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The first time Thancred had been stabbed and gotten the nasty wound stitched together, he’d whimpered like a child and then thrown up, promptly tearing the stitches and dooming himself to another round of hell. It hadn’t been a pretty sight for anyone, least of all him.
So he had nothing but respect for the way the girl held on, teeth gritted and sweat glistening on her face in the light of the fire, without a single whimper escaping her. Tough as nails, that one. She looked so much like her brother that all the fondness in Thancred blurred together to a simple, overwhelming feeling of I’ll protect you, and reunite you both.
“Almost done,” he murmured, voice low and softened in hopes of soothing her. The toughest part had been to get the arrow out at all – nasty work, those. This was the finishing touch, at least. “Two more stitches and you’re good as new. Get a mysterious scar, too. Very popular with the ladies.”
She exhaled sharply through her nose, conceding some amusement for his idiotic attempts to lighten the mood. Jeez, Alisaie must either be desperate or fond of him. Well, there had been the whole saving her from certain death thing. Had to count for something.
A low noise did escape her at last when Thancred pushed the needle into her skin the next time. Without thought, maybe for the way she had humoured him, he found himself humming a low tune to distract her. It was one he had sung countless times, holding Minfilia’s hand in his, drying her tears and trying to comfort her. No matter what, she had always smiled for him then, face splotchy and red and full of snot. She always had been such an ugly crier, and the memory ached so sweetly.
It was Minfilia’s song in his heart, and Thancred had not thought he would ever let rise in his throat again. Yet here he was, a sentimental fool to the last. Somewhere in the aether that ran through all life in the forest around them, he hoped that she heard it and smiled again, just for him.
Alisaie, for her part, did not smile. But she took the deepest breath she had since he had begun patching her up, and it was enough. So he kept the tune up for her, until at last her wound was dressed.
He topped off her cup with the leftover booze. “Drink. Wish I had something better to soothe your pain.”
Alisaie took a sip and instantly spluttered and coughed, face twisting with the pain the movement caused her. “Vile stuff,” she choked.
“Cheap, too,” Thancred assured her with a wry smile. He bent down to the stream they had made camp at, sheltered by the last of the trees. The chill in the air whispered of Coertha’s cold soon to come, and already Thancred dreaded the girl’s thin attire. He knew who would be giving up his coat, keeping her warm while shivering himself.
“That was a beautiful tune,” Alisaie breathed wistfully, as Thancred washed his hands in the cold waters, getting her blood from under his fingernails. Survival – it was always such gritty, relentless, dirty work. Unbidden the image rose in his mind of Minfilia not quite dead, bathed in light too radiant to ever be touched by mortal life again, and his heart twisted with confused grief all over.
“Not one I let just anyone hear these days.” He said it without thought, mayhap feeling the wistfulness of bringing Alphinaud’s sister home to him when Thancred’s own– or mayhap just feeling that in all but name, thanks to Louisoix, he would always be a Leveilleur. Considering Alisaie’s odd expression, he remembered the reputation he could not shake, though, and added: “Please do not ever mistake my words for amorous advances –”
At that, Alisaie chuckled weakly. “Be at ease. I would not think it, despite the reputation you seem to have amassed in any gossip-prone corner of Eorzea.” She closed her eyes, taking great care to breathe deep and steady, cup cradled loosely in her hand. “’Tis not rumours’ nature to take into account the growth forced upon us by survival, or even just living.”
The words were too mature, too worn, too battered and bruised for her age. And yet, was this world not creating children like them every day? Those forced to grow up fast enough, or pay for it with their life.
“’Tis not indeed.” In hopes to amuse her again, he added: “I am grateful you shall not run screaming, nor be so set upon your advances you draw the attention and ire of a nearby group of monsters and almost get us both killed.”
“Not much running I could do right about now,” Alisaie said with a weak smile. It had a wolfish little tilt to it, though. “That particular scenario sounds rather too specific to be a simple hypothetical.”
“How I wish it had been a hypothetical! But no, I assure you, this nightmare happened and should have been the true reason I –“ He hesitated only for a brief second. “- that I am half blind.”
Her smile was small, but there. At his expense or not, Thancred was grateful for that.
“Either way, my point stands,” she said. “A tune most beautiful, and even more appreciated seeing it is special to you. … So thank you.”
He looked at her then, surprised by the sheer depth of what he would do to keep her safe and return her to her brother in one piece, preferably with no additional holes pierced into her. “Don’t mention it,” he muttered gruffly, and again, she smiled.
---
He should have known. How could Thancred have been so damn blind? The sweat on her face. Her feverish cheeks. All of it he’d accounted to the pain, the cheap booze, the circumstance of it all.
Poison. Thal’s balls, how could he not have realised until she lay convulsing before him, delirious?
“Thancred,” she gasped, fighting through it all. Her eyes were unfocused, fingers grasping at nothing and then clutching the earth, nails digging into dirt. “They must – know – what I –“ She cried out, and Thancred had to abandon the concoction he was hastily mixing, pinning her in place so she would not hurt herself.
“It’s alright,” he gasped, and her skin felt so clammy. She was so small without her confidence and wit. “It’s all gonna be –“
“What I saw,” she forced out, trying to hold his eye. A tear ran down her cheek from her struggle. “You must –“
“No,” he said, decisively. No. So many times he had not been enough. He would not let Alphinaud lose his sister, too. He would not give up on this girl. Never. “Tell them yourself.”
“You –“ she began, her annoyance battling her weakness. “Do not –“
“You listen to me, Alisaie Leveilleur. You will tell them that yourself. You will swallow this concoction for whatever good it’ll do and you will hold on and stay with me until we reach Ishgard. And then you will tell them what you saw.”
Alisaie closed her eyes. “Fool,” she breathed, voice weak.
And how he was. How he was. “You’ve got it right.” He let go of her, and went back to grinding the herbs he’d ripped up with their roots in his haste.
When he helped her sit, Alisaie could barely hold her own head up, but he managed to get the mixture into her. Alisaie pulled a face – Thancred, at least, had been able to dampen the wretched taste with a generous amount of honey when he’d used it in Dravania – and he shrugged out of his coat.
Besides his weapons he would leave all else behind. There would be no more camp, no more breaks. Initially he’d planned for a quick rest, but their time had run out. He bundled her shivering form into the coat and cradled her close, discarding the cup and any expendable thing in their packs.
Alisaie Leveilleur, with her cunning and her sharp smiles and her sharper words, weighed almost nothing. Well, since he would not stop until he reached Ishgard, at some point even that would be enough to make his arms ache, but it did not matter. He had dried meat enough to give him bursts of energy, and a waterskin tucked beneath his clothes so it would stay above chilled in Coerthas. His weapon to defend her to the last, if he had to. All else was for Ishgard to provide when they arrived - healing, proper food, a bed.
“You there?” he asked, a challenge.
Her lids fluttered, but did not open. Alisaie’s brows furrowed. “I am not – who I used to –“ She did not finish but Thancred understood her meaning, said like an incantation.
“I reckon you’re not – and I reckon a force like you won’t be beaten by a thing like this.” His force was but a bundle of shivering limbs, but here she was. Holding on. Fighting for her words to be heard, instead of paying for that information with her life. “Get ready for a nice long chat lasting all night.”
“Mercy,” she forced out, still trying to joke, despite it all. Thancred felt fierce pride for her.
“None to be found here, I am afraid. Let us begin with your opinion on New Gridanian wildlife.”
---
The pain of the cold numbed down the pain of carrying a miniature elezen bundle in his arms. If Thancred had even an ounce left of aether in his veins he could have ported them, but instead he trekked through the Coerthan Wilds in light snowfall, wind whipping at his bared arms and whistling right through every other layer to bite into him. At least the cold seemed well enough for what little poked out from the bundle in his arms, to cool Alisaie’s burning forehead.
“Not much longer,” he said, mouth stiff as was his face with the cold. His everything hurt. But Thancred was not the poisoned one – he was the one who had failed to recognise it early enough. Had failed to – no. He would not keep failing. He refused. “Elezen have a – surprising knack for hot chocolate.”
Alisaie had become more and more unresponsive as time wore on, initial chatting replaced with whimpering and at most, noises trying to be affirmative to an extent that made Thancred assume she was not retaining half of what he was saying. Then again, neither was he.
It wasn’t about the words. It was about keeping her awake, and somewhat with him. It was about Alisaie surviving. By everything, how could such a bright soul be ripped from the world?!
Same way they all are, whispered a small voice he had wished to leave in the streets with his hunger and fear. Same way they all will be lost just like her, for you will be too weak to save them.
“Alisaie,” he said, voice more forceful than he intended.
There was no response, but the bundle in his arms stirred, so he took it for one. Good.
“You said the melody was beautiful. I’ll – teach it to you.” It was so endlessly cold. No carts this side of the ways – no chocobo to trade for anything of value on his person. Only the crunching of the snow, his hair damp from it, his body chilled to its very core. And Thancred could do nothing for Alisaie but keep moving forward, step by step by step. “I’ll hum a few bars. You hum them back.” He hitched her up in his aching arms to adjust his hold more securely. “And don’t think on skimping on it, or I’ll drop you.”
A wrecked sound that he hoped was a snort was his reply.
And when Thancred hummed the first few notes, he thought of Minfilia. Her bright smile, and eyes full of hope that had never been diminished – not by anything they had witnessed. Not by anything done to them and taken from them. Her heart had remained kind and bleeding, and she had carried it exposed to the world like a fool. And as Thancred failed to make her close up and protect herself better, he had watched her weep and heal and carry on.
There was strength in a heart like hers much more so than the maze of his own, and he missed her so dearly in that moment. Please, my dearest friend. He closed his eyes for a moment. Please, watch over her. Help me be strong enough to bring her home to her brother.
And when Alisaie’s broken voice tried to hum the notes back to him, for a moment, Thancred heard Minfilia. Tired, dirty, curled into the dark of a street corner. Humming a broken little song just to make him feel better.
“Yeah,” he breathed, voice rough. “That’s it, Alisaie. Again.” He hummed the first five notes, wanting her to adjust and think about it a little. Give her quick mind something to sink its teeth into, something to translate to sound to keep her here, in the moment.
And she did. Barely audible over the wind and the call of predators in the dark, she hummed as best as she could for him.
“You earned the next five. Listen to me well. Song is no different from any other field of study, and I know you mastered the blade already.” Her stance had given her away, back before this all had struck her down.
And so it went. Trading song, back and forth.
Trading song and forcing her to figure out the right notes just to keep Alisaie from fading away.
By the time the walls of Ishgard came into view, Alisaie’s only noises were occasional whimpers in the throes of her fever. Other than that she had been quiet and unresponsive, every second more spiking Thancred’s panic. He could not stop and see if she was still breathing – only forced himself onwards, onwards.
“I am a Scion of the Seventh Dawn!” he shouted into the crowd as he crossed through the gates. “House Fortemps! Someone notify them to fetch a healer - ! A life is on the line here!”
Bewildered elezen stared back at him, none of them moving. Curse them all. Thancred hurried past them without faltering in his stride, feet carrying him through the city and its grey walls and greyer sky. It was dawn, by now, but even this morning remained grey.
Then hurried steps fell in beside him.
“I heard a madman invoked House Fortemps in the – by the Fury!” The taller of the Fortemps brothers stared at Alisaie in shock. “Is she –“
“Call for a healer,” Thancred said tightly. “Poison. I did not – it cannot be too late.”
The Fortemps son – Artoirel? – nodded, expression focused and serious. Thancred knew why he liked him better. “It will be done. This way now – this is a shortcut.” He gently stirred Thancred into a spectacularly narrow alley, his gaze catching Thancred’s cracked skin and bleeding knuckles, the way his muscles trembled.
Artoirel extended his arms, as if in offer to take Alisaie’s weight.
And it was a kind offer, too.
But Thancred pursed his lips. He shook his head, and pulled Alisaie tighter against his chest, heart beating a ferocious and protective beat as his body extended the last of its energy. All this way he had borne her weight – Thancred had vowed to bring her home. So he would.
He would.
---
The expression on Alphinaud’s face was awful.
He had not left Alisaie’s side where she lay on the sofa, dirtied and limp and a mere shadow of her big, brave self. Her pale face, pinched slightly in pain even unconscious, was an exact match to Alphinaud’s staring down at her. Both of his hands were folded around one of hers, holding it to his chest as if that could anchor her in life.
Thancred wanted to smooth the expression from his face. He wished he could save everyone around him from the pain he had suffered, the grief and the loss. Alas, there was nothing to do, and the room was spinning around him. His arms lay limp at his sides, muscles aching. Thancred’s body yearned to simply pass out, but he had to sit vigil.
He could not leave them on their own. Thancred had followed Louisoix and believed in him. He owed him safety and warmth and a home, and he would not let his grandchildren down. They were … family.
“Alisaie,” Alphinaud whispered again, voice thick with the struggle not to cry. “You’d better –“ His words cut off, their meaning clear.
“She is strong,” Thancred said, hating himself for offering platitudes. Empty words and hopes. It was not about Alisaie being strong – a fighter. This world had taken stronger ones than her in a twist of fate’s blade. But it had to be enough.
Alphinaud only closed his eyes, face scrunching up violently as he still struggled to keep in his tears. Thancred lifted a numb arm and put it on his shoulder, making the force of his fear and anguish explode from the boy in a sob that was more scream. Gulping and sniffling and making a mess of himself, and Thancred squeezed his shoulder. Good. Better to let it out than waste energy on keeping it in.
Alphinaud wept, and he wept, and he wept, and then he fell quiet. Only his sniffles, when --
“Cry … baby …”
Alphinaud startled so hard it yanked his shoulder out from under Thancred’s palm, close to bodily throwing himself over his sister. “Alisaie!” he cried out, overjoyed at being insulted thus. He gave an ugly chortle and wiped his nose with his sleeve, poise and grace abandoned and forgotten. “Near-death has not made you sweeter.” His smile was wobbly and frail and even just catching it from the side Thancred felt blinded by its brightness.
Alisaie raised a trembling hand, managing to whack her limp fingers against Alphinaud’s temple in what Thancred assumed had been meant to be a forehead flick of some sort. Her hand dropped again, dangling off the sofa. The very sight of it made Thancred’s stomach lurch for a sickening moment before Alphinaud grasped it and lifted it back up onto the cushions, and Alisaie groaned.
Alive, alive.
She was here and with them.
“Than-” she began.
“Right here,” Thancred told her, voice wrecked as it was. He was touched she had thought of him, and he painstakingly dragged himself into her line of sight. “Won’t get rid of me so easily,” he told her with a grin that felt confident enough.
Alisaie’s mouth twitched upwards. “Like … wise …”
“We have sent for Ser Aymeric and our mutual friend – soon you will be cared for. Soon this will all be but a bad dream.”
So Alisaie would be able to tell them all personally. “Just hang in there a little longer,” he told her, and funnily enough, that was when the world tilted, and he saw the fancy Fortemps carpet up very close and personal, and then nothing at all.
---
Thancred sat up with a jolt, which sent a jolt of pain stabbing through his head and a dull ache thrumming through this general body. Great.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Y’shtola informed him conversationally. “I took care of aches and soreness, but the exhaustion can really only be cured with rest.”
Thancred opened his eyes, and just the sight of her made his tense shoulders loosen. “Where …”
“House Fortemps. I figured Alphinaud needn’t handle any more unconscious figures to worry about. I assured him it was only exhaustion on your part, but the poor boy did not take it quite well, considering the circumstances.”
“Ah, damnation.” Thancred pushed a hand through his hair, frustrated to have caused further pain. He shouldn’t have fallen like that – he should’ve just …
“If you’ll continue being an idiot in my direction, I shall leave and take this helping of stew with me.” Before Thancred could even answer, his stomach growled like a beast for him. He ducked his head, and grinned at her. “How about I stop thinking so loudly, you hand me the stew, and take a break from you aetherial sight? Then both the healer and the patient are doing something good.”
Y’shtola clucked her tongue. The matter of her sight was one she held close to her chest – but there was no way to hide it from the sod who had spent months upon months retraining his aim after one of his eyes turned the exact shade of white that both of hers were. Fools and survivors, the lot of them.
“It sounds like a deal to me, but you will refrain from self-deprecation after you carried a poisoned girl through the Coerthan wilds to here. How about it?”
“Sounds perfect, and I’m only mostly saying this because that stew smells heavenly.”
“Ah, yes,” Y’shtola said, handing over the bowl. It was warm still, but just the right temperature to dig right in. “Young Honoroit drove half the staff mad hijacking the kitchens earlier, determined to help out in the ways he can.”
Thancred moaned around a spoonful of the stew and, eyes still closed in bliss, mumbled: “Bless the boy.”
“I will report to him you said that with your mouth full like an unmannered rogue.”
“You mean like a street urchin who spent some time in the wilderness to boot?” Thancred asked, joking, but something about it rang a little too heavy. It must have been the pain and exhaustion weighing in his bones. For his youthful age, he felt weary and ancient. He chalked it up to all the world saving, and the occasional possession in between.
“Like that, yes.” Y’shtola sighed, a deep and shuddering thing, and Thancred knew that right now she had allowed herself to settle into her blindness with him by her side. To take a break from the way she compensated for it, shortening her own life with it. “Ah,” she breathed.
Thancred wanted to clobber her about the head for it, but likewise was no one to judge. He had no lick of magic left, and his own talents had never quite reached hers. And even though adjusting to losing an eye had been rough, what knew he of being fully robbed of sight, while having the means to cling to something like normalcy through it all, price be damned?
“It is still strange,” she said quietly.
Thancred made sure to swallow before he spoke this time. “I reckon it will always be. But thank you … for letting your guard down with me.”
“Don’t make me regret it,” she said, and then, softer: “I trust you a great deal, Thancred Waters. I reckon I always will.”
Thancred, shamefully already announcing the way he’d finished too fast by the spoon scraping the bottom of the bowl, smiled to himself. He knew she would hear it in his voice. “Likewise, my dear Shtola.”
---
When he entered the parlour, he was met with a couple of overt elezen gazes, and then one particularly short specimen barrelling right into him. Alphinaud wrapped his arms around Thancred’s middle and squeezed, pressing his whole face into his chest.
He was not usually quite so forward, so free with such displays and Thancred knew it was motivated by all the fear and unconscious family around the boy. So he ruffled Alphinaud’s hair and then closed his arms around him, holding him tightly. All gazes in the room were politely turned away, except for Emmanellain, who watched with his lips lightly parted as if utterly fascinated. No tact whatsoever.
When Thancred caught his gaze and lifted his brows, at least he flushed red to the points of his ears and looked away.
“There, there,” Thancred breathed, focusing on Alphinaud again. “You know I’m made of tougher stuff than that.”
Alphinaud trembled, hands fisting in Thancred’s borrowed tunic with force as if he wished never to let go.
Thancred had been offered a simple elezen drape of the house that he had been forced to roll up several times at both ankles and wrists – Ishgard made a perfectly above average Hyur feel really tiny indeed. “Where is she?” he asked, voice low and warm, stepping back only to take in Alphinaud properly, hands resting on the boy’s shoulders still.
“Resting,” Alphinaud said tightly. “As a – as a ward of House Borel. No expenses spared. The best chirurgeons Ishgard has to offer.”
“See?” Thancred said, though he was still afraid for her. “There is no need to worry.”
They both knew it was chocobo crap, but Alphinaud remained there for a heartbeat longer – soaking in Thancred’s presence like it could give him strength. Then he stepped away and wiped at his blotchy face, nodding once to himself and standing as tall as he could stand. “Yes,” he said. “She is Alisaie. She has to be – she will be okay.”
---
And Thancred did not know which deity or other took mercy for once. Mayhap it had been Hydaelyn looking on, stirred by Minfilia’s love. Or mayhap it had been sheer luck and fortune, coincidences and lucky breaks. None of it mattered, though.
Alisaie was awake. Alisaie was stable. Alisaie would live.
And Thancred did ache a little less. What more could he ask for in this moment?
There was, of course, the next primal to fell and all the risks that came with it. There were the Warriors of Darkness and behind them, the scheming Ascians pulling strings to destabilise and sow discord in Eorzea. There was a dying goddess who had claimed the life of his dearest friend.
But there was Alisaie, smiling up at her brother as she teased him, and there was Y’shtola and Tataru laughing, and their very own Warrior of Light smiling softly along. Thancred closed his eyes for a moment, and he drank it all in.
Such happiness was all but fleeting, and mayhap clouds were pouring in to block out the sun, but he would enjoy the gentle rays for now. Survival was a gritty thing, full of hunger and teeth and relentless fight, and it worked so hard for this: these small moments of pure and simple life.
“Thancred,” Alisaie said, when people filed out of the room and Tataru stood with her arms crossed and herself rather cross with any delay of presenting Alisaie with her new tunic.
“Mh?” He asked, looking back at her over her shoulder and trying his best to ignore Tataru’s gaze close to setting him aflame.
Alisaie got up from the bed, glimpsed behind him at the door, then took the last two steps in a leap and hugged him tightly against herself. The force of her made Thancred go with a quiet ‘oof’, but he chuckled and squeezed her back without hesitation.
Despite all he’d lost and despite every time he’d failed, this time … this time he had made it. And Alisaie was still here because of it.
Thancred exhaled a breath he had been holding since that first arrow, and picked her up off her feet for a moment, squeezing her with just as much ferocious force. She squeaked, indignant now, legs kicking in the air, and looked rather put upon when he sat her down and ruffled her hair.
“What? You’re, like, my … niece?” He cocked his head going through the mental Leveilleur family tree.
“You’re the perfect weird and annoying uncle to avoid at all cost.” Alisaie kicked at the leather of his boots, painless but the reverberation of it bringing her point across. She crossed her arms, but the flush to her cheeks was equal parts outrage and delight. “Thank you, you terrible man.”
“It was my pleasure, equally terrible pipsqueak.”
“Pipsqu- !” Alisaie balled her fists, eyes darkening. “Why, I’ve half a mind to - !”
Tataru chose that moment to pointedly clear her throat, and Thancred did the thing a true warrior would: he chose a tactical retreat offered to him. “Well, time for your fitting! Don’t wanna keep you!” He walked backwards out of the room, trying and failing to keep his laughter in check. “Let’s postpone my murder!”
“I’ll plot it in style, then!” Alisaie called, and Thancred laughed again, and closed the door behind him. He passed the open doorway from which he heard the Scions and their generous wards chat, and stepped out into the chill of Ishgard’s crisp winter air.
For this one fleeting moment, all was right. And they’d simply have to defy deities, empires, and destiny itself to wrest all happiness and triumph from the forces that would crush it, over and over. It was what they survived for, after all. For where was life found if not in the joy of your friends, your family, those you loved most dearly?
As he made his way through a city he had never thought he might step foot into, in the midst of ending a thousand year war that Thancred was not only witnessing but actively helping, he hummed Minfilia’s tune to himself.
His friend, after all, had always known what it meant to survive, and what it took to truly live. And most valiantly of all, she had fought for these moments of joy and humanity, no matter how fleeting. So who was he not to enjoy it for her sake, too?
You’ve made me so proud, he thought to himself, hoping his meaning and heart would reach her, through intention and song. I’ll keep making you proud, too, my dear Minfilia.