(A/N: These Tyris chapters begin around the time Selphie was getting ready for the music festival, and will soon place our Stormbringer at the heart of the action.

Seven Kings Must Die dropped on Netflix today! As a fan of both Bernard Cornwell's novels and The Last Kingdom, I'll be watching it immediately after updating this! I'm actually currently reading Cornwell's King Arthur trilogy, which is being adapted by Netflix over the next few years.)

Chapter 70

Free

Tyris descended the gangway of Battleship Island with her few possessions. It was just gone 0900, and the spring heatwave was more tolerable at this hour. Still, she had opted for the high-cut khaki combat shorts and the lightning blue tank top she had favoured during her time on the Ross Torama. The SeeD-issue pack she had taken was less than half-filled, containing her gladiuses, dagger, and the rest of the clothes she had purchased during the brief stay at Wilburn – altogether costing the same as her comfortable white trainers.

She did not know how long she would be away, having made no firm plans. Her funds were very limited. The first barrier Tyris had been forced to take down was never accepting charity from anyone. So used to being self-sufficient and independent while being forged in Esthar, it was highly disconcerting that SeeD had been spoon-feeding her since her defection. She had been released from the SeeD brig without a gil to her name, but had been guaranteed three meals a day, and Squall had provided a SeeD cabin for her. Her accounts in Esthar had been frozen and emptied, and they were inaccessible outside of the Empire anyway.

Knowing this, Thalassa had given Tyris what would have been half a month's lieutenant salary when they were staying at Laguna's place in Wilburn, then had accompanied her on a shopping trip – one of those trips they had always fantasised about taking in major cities when they were girls, before everything had changed. Spending modestly, Tyris had also purchased a preowned phone from a pawnbroker and a top-up SIM from a chain mobile store. Now, she still had a fair amount of the notes remaining in her pocket.

It was when Tyris had cleared port control and was strolling in the direction of Blackwater's train station that she thought someone was going to try and stop her. 'Tyris!' a gruff male voice shouted, one she thought she recognised. She turned to see Squall jogging after her, with a rectangular object in his hand. 'Wait up!' Tyris thought he looked totally out of character with his own tank top, a white baseball cap, combat shorts and leather strap sandals, but the heat had forced most of the crew to shear their usual skins.

'What is it?' she said indifferently.

'Rinoa tells me you're taking off for a while,' Squall answered.

'Yeah, so?'

'So, nothing,' he paused, and scratched the back of his neck, evidently out of his comfort zone as he awkwardly added, 'Just be careful, and have a great time!'

Tyris looked at the object in his hand, and realised it was a folded picture frame. It was one of two that the Commander kept on his spartan desk, though when she had gone into the office earlier to find just Rinoa, it had been facing away from her.

'What's that?' she asked pointedly.

'Something that Rinoa and I want you to have,' Squall said, handing it to her upside down.

Tyris warily turned it around, and gasped when she realised who the portrait contained. It was her mother and father! A still young-looking Edea in her humble charcoal dress and grey shirt. A middle-aged and strong-jawed Cid in his burgundy waistcoat, dark grey trousers and tie, and a white buttoned shirt. It was taken at the celebration ball after the future Ultimecia's defeat, and Edea had known she was pregnant at the time; Tyris knew this for sure, as Edea had a hand on her navel. They had looked somewhat older at the time of their deaths, and after twelve years, Tyris often had trouble recalling their faces now.

'We've photocopied it,' Squall continued, 'so we'll still have one. Selphie wanted one, too. But you can have the original.'

Stunned, Tyris looked at him, her voice croaky as she got the words out. 'Thanks, Squall! This means so much to me!' She looked between her mother and father again. 'Hyne, it's been so long!' she said melancholily. 'I have trouble picturing their faces!'

Squall gave that rare smile, and this time it was not forced. 'Hey, that might be the GFs for you. When I was your age, I'd completely forgotten who Matron was.'

Tyris was elated, but unwilling to hug Squall, she simply offered her hand in thanks. After he shook it, she opened the frame and took the picture from it, placing it carefully, unfolded, into a side zipper of the bergen. She handed him back the frame, which he had probably not expected to be returned.

'I prefer to travel light,' she offered.

Squall nodded. 'Any idea where you're going to go?' Tyris pondered. In all honesty, she did not, and just shook her head. 'Rinoa doesn't agree, but I think the unplanned vacations are the best ones,' he said, then asked, 'Are you going to stay in contact?'

She held his gaze. 'No promises, Squall, but I'll be there when you all need me.'

'Fine,' he said. 'Stay safe, Tyris.'

When she did not answer, he turned and walked back to port control. Tyris continued on her way, reaching the train station within ten minutes.

Scanning the boards, it was three stops on the coastal line to Dramport, the last of Sarona's beach resort towns lining the Monterosa Gulf and known for its bourbon production. Tyris knew that from there, one could witness the distinctive white cliffs that gave her mother's hometown its name. Whitecliffe came under New Sarona's territory now, and the town itself had seemed rather one-horse and provincial when Tyris had passed by it during the Galbadian campaign, lacking the pristine beaches on this side of the Gulf. Though when viewed from the east, those white cliffs were staggering, and would be even better lit with the sunrise. Now owning a picture of her mother helped Tyris to a quick decision.

It cost her twenty gil at the ticket machine for the soonest departure, which, she knew, would have been significantly cheaper if she had used one of those apps to buy in advance. Twenty minutes later, she was in a sparsely populated carriage, in one of two seats facing southward, seated by the window with her bergen placed standoffishly on the other. Tyris spent the duration of the ride with the photograph in hand.

Cid had been bearded when he died, and the beard had been bushy and completely grey by his middle fifties. Tyris traced the contours of her father's strong jaw with her index finger. Until recently, she had always thought she had inherited her prominent jaw from Seifer, but no, it was definitely Cid's. Yet Tyris had been graced by Edea's pristine features across her broad face, and had inherited every last curve of her famously shapely form. When the picture was taken, her mother had recently parted with her powers, and still looked like a woman just passed thirty. Not in her teens or early twenties, as Edea's green eyes held a humble wisdom that no woman too young could possess. At the time of her death, Edea's face had become gracefully lined, and the roots of her hair had greyed. Tyris smiled when she remembered her first impression of Edea, that she had been warm, benevolent and ravishing; everything that she thought a queen should be.

'I think you're beautiful, Matron!' Tyris had blurted.

Edea had smiled warmly. 'Thank you, Tyris. I think that you are, too.'

Leaving Dramport's station, it was only a stone's throw from the beachfront, which could have been cut and pasted from Blackwater, the sole difference being that instead of a pier there was a small amusement park on the south side and the noisy construction of a half-finished hotel about half way down. She planned to spend the next few hours roaming the town, with no particular direction, initially moving away from the waterfront and doing a crisscross circuit of the town centre. Not interested in the history of bourbon making, she gave Dramport's whiskey museum a wide berth.

Tyris entered few shops, and when she did it was usually to shelter from the intense sun, though one she did enter was a chain bookstore. She did not read much fiction, as tales where the just inevitably prevailed and evildoers always got their comeuppance held no place in her world. Approaching the military history section, Tyris was drawn to another picture of her mother, this one the cover of a biography called Saviour to Tyrant.

She recognised the shot, as many people did, from the ill-fated Deling City parade. Edea's onyx hair was wavy, cascading out and beyond the furred neckline of her violet dress, and she was wearing a golden coronet inset with jewels, shells and horns. Her gloved hands were crossed over her chest, and the green eyes Tyris remembered were tinged with a shade of malevolent yellow, her brow tinged with keloid lines shaped light lightning.

Tyris took the book in hand and looked picture for a long while, before reading the blurb. An award-winning bestseller, it was written by a military reporter who had interviewed Edea – or Colonel Almasy – on various occasions during the First Sorceress War, and had been on hand to report shortly after every major skirmish of the Second. Though the memoir began when Edea had been born across the Gulf in Whitecliffe, attempting to document her life journey from being the unwitting child Successor of a thousand-year-old Dollean empress, to leading an alliance of free nations against the ancient Sorceress Adel, and then to seeking her own world domination not two decades later. Tyris took the biography to the counter.

When the noonday sun got too much for her, she looked for a diner with single-digit main meals, bypassing anywhere that wanted more than ten gil for a cheeseburger. She selected one on the main promenade, with good air-conditioning and lots of free tables with waiting service. While ordering the all-day fry-up and bottomless filter coffee for an even ten gil from the sun-reddened waitress, Tyris was careful to speak in the Galbadian accent she had had as a child; the adopted Esthari diction that had become necessary for her cover in the Empire would only raise alarm in the recently liberated New Sarona.

Tyris decided to keep necking the coffee until she could check-in to a hotel. She got her first real craving for a cigarette with a full stomach and on her second coffee, but she had been determined to use this away time to quit. For good, this time.

Her phone was switched off in her bag, and when the mounted clock inside the diner approached 1500, she paid her bill and headed back along the seafront. Although she had looked earlier, Tyris carefully scanned the signs of the high-rise hotels for a three-star. She did not care for grandeur as long as her room had a balcony. She picked one next to the construction site that she knew would have reduced rates due to the noise, and approached the sweat-laden elderly male receptionist, the air-conditioning in the lobby not as efficient as in the diner.

'Good afternoon, darlin',' he drawled.

'Do you have any vacancies?' Tyris asked, with the slight drawl that would mark as a Galbadian tourist, rather than a Saronan country bumpkin.

'Sure thing, sweet cheeks! Fifty gil a night, another five for our all-you-can-eat breakfast! Check-out is at 1100.'

Tyris decided that fifty gil was fair when she saw the modest décor and the tacky laminate flooring; the bathroom had just a shower cubicle with a fixed head, and the balcony had plastic chairs and a table under a parasol. She needed little more, and this could be the most luxurious place she was staying on her budget. As a habitual early riser, the plant machinery and cutting wheels next door would not disturb her sleep.

After taking a cool shower and changing clothes, Tyris intended to read on the balcony until she got fed up, or too hot, as in a few hours it would be bathed in full, setting sun and the parasol would no longer offer shade. Before starting her mother's biography, she placed the photo Squall had given her on the table, moving a plastic, craving-triggering ash tray well out of sight. For the first time, she regretted not keeping the picture frame, as she had to lean forward to get a good look at it.

Tyris took in those sapphire waters and gleaming cliffs for a time, tuning out the noise from next door, with her book open on her lap. She relished that this was the first time she had been completely away from everyone that she associated with the current war, friend or foe. She had had no time to herself since she had been in SeeD's brig, and that had been a horrendous several days where she had been wrought with awful anxiety, expecting some of the SeeDs she had wronged, such as Raine and Rhodry, to come and exact vengeance upon her. Here, on this balcony, Tyris felt free and more relaxed than she had been in twelve years.

1700 came when the angle-grinders and diggers ceased, and when Tyris had read a third of the biography. She had reached the point where Edea, a promising Galbadian officer of seventeen summers, had first challenged Adel at Winhill, tragically reaching the market square too late to save the family of Ellone. This was the first time Edea had revealed her sorcery. Anecdotes from both Galbadian and Esthari soldiers said that Edea had been outclassed, even with the assistance of Cid and Diablos, and that if Balamb's Lieutenant Kramer had not achieved a limit break, then the war would have all but ended that night. Grievously wounded by Cid's gunblade, the gargantuan Adel had called a retreat to the northern shores.

Saving her current page, Tyris took the book and her photo and placed them on the chipboard nightstand. Then she retrieved her phone and sprawled on the synthetically sheeted bed, propping herself up with both pillows as she held down the power button.

She was not expecting many missed calls or messages, and had not received many. Thalassa had filled her in on the events that had transpired at Mysidia, and had not contacted her since the White SeeD Ship had sailed from Wilburn. Pleasingly, the only contact had been from Ballad. A single call, and a follow-up text that Tyris knew he had sent as sometimes missed calls could be lost to the cellular aether. If Tyris wanted to see him again, which she did, she would reciprocate.

Another barrier that had come crashing down recently had indeed been falling in love. It was an emotion Tyris had never allowed herself to feel before. She had felt something for Selena, but with the circumstances that led to them meeting, the significant age gap, and subsequent pupil-mentor relationship, their affair had always felt – to Tyris, at least – inappropriate. Moreover, the intentions of betrayal had always been at the back of her mind, dooming whatever Selena believed they had had. For that reason, Tyris had gradually pulled away, so that by the time of the Trabia campaign they had been having no more than casual, infrequent intimacy. Yet when they had last lain together in the Trabian highlands, Selena had confessed she had not been with anyone else in the interim; the colonel had still been hopelessly in love with Tyris and had desired no one else.

When it came to Ballad, their was nothing holding those tidal waves of emotions at bay. There was no reason not to reciprocate the feelings he had made plain for Tyris other than the looming albatross of the coming battles. An extended peacetime was still a long way off, and would be considered heavenly after all the conflict of the past century. It was pointless to wait for it. They were both soldiers, and were used to short lulls before their next deployments.

Tyris dialled his number, and the Garland leader answered on the third ring.

'Hello?'

There was a repeating tune in the background that Tyris recognised, one that became incredibly grating after a time, which was only played in one particular, gigantic amusement park. She immediately knew where Ballad was.

'How are you, Trooper?' Tyris asked.

'Not bad, Lieutenant. Yourself?'

'Free,' she said simply. 'Has Garland gone to the Eldertree for the day?'

He chuckled. 'Nope, it's just me! I'm here for a week, actually, staying at the golf hotel. Argus gave me, Sieg and Nadia all-inclusive packages for our help in the revolution, though they've already been and gone. I'm on two weeks leave, starting today.' He paused. 'How about you? What are you up to?'

'I'm in Dramport.'

'Dramport?' he echoed. 'Swilling in bourbon, with captivating views of those white cliffs?'

'Minus the bourbon, yes,' Tyris asserted, then said, 'I don't have an itinerary. I'd like to see you tomorrow.'

Ballad was silent for a moment. 'Actually, Tyris, the pass is for two. I was hoping you would be able to join me, so I already put you down. I just told reception you would be arriving later.'

Tyris almost gasped. A whole week at the Sarona holiday park? A year ago, she had spent but one night at one of the Eldertree's on-site hotels with Selena, and it had cost them both all of their savings. The monetarists of the old Dukedom were not known for their generosity, and they had increased all fees to make up for the Empire's blanket taxes. It had been considered a treat to even spend a few hours there, and typically only the wealthy stayed overnight, with a very privileged few seen on the neighbouring golf resort. The new junta had nationalised the entire holiday park, and greatly reducing the fees had helped swell Argus' popularity.

But then Tyris caught herself. She would be there enjoying the benefits of another's reward. Holidaymaking on another's hard-earned all-inclusive ticket would make her feel like one of those hapless, weak women she had always despised. It went against her ingrained independent nature. Furthermore, it was possible Ballad would see this as a huge favour that he would expect returned someday, and with no income, Tyris would be broke before long.

'Well?' Ballad prompted, and she wondered just how long she had kept the Garland leader hanging.

'Let me call you back,' she said hurriedly, guiltily hitting the end-call button.

Tyris was torn as she lay there. Even more than she had been when spending a week deciding whether or not to make a move on Ballad to begin with, back on the Torama. Thalassa had helped her to that decision, as Tyris had helped her friend with her own sealed waterfall of an attraction to Gerra.

She left the bed and walked back to the balcony, taking the photo of her parents with her. Ballad might even expect this to cement their relationship. And, if she accepted, that was exactly what it would be. Tyris knew Ballad would not use those western social media platforms to make such a thing official, as they would make it so when she professed her love for him, which she had needed distance from him to come to terms with.

She peered at her mother's joyous face again. Edea had finally felt safe there, at that celebration ball. Although she had known she would have to answer for war crimes one day, Edea had been given amnesty at Garden, and the Planet had been lifted from her shoulders with news of Ultimecia's death in the future; that reassurance that she would never be possessed again, even as a mortal. Sadly, the peacetime had only been fleeting before a young Ultimecia had emerged in the present. And yet neither of her parents were worried about the future, in that picture. Except for the arrival of Tyris, perhaps, as Tyris looked at the way Edea subconsciously touched her navel. The child Edea had possibly already decided she would have to give up.

Maybe it was time for another of her longstanding barriers to fall, temporarily at least. The plain truth was that she and Ballad could both die in Timber. Tyris knew they needed to live for the moment, and she could do her utmost to repay his generosity afterward. Her phone still in a trembling hand, she dialled his number again.

This time, the Garland leader's keenness must have won over, as he answered almost immediately. His phone had likely not left his own hand.

'I love you, Ballad,' Tyris said, before she could bottle it.

He was silent for a beat. 'I love you, too, Tyris.'

'What time are you teeing off tomorrow?'

'Just after first light,' Ballad answered.

'I'll be there at noon,' Tyris said.