, apparently. "I'd finally gotten used to the sound of all the rain, and then it stopped... thanks."
She fished out a muffin and bit into it. Somewhere in the past year, the food in Caleria had gone from 'edible' to 'palatable'. She'd gotten used to the smell, too (more or less), to the coyness of Calerian merchant bartering, to maneuvering through crowds. The thought had teeth that gnawed at her conscience; she hadn't even realized she'd become so assimilated until it had already happened. Brooding over the orange juice, she almost missed Queen's next words.
"You say that like it's a bad thing..." The other woman stabbed a bit of omelet with relish. Of all the mercenaries, Queen hated the rain the most. The only time she ever caught cold, she claimed, was when she'd been wet. "Soon as the Captain gets back, we'll have a new assignment -- anything to get us out of here!"
Aila bit her lip and took a long sip of orange juice. Her mouth felt dry all of a sudden. "Um, yeah... yeah, I know what you mean."
Neither Queen nor Joker missed her tone of voice, the hesitation in her words. They exchanged inscrutable looks with each other. Aila was convinced they could communicate with Secret Harmonian Eye-Signals, or maybe drinking together for so long had given them some sort of spiritual bond. Still carefully pouring his yolks back and forth, Joker grunted and shook his head. "Something on your mind?"
She wiped orange juice from her mouth with the back of her hand, then crossed her arms over the back of the chair and rested her chin on them. You look sulky and petulant, she realized, but couldn't find the heart to care.
"I'm going back. To Karaya."
Neither of them looked particularly surprised. Queen just shrugged, an amused grin on her lips. Joker only raised an eyebrow, looking at her over the alchemy he was performing with dried fish scales. "Leaving us so soon?"
"It's not permanent, okay? I guess that's the Captain's decision, but -- it's been more than a year now. The spirits in Karaya have probably forgotten who I am." Queen raised an eyebrow, and Aila felt her cheeks flush. "I should at least go back and see how the rebuilding is going..."
"And you think he won't agree?" Queen tilted her head to the side and frowned.
Aila shrugged and took a bite out of the muffin; food could be a useful delaying tactic. Finally, she shook her head. "Yes. I mean no. I mean... Can you leave the Unit and come back? For, um, personal reasons?"
Joker finally put the yolks down and smirked. "Of course you can. How do you think we ever get rid of Ace?"
There wasn't anything to say to that, so Aila found herself looking towards the entrance. Queen followed her gaze, then smirked. "Ah, speak of the Devil..."
Ace was making a beeline for their table, trying very hard not to be noticed by the charming "young lady" who'd accompanied him to his rooms the night before.
"Huh? Devil? Get rid of me? What are you drunkards plotting now?" Ace eyed the trio suspiciously. Trying to loom, he slammed his fists down on the end of the table and glowered. "Going to murder me in my sleep, huh?"
Queen rolled her eyes. "Please. As if we'd need to. A little more exposure to you, and the whores will do it for us."
"Stop casting aspirations on my character!" He tried to muster an expression of wounded dignity, but spoiled it by grabbing for a muffin and stuffing it in his mouth.
Joker shook his head and drained off his "cure". "That's 'aspersions', idiot." Heaving himself away from his seat, he stabbed a finger at Ace's chest. "That's what you get for reading all those trashy books."
"At least I can read, old man!"
They wandered off still bickering, ostensibly to find the Captain and settle a dispute left over from the night before. Queen and Aila managed to keep from laughing until they were out of earshot.
Taking advantage of the momentary silence when they finally settled down, Aila wolfed down two more muffins. She was on her third when she noticed Queen studying her, head tilted thoughtfully to the side.
"Yes?"
"Have you told Jacques yet?"
Aila reached for the pot of honey Joker had left behind, slathering some on the muffin. "Mm-hmm." Reluctantly, she found herself elaborating. "He didn't say much. Just that he knew, when I said I felt penned in. He asked me if I was coming back, and he seemed happy when I said yes... but that was it. Just told me to take care of myself on the way back."
"You wish he'd tried to stop you?"
"Nah..." Aila shook her head and went for another muffin, only to fine the basket empty. She scowled. "But it would have been nice if he'd done something. Why are men so clueless?"
A little smile twitched on Queen's lips. "I wouldn't say Jacques is clueless... just a little slow. Patience is a virtue, they say." She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of arguing; Geddoe had appeared, still-bickering Ace and Joker in tow. "I should know; I've been patient for a long time now..."
--
The actual leave-taking was blessedly short. Aila could have made the first leg of her journey with the team, but she'd ruthlessly squashed the notion -- if I leave with them, I'll never make it back to Karaya. She'd forgone accompanying a trader caravan, too, even though they paid dearly for mercenary protection, but at Ace's suggestion she'd wrapped herself in a Calerian's burnoose and veil.
"It's not just for modesty, y'know. Keeps the dust out of your eyes. And it's good to blend in, at least until you get back to the Grasslands." He'd knocked the breath out her by grabbing her in a tight a hug and pecking her on the cheek. With a little surprise, she realized she'd actually miss him, as much as any of the other unit members. Ever since he'd rescued her from an overly-friendly Le Bucque legionairre who'd manage to pin her up against an alleyway, Ace had been almost painstakingly nice to her, even letting her read his novel-in-progress. He's not bad, really, once you get to know him...
Jacques looked on and frowned during the hug, but stood silently until Queen nudged him in the ribs. "Say goodbye, Jacques."
"Goodbye, Jacques." His voice was deadpan, but Aila could have sworn there was a glint of humor in his eyes when he said it. She had to look away to keep from crying.
"I'll see you in a month, all right? I'll see you all in a month. Have fun getting drunk in Kanakan for me..."
---
It was easier to keep from looking back than she expected. Memories of Karaya and the Grasslands itched inside her; she could smell the earth, so much richer than the rock and sand of Caleria, and she longed to scoop up a handful, crumble the loam between her fingers, rub the grit into her palms. Remembering the cool, clean taste of river water made her realize why everyone in Caleria drank booze or juice or soda. What passed for "water" in the city was tepid, week, musty. During the rains, she'd kept the windows to her room wide open, even though she nearly froze during the night and would wake up with her belongs soaked.
Home. Home. I have to get home.
Once she'd passed through the long queue to leave the city and paid the requisite bribes to keep from being searched, it was less than an hour before the narrow road into the mountains swung into view. The first time she'd made the trek back from Caleria, she hadn't realized the incline going up was so much steeper, and nearly hyper-ventilated, until Jacques took her aside and coaxed her into the proper rhythms. It had taken another couple of trips before she'd gotten the hang of mountain breathing.
The spirits had also taken some getting used to. They spoke less than on the plains, and when they did, their voices were fragmented, sharp, and grating. Traveling through the mountains always felt like someone had stuffed her ears full of cotton, then made her walk through a room of screaming children.
Still, she had gotten used to it, and had learned to pick up the whispers that meant "loose rock" or "caves nearby" or "windstorm coming". Armed with forewarning and the little pieces of mountaineering she'd picked up from Jacques, it was less than a week before she was crossing the Amur Plain.
---
Brambles clung to her legs as she made her way up the hill overlooking Karaya. She kept herself from hacking them away, and took deep breaths against the sudden racing of her heart. Memories swam in her head: fire, shrill screams -- maybe human, maybe spirit, maybe both --, the first sight of the ruined and burned Karaya, from the same hill, distance playing tricks with her sight so it looked innocuous, like the last embers of a campfire. Pretty, almost, but eerily common place, as if the village had always looked like that.
Still there. It's still there, they're rebuilding...
Her first sight of Karaya wasn't as bad as she'd feared. Neither completely barren and ravaged, nor fully restored, there was still obvious damage, and equally obvious regrowth and repair. They'd changed the lay a bit, repositioned buildings that had been destroyed and relaid a few paths. A prominent fire-pit dominated the center of the village, similar to the squares in Zexen towns, but it felt right: a Grasslander thing. Smoke from cooking fires trailed into the air above. The hill was over a mile off, but she could practically taste the scent of fry bread and mutton stew on the air.
She must have stood there an hour, before the growing chill told her it was nearing sundown. Better shake my tail, or they'll eat without me.
Ruth was the first to spot her when she came down from the hill and into the village. A horde of children swarmed around her, tugging on her skirts and clamoring for her attention. Some things changed; still, had there even been that many kids, before? Aila spotted a few few red-heads and paler-skinned blonds amongst the mob. Refugees from Safir, she realized; just like Ruth to take them in.
"Stars and spirits, it's Aila! Aila, over here!" Ruth waved frantically, trying to move through the ocean of youngsters.
"Hey, Auntie Ruth... it's been a while." The children peered up at her warily until their nursemaid swatted most of them away.
"Come here and give me a hug, girl! Oh, am I ever glad to see you!"
Aila endured one of Ruth's bone-crushing hugs for nearly a minute before pulling free. "I'm glad to see you, too. I'm glad to be home."
Ruth chuckled and swatted at Aila's rear. "You should have come home sooner. Spirits, but you've grown. If I didn't know better, I'd say you're a whole footer taller than last I saw you..." Scooping up one of the errant children still milling around, she turned towards her rebuilt home. "Come on, you must be starving! Don't tell me you walked from Caleria all by your lonesome, child!"
"Well, actually..." Aila's answer got lost on the wind; Ruth was already eagerly sharing a year's backlog of gossip.
She hadn't lost her miraculous ability to generate crowds at a moment's notice, either; it seemed like the whole clan had gathered for dinner in Ruth's house. The moment she walked in, she was mobbed by hugs, pressed by bodies and embraced by a swarm of relatives, almost-relatives, family-friends.
"It's Aila!" "How've you been? Are those mercenaries treating you all right?" "I missed you!" "What's Caleria like?"
It took the combined authority of Ruth, Lucia, and Hugo to extract her from the sea of well-wishers, although nothing could stop the barrage of questions. Someone pressed a bowl of stew and a spoon into her hands, and she immediately started wolfing it down as an excuse not to speak. Edging along the outside, she settled down onto the only free pillow in the room and dug into the food.
By the time she was on her third bowl, the constant chatter had diverted to other topics than her return.
Births, deaths, marriages, arguments over horses and land. gossip about the other Grassland villages... talk in Karaya was like a river, always moving but staying forever the same, with no clear beginning anyone could see nor any end.
She took a chance and looked up, scanning the room anxiously. The weight of the past year lay heavily on everyone, even the children. Beecham's daughter suddenly looked like a girl, the hunting knife at her belt surely not for show. The lines around Ruth's eyes had gotten deeper, and there was a deep kind of slowness to everything Lucia did that hadn't been there before.
Of everyone, Hugo seemed the most aged, which didn't make sense but also made too much sense; it jolted her, seeing the ancient, sad eyes of the Captain in a face so young -- but then Hugo laughed at some joke one of the fighters made, and was suddenly sixteen again.
It absorbed her, comparing Rune-bearer to Rune-bearer. Maybe that was why she missed him, sitting there in the corner. Quiet, keeping to himself, maybe even a little stiff, but part of the flow of conversation and food, not out of place by anything except his clothing and the color of his hair and eyes.
Borus Redram. The swordsman whose famed "rage" had slaughtered half of Karaya.
The taste of salt and blood rose in her throat. Warm brown eyes met her across the room, and she suddenly held her knife. He'd been watching her.
"What's he doing here? What is he doing here?"
A hand gripped her shoulder and she realized she'd stood up, that she'd spoken aloud, too. Blood rushed in her ears, making it impossible to pick out all the voices raised against her. He didn't stop looking at her, hadn't moved since their eyes met.
"Aila." Ruth's voice rose out over the din and the pounding of her heart, tired and sad but deeper than she'd ever heard it. "There will be no blood in my house."
Aila turned and ran.
---
She came to kneeling over a greasy pool of mutton vomit. Her throat refused to listen to her stomach's protest that was all there was, and she choked up bile for another few moments. Grit and earth dug into her palms, less loamy than that outside the village.
I must have ran nearly a mile...
The ground was cool under her hands; she pressed her palms against it, imagining herself to be drinking in the earth. After a few moments, the dry heaves subsided and her ears cleared enough to make out quiet breathing behind her.
"Need some water?"
Lucia. She closed her eyes and nodded; speaking would have made her choke again. Lucia pressed a water skin into her hands, then settled herself on the ground nearby as Aila drank. When half the water was gone, she asked, "All right now?"
"Mm. I think so." Aila put the skin down and wiped at her mouth. "That was... really rude of me, wasn't it? Did Ruth send you?"
"Yes, it was." Lucia heaved a sigh and nodded her head. "And no, she didn't." There was a pause; she picked up the skin, took a swig, then continued. "She wanted to come herself; I made her stay to look after her guests."
"Oh." Even as she said it, Aila could taste the weakness in the words, and twisted her mouth into a scowl.
After a moment, she glanced over her shoulder to find Lucia studying her, cool and appraising and patient, coiled the way she held herself in preparation for a fight.
"Well?" One eyebrow quirked upward and she almost smiled. "Out with it."
Aila burst out screaming and crying and pounding on the ground all at once.
"Why? WHY are you letting him, why is he HERE? He's a murderer, he's a butcher, he KILLED Karaya!" She choked on air and tears. When she'd gotten her breath back, Lucia was still wearing her not-smile. A quick jerk of her head indicated the village behind them.
"Has he now? Really? Take a good look, now"
Expecting denials or justifications, Aila was taken aback. She hugged her knees to her chest and swallowed. Looking at the village hurt. Every new building, every diverted road was suddenly jagged, cutting into her vision. The new geometries that had seemed so natural made her dizzy and disoriented. Tears burned in her eyes again. "I... I..."
Lucia reached out and wrapped her in a tight hug. "I know. I know." Warm hands rubbed her back and brushed her hair back into place. "It's still new for you. If I had realized this would happen..."
"You wouldn't have let me go?" Aila stiffened a little in the other woman's arms.
"I'd have warned you, at least. About the rebuilding, and about Borus." Lucia slowly let go and sighed. "Ruth's a good person; so good, she thinks everyone's the same way."
Aila hunched over and tucked her chin to her chest. "Are you saying you think I'm a bad person?"
The look Lucia gave her was long and not a little uncomfortable. "... no. But you aren't a forgiving one, either." Her not-smile softened. "You know, I already had this conversation with Hugo, when Borus first showed up."
It seemed like a trap; Aila shrugged. "What is he doing here, anyway?"
"Hauling rocks and matching pitch, mostly." Lucia chuckled.
"I'm serious!"
"So am I." The older woman leaned back with her hands behind her and glanced at the stars. "He calls it penance, Ruth calls it making peace. I call it manual labor."
"How can... Do you really want hands stained with our blood relaying our foundations?" Aila lifted her chin proudly.
"I didn't." Lucia met her gaze without flinching, made her wince in return and shake her head sharply.
"What?"
"I didn't want to let him in when he first showed up." Another grin flashed across Lucia's face. "I wanted to kill him."
"And you didn't?" As if the Karaya chief ever hesitated when meting out justice.
"Ruth talked me out of it."
"What?"
"Don't give me that look. She's as much my advisor as Beecham, or as Jimba was." Sighing, Lucia looked away towards the village for a long moment. "In the end, what convinced me was the politics, no matter how much Ruth went on about forgiveness and peace. The Lizard Clan helped rebuild the Zexen village of Iksay after their raid; what could I say -- that altruism is good for Grasslanders, not Zexens? That the Zexens can forgive, but Karaya cannot?"
Aila slumped back over and settled her chin between her knees. "That's such a sensible reason."
"Of course. I'm the chief; that's my job. To be sensible even when my heart tells me not to."
Another few moments passed in silence. Aila's nose started itching; she scratched, then found herself yawning. "You had this same conversation with Hugo?"
"Mm-hmm." Lucia didn't bother keeping the amusement out of her voice. "You want me to tell you how it ended?"
"Hey!" Aila's head snapped up and she glowered, indignant. Lucia nudged her gently in the shoulder. "Come on, unsensible girl. It's late. We should get home."
w00t, more Author's Notes. I can't stomach some of the romanizations of character names in the US version; so "Luce" is Ruth and "Redrum" (although very obviously a reference to The Shining, which I appreciate -- yay pissy alcoholic Borus with anger management issues!) is Redram. And yes, like all SFDF fans who are not horrible perverts, I do like Jacques/Aila, and yes, this will at some point be Borus/Aila. For some weird, arcane value of Borus/Aila that won't involve sex (at least not "on screen") and will probably end up with Aila going back to Caleria and shacking up with Jacques. And with random Percival in, because I like torturing Welshmen. The title comes from slash-and-burn agriculture, and it's all deep and metaphorical and stuff.