Chapter Twenty-Eight: Occurian realities and a Viera called to arms

Recovered sufficiently from the Disease Fran was able to fight alongside the others against the Esper Shemhazai the Whisperer. The battle was difficult, but sensing that they were close to the secrets they sought, the party fought with renewed vigour.

When the Occuria made their presence known to Ashe, Fran and the others could not see them. Yet they heard every sibilant utterance.

The creatures voices, obsequious in their manipulation of both the Princess' pride and her grief, and alternately petty and vindictive in their spiteful anger against the renegade Venat, set in Fran an unexpected anger burning.

So it was that she joined Basch as he cautioned the Princess against blindly following the will of these creatures.

Creatures that by their own words cared not a whit for the lives of Humes. Only for the maintenance of their own carefully constructed designs.

'Will you do as they say? Destroy the Empire?'

She questioned the Princess who clutched at the Treaty Blade (a mockery of the term) with a dazed and numbed expression upon her face; a child to be used in such a way. It sickened Fran.

To Fran Hume's lived too short lives already to tie themselves as they did to duty, honour, debt and responsibility. Yet that was their choice, this was something far more sinister.

For Ashe to become a tool of the Occuria whom would use her as weapon for their own ends; was not something Fran could watch occur without some form of action.

To Fran, so oft given to apathy partly by nature and partly through shame, such feelings, such desire to act upon fate rather than merely follow her dictates, was strange indeed.

Still she found herself almost relishing the feeling. It was to her akin to flying.

A sensation of purpose, drive and conviction, a primal power that picked up her tired and oft times apathetic spirit and set it to soar and burn.

She had come to believe that she could only find such freedom from the pain her choices had wrought upon her, for brief moments in sailing the sky.

To find this feeling once more through immersion in the politics of Hume's was an odd liberation.

Set adrift from her only purpose as Viera, ties to the Wood severed, Fran had little to live for except the Humes she deigned to care about.

In the Wood, where there was sickness, the Viera rooted it out so that it could not spread from vine to vine, branch to branch destroying all the Wood in its wake.

This Occuria, to Fran, were a sickness, much as Manufacted Nethicite and Vayne Solidor's blind ambition; was sickness across Ivalice.

Fran now saw why fate had laid such a heavy hand upon her. This sickness she would root out.

If she could no longer be Viera for the wood she would be Viera for the Humes.

For it was true that she had no other home than Ivalice, no other place now than with the Humes.

Even a fallen Viera had right to fight for what little she had left.

Hours later the Great Crystal and Giruvegan were but shadows in all their hearts. Silence prevailed among the party.

For the last hour Ashe had sat staring at the wedding band on her finger.

The rest of the world mattered not a whit to her. Her scent held the clean coolness of winter rain; the scent of old grief.

They were now once more in the Feywood, yet the place did not inspire the fear and anxiety it had before.

Instead the rest of the party looked on the Mist phantoms and the half heard whispers from long dead loved ones as cruel jokes played on them by those who remain Undying and unfeeling.

Fran was the only one with the Princess. The others exhausted by their travails in the Crystal and subdued by their own questions, the dark doubts the Occuria's existence created in their hearts, had chosen to lose themselves in sleep.

Even Basch, dull eyed and worn both from battle and from providing silent, constant support to Ashe on their escape from Giruvegan, had wearily agreed to leave her majesty alone with Fran.

' He was never here; never truly with me.'

Ashe did not look up. She had pulled the wedding band from her finger and turned the plain silver ring between thumb and forefinger, eyes downcast.

' I have been a fool. I am not fit to follow in Raithwall's footsteps, not fit to rule.'

The small camp fire between the two of them sputtered and Ashe looked up, her grey eyes catching the firelight. She raised a hand as if to throw the ring into the flames.

' There are many things in this world that cannot be known. What happens to us when we die is just one mystery among thousands.'

Fran spoke softly, her words stilling Ashe's hand. The young Hume woman withdrew her hand from above the flames, the ring secure in her palm.

'I thought if he was with me, if only in spirit, I would somehow make the right choices, would know what I must do. I cannot do this alone.'

' We are all alone. Hume, Viera, Bangaa, Seeq; all alone among the multitudes.'

Fran replied bluntly. It was the truth that had forced Fran from the Wood, the truth that lead the Hume's to seek out each other for comfort, companionship, hope, in their short lives.

Ashe looked startled, then angry. ' Not so. You have Balthier. Vaan has Penelo. I have no one. They have all left me.'

Fran shook her head. ' Look upon them.'

She gestured towards the sleeping forms of their comrades.

Vaan slept stretched out on his back, arms spread out and an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face, caught in dreams.

Penelo lay near him, one hand reaching for him as she curled on her side, face devoid of her usual irrepressible cheer.

Basch lay still and disciplined even in sleep. Limbs orderly as he lay on his back, scarred face calm; only his scent speaking of the pain, the deeply buried impotent rage that filled him to the core.

Balthier lay behind Fran, fidgeting in his sleep as he was wont, trapped in the dreams he could only ignore when the sun was high in the sky.

'What of them?' Ashe asked curious, though still mired deep within her own depression.

'They are alone, Princess. In their dreams and their nightmares, each one alone; as are we all.'

Ashe seemed to think this through. She shook her head fiercely.

'Then you say there is no hope? We are but blind puppets staggering through this farce the Occuria would have us play?'

'I say nothing.' Fran said coolly.

Ashe snorted in angry derision. 'And so I am truly alone. With no one brave enough to give me counsel.'

Fran cocked her head to the side, ' Do you need counsel?'

It was Ashe's turn to look startled and confused.

'Of course. The Occuria would have me strike a blow against the Empire like that which was levelled on Nabudis.'

' Is that not what you wish? Revenge; to strike out at those who stole from you your dear ones?'

Ashe leapt to her feet, pacing, though she remained close to the meagre light and warmth of the camp fire.

'I seek only the restoration of Dalmasca, as an independent state, free of the Empire or any other who would rule it.'

'You covet the power of Nethicite, do you not? You came all this way to claim it as your own, though you have seen what dangers it brings.'

Ashe rounded on Fran, who remained kneeling peaceable by the fire, hands resting lightly on her thighs.

'I do not covet Nethicite.' She cried harshly, words quick with fire and passion.

'I seek only the power to protect my kingdom and my people. That is all I have ever sought.'

'You have a means to take Vayne's advantage from him; the Treaty Blade to his Nethicite.'

Fran was in contrast soft spoken as snowfall and cool and unknowable as winter's frost upon windowpanes.

Ashe sank back down beside Fran looking into the flames as she did. For a time both women were silent.

'To fight fire with fire is to invite only a conflagration that will destroy all in its path. I have no desire for that.'

Ashe spoke slowly, mesmerised by the dancing flicker of flames over dry kindling.

'Yet if I do nothing Vayne will remain unopposed and he must be stopped. Dalmasca must be restored.'

Ashe pressed a hand to her eyes. 'Around and around my thoughts go. Every route I take leads only to doubt and uncertainty.'

' It is ever thus; a truth that unites pauper and Princess both.'

Ashe's face twisted in pain; frustration and despair as she turned to face Fran directly. Fran, for her part, remained staring impassively into the flames.

'There must be some way! Some way, some means, that I can know what is the right course. Fran, I beg you, what would you do?'

Above them both the snow began to fall from the pearlescent, Mist shrouded sky. The first fat flakes sizzling into the leaping flames of their small fire.

'I cannot tell you what I do not know.' Fran said honestly.

For Fran had yet to decide what she was to do, and had no wish to tell the Princess what she must do; too many sought to do that already.

Fran stood and pulled free from the travel packs the furs they had packed in case of cold weather, tucking the furred pelts over the sleeping members of their party carefully.

Ashe remained by the fire watching Fran with an empty expression on her face, empty of vitality and life as hope and despair clashed within her.

Fran was moved to speak, despite her earlier words. Just as with the nurturing of the Wood in her long ago past, Hume's needed a gentle hand to guide them.

' Viera have little use for deceptions, all is known under the Wood's canopy. Yet I will say only this, a sword is only as strong as the hand that wields it.'

'And my hands lack strength?'

Ashe spoke dejectedly looking down on her empty hands resting in her lap.

'Perhaps,'

Fran mused softly, her voice barely louder than the snow that fell gently to the ground all around them.

' Perhaps a Princess, with will enough and mind, might look to other weapons she has at her disposal? Your enemies are multiple, but you stand not alone.'

Ashe followed Fran's veiled gaze as it lighted on each of their sleeping comrades in turn.

A tiny flicker of a smile brushed over Ashe's lips, something warm sparking in her eyes as she met Fran's gaze.

' I think that you are right, Fran. I thank you for your wise counsel.'

And for the first time in weeks the Princess smiled. She turned away towards her own rest too soon to see Fran smile also.