By Pavana Lachrimae
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Squaresoft is not mine; no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: Again, sorry for the sporadic updates. For those of you who missed it, I decided to take the previous two chapters down and rewrite them, because frankly they were pants. Hope this new chapter doesn't disappoint. I've tried to put in more plot (and angst) and less squick. Opinions? Again, criticism is very welcome! Go on- be merciless ;)
x-
"They had her killed?"
Darra's tone was not so much one of disgust as morbid curiosity. It disturbed me a little. For a moment, she reminded me of Seymour, and the way he had started to sound in those last few weeks I spent with him. Though I can never claim to know what he was thinking, I am certain that if he was not already insane by that time, the birth of his daughter pushed him over the brink.
x-
Despite what the story I told Darra might have implied, my time was not spent exclusively in Guadosalam. I tended to travellers, paid visits to the adjoining villages; most of my work was as a midwife, although I was also trained as a nurse. Understandably, I have delivered many children in my time. Not all of them have survived. Some, I have pulled living from the dead bodies of their mothers; others, from the lithe and vulnerable flesh of women as young as fourteen.
Seymour was by far not the youngest of my patients. Nor- although he did drift uncomfortably close to death during those final hours- was he even the most endangered. And yet he is the one I will always remember; even after all these years, his cries are as vivid in my mind as they had been on the day his daughter was born.
I am not sure if I will ever be able to forget them.
Strange, too, how Riana's memory pales in comparison to his.
x-
"I'm… not sure," I said. By now, the sky had darkened outside, and I got up to put the light on. The room was still warm, although Darra, through all her thick clothes, didn't seem too bothered.
"On the night you were born, Dr Orfeo told me something that… led me to believe her death wasn't an accident. But I doubt Jyscal would have had her killed," I told her, as I sat back down again. "Whatever happened was beyond his jurisdiction. As I said, he was a good man. His intentions, at least, were honourable."
x-
He offered his deepest condolences to the young woman's family, even going so far as to volunteer a large sum of money in compensation. I never found out whether or not they accepted it. Though I saw them once before I left that place, I never spoke to them again. Our first and last meeting together did not exactly go smoothly.
I didn't even know they were in the building until I passed through the dining room on my way out and saw them. No longer under 'quarantine'; there was, after all, no reason for me to pretend to be pregnant anymore, I was free to come and go as I needed, though Seymour was still my first priority. As for what was going to happen to the baby (and mother) now, it had not yet been discussed. As far as everybody else was concerned, the child had died with Riana. Only Jyscal, Tromell, several frightened doctors and myself knew that the child hadn't even been in the same place as her. And, of course, Jyscal's eighteen-year-old pregnant son.
As soon as I pushed the door open, I was uncomfortably aware that all heads in the room had turned towards me. Faced with the moist eyes of my late lover's parents and sister, I could not help but feel like an intruder. Riana's death was still on my conscience. I knew I could not have prevented it, but although I could hide my grief I could not stop it from clouding my innermost thoughts.
I had been intending to apologise to the group and slip past quietly, but Tromell- anticipating their confusion on seeing a human woman pass through the manor- had already started to introduce me. Somewhat embarrassed, he glanced from Riana's family to Lord Jyscal to myself, and cleared his throat.
"Mrs Faren…" he began.
Steeling myself, I stepped up to Lord Jyscal's side and bowed, first to him, then to his visitors. "Mrs Faren; Mr Daza; Miss Ismene," I said, addressing them steadily. "My deepest sympathies."
The couple muttered in acknowledgement and looked down. Only the younger woman, whom I assumed to be Riana's sister, retained eye contact with me, and there was something unsettling in her expression that I first took to be exhaustion or grief. As it turned out, I was wrong.
"And you are…?" she asked. Her voice was lower and huskier than Riana's had been. She was thinner, too, and her hair was an odd, almost reddish shade of auburn that I rarely saw among Guado women. She did not look like her sister. Still, her presence instilled a pang of sorrow within me that I found difficult to curb.
"Heba. I'm the resident… governess. I was taking care of your sister. She was a good woman," I added, in the hope my words would offer some kind of comfort.
What happened next surprised us all.
"You human bitch!" she shrieked, and slapped me.
Stunned, I could only watch as Tromell and Jyscal tried to hold Ismene back; her mortified parents staring wide-eyed at us from behind her, my cheek stinging from the strike and where one of her sharp nails had caught the skin. Almost as soon as the slap sounded against my cheek had the others in the room moved to calm her, but she carried on screaming at me regardless, battering down all attempts to interrupt.
"And you didn't even have the decency to leave! Do you take me for some kind of fool? I shouldn't have listened when Riana told me not to intervene… I shouldn't have kept silent for so long!"
My blood ran cold. In all our time together, Riana had said little about her family. None of the manor's inhabitants, save perhaps Seymour, had any idea what was going on between us, and I had assumed the same of my girlfriend's family. Why would she tell them, anyway? The Guado were Yevonites too, now. They did not take kindly to women like us.
"It wasn't enough that you corrupted her," Ismene hissed, straining against the hands of the two men that held her. "You sick, lying bitch! It wasn't even enough that you turned my sister against men- you had to betray her for one as well! What right do you think you have to come here and defile our people? You don't belong! You never will!
"Seymour's governess? Don't patronise me; the man is eighteen years old. I know what you are. You're his mistress. And-" Her voice quavered; she gestured madly to my still-level stomach. "- to think… you even had the audacity to kill his child!"
x-
"You may start to understand, now, why I left Guadosalam when I did. I can't pretend it wouldn't have been better for me to stay there- perhaps even better for you as well, although I thought I was acting in your best interests at the time. After all, it was my home. But I would not have been accepted there anymore. My mother was long dead; I had outstayed my welcome."
My voice croaked on the last syllable and I fell silent- age and the warm night air had dried my throat. I took a sip of water, aware of Darra's eyes on me. She did not say anything for a while. I guessed she was thinking.
"If this is true," she asked finally, "Why haven't I heard about this before now? Even if nothing else, somebody might have mentioned Riana when my… when Seymour was married six years ago. I'm not saying I don't believe your story, but…"
"It was a long time ago," I replied, after the silence. "Forgive me if there are things that don't make sense. I am trying, Darra, to tell you as much about your past as I can, but even I can't answer everything. Mine is only one side of the story.
"After Seymour recovered and joined in service to the temples, Riana's name faded into obscurity. Due to the circumstances surrounding her death- the public was told that she had gone temporarily insane, a precarious subject if there ever were one- people did not tend to talk about it very much."
"What about you and Seymour? Surely people talked about that. What did you say?"
I looked at the window.
"I told them I had miscarried. What else could I have said?"
x-
It is not my place here to speculate why or even how Riana's sister knew about us. I had thought there had been no need to tell anybody else; evidently I was wrong. Judging from the expressions of the older couple, though, I suspected that they'd had no idea of this before now. The two were mortified; Riana's mother couldn't barely her eyes off me for the shock, her father couldn't even look at me. Ismene, too, was starting to look a little embarrassed- the hysteria was fading, and she no longer needed to be restrained, but her voice was still considerably venomous.
"I'm not surprised it died," she spat. "That kind of mongrel child isn't meant to live, anyway."
I wondered what Seymour would make of that. Jyscal, for his part, pretended not to notice the woman's faux pas.
"Lady Ismene," he said, addressing her with unusual politeness, "It is clear you are upset. Perhaps the three of you should come back later to collect Riana's possessions."
Still flustered, Ismene gave a low bow. Her parents followed suit. Tromell started to diplomatically usher them out; Jyscal stopped them.
"One more small matter, my lady. I would be grateful if, outside this room, you were not so quick to reveal the shame of your own people."
His intentions, at least, were honourable.
x-
Ismene may not have said anything, but rumours circulated nonetheless. That old Guado arrogance seethed and resurfaced again; the community I had grown up amongst became my enemies. The next time I left the manor, to pay a visit to the Thunder Plains agency, people stopped talking and looked at me as I passed them in the tunnels. My Guado escort (in those days the fiends made it almost impossible to travel alone) stolidly refused to speak to me for the whole journey.
After that, I did not go out unless it was strictly necessary.
The night Riana's body was found I had stuffed all but my most essential belongings into bags and piled them up against the dresser, ready to leave the moment I was no longer needed. I did not tell Seymour. It wasn't that I had felt he would be particularly upset; simply that waking up to the sound of him being violently sick into the washstand had made me consider whether the young man did not have enough on his mind already. Eventually, though, whether it was by the view of my suitcases through a seldom-open door or one of Tromell's rare visits while I was away, he somehow got wind of the fact I was leaving.
True to form, he was not bothered. Too concerned with thinking about his own predicament- as well as a host of other, far more worrying notions which I would not even begin to understand until after his death- he gave the matter only a passing comment, and spoke as if I were a stranger.
"I hear you have threatened to leave."
"It wasn't a threat. It was a statement," I replied as I opened the small window above the foot of his bed, making sure that the blind was still down. It was too warm, and the ice gem in the corner of the room (Seymour's- not mine) was doing little to help today. By then, we were well into the summer. Even there, underground, the air had become hot and stale, the lush vines that encased our city smelling over-ripe and glutted like decaying fruit. I felt self-conscious. Guado do not sweat.
"I see," he said.
I sat down again and picked up my fan. Seymour went on.
"In some ways, I should imagine you and I are quite similar," he mused. "Both strangers in our own homes… consistently having to prove ourselves… I am quite aware that I, or at the very least, my-… situation is about as welcome in the manor as you are."
He looked at me. I didn't say anything.
"It will be difficult to redeem myself, after this. If, indeed, I even survive," he added matter-of-factly, his voice oddly quiet.
I fanned myself absent-mindedly, the cool air a welcome relief. His words, an antecedent to death if there ever was one, made me feel worried and a little sick, although having seen him survive this long had certainly made me more optimistic about the birth. "It sounds almost like you're doubting yourself," I replied.
"I don't doubt myself. I have plenty of other people who will do that for me."
I couldn't think of anything else to say. "Then, in that case, I am sure you'll make a good leader."
"I willnot just be their leader," he said.
Who were 'they'? I assumed he was talking about the Guado people, at the time. Now I am not sure what to think.
"Oh?" I inquired.
His voice changed, then. I didn't look up, but I knew he was smiling.
"I will be their saviour."