#ezette roiveaux

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ffxivwrite2021 - #30 Abstracted

Gridania, 1567 6AE

“I have a confession,” Shandrelle blurted.

Ezette’s hand froze, her knuckles tightening around the spoon clasped in her fingers, dangling the heap of tea leaves motionless over the fresh water she’d boiled just for them. Her lips thinned as a shadow passed over her deep brown eyes, and a pang struck through Shandrelle’s heart. As one hand balled antsy at her side she couldn’t help but feel it should be her brewing the tea and not the other way around.

“What is it?” Ezette asked after a beat, her voice equal parts resignation and resentment.

“Ah, well- I know what you said… and why- but. Ojene was here a week ago.”

The spoon clattered against the countertop, scattering ocher fragments of dried leaves as Ezette seized her fingers against the polished wood. “Shandrelle-”

“It’s not what you think! I swear.” Reflexively she clutched a hand to her throat, her fingertips brushing over the new rope of scar. “I actually sent her away. In a sense.”

“Which means what?”

“Well-” Shandrelle’s eyes averted as she absently rubbed the sides of her neck, “she showed up dreadfully upset about something. It turned out she’d gotten some bad news from home. Her actual home, not Gyr Abania or around these parts. La Noscea,” she finished lamely.

The pressure of Ezette’s gaze was palpable as she made a noise in the back of her throat.

“She seemed to want to go back, you know,” Shandrelle added quickly, “all this stuff about the assassins be damned, but she was too afraid to, so- well, I went and gave her a push. So theoretically, if she did what I wanted, she’s probably halfway to Aleport right now and you might not ever have to deal with her again.”

A heavy breath gusted through Ezette’s nose. “To La Noscea,” she repeated.

“Well, that was the idea of it, yes. I don’t know if she’s going to come back or not, but with the way things happened- you know.” Haltingly, she shrugged. “It might be for the best.”

Ezette bowed her head. “You know it’s not that I don’t want to deal with her,” she said.

Shandrelle stared at her feet. “I do,” she murmured.

There was no forgetting. The way Ezette’s eyes had burned with an all-encompassing fury and hurt like the depths of a lake disgorged into flame. Her tight mane of untied curls bouncing with force. The declarations she made, hissed with such asperity that Shandrelle’s blood crystalized, only to break down into deep, wracking sobs as they clutched onto each other like the lost.

But Ezette, never one to repeat herself, simply nodded. One finger picked at the bed of her thumbnail.

“I hope she’ll be happy,” Ezette said. “I do. And I hope we’ll be able to move on from this- together. That this won’t sit over you like a big unanswered mystery that you have to solve. And it’s not that this doesn’t need solving! Because it does. But I want you alive more than I want answers.”

A quiet sniff caught Shandrelle by surprise, and she angled her head away to hide the burning in the corners of her eyes. “I know- I’m sorry.”

“No- it’s not-” With a strained noise Ezette hunched forward, gripping the edge of the counter in both hands. “It’s not your fault you were attacked. It’s just that this is clearly a lot bigger than you. Than us.”

A deep sigh billowed free, and it felt not unlike a gust of wind battering her towards the edge of a cliff- urging her to jump. “It is, but- it does bother me,” she admitted. “The idea of simply- letting it go. It’s like- trying to give up something I’m responsible for. Who else is going to prove it? That my family is a bushel of traitors? What happens if I don’t stop them, and then the Garleans attack us and we lose everything because my family helped them win?”

“It’s not on you,” Ezette said quietly. “Not alone. Maybe we’ll think of something once this has had a chance to… die down. But for now, I just want you safe. And so- I’m glad… that she’s gone.”

“Well, I wouldn’t celebrate just yet,” Shandrelle plucked at her skirt. “I’m sure if it doesn’t go well, she’ll be back.”

When the rest of the moon passed with no word, Shandrelle thought little of it. And despite herself, life began to embrace a form of normalcy. The motions of life before Ojene upturned it began to creep back, from the normal family morning routines of hastily brushed hair and shared breakfasts at the table, to the long days spent at the Fane helping whomever came. The only clandestine trips she took at lunch were simply oases to herself, no more demanded of her than an easy walk. The scar’s angry red had even begun to fade a touch, and the hoarse edges it flanged into her voice were sanding away.

Yet on the second moon she wondered now and again how she would know what happened to Ojene- if she would know. And on each lunchtime walk she found herself glancing around, her head kept carefully straight to avoid attention, groping into the undergrowth and the canopy half-expecting Ojene to be there. But she never was.

It wasn’t until the third moon that an answer came. Shandrelle stood at the dining table sorting through the post- Astrane had dropped the lot haphazardly on the dining table- but as she sifted the handful of letters this way and that her eyes caught a slip of familiar handwriting. Her own name, scrawled neatly on the front in a clean, precise hand.

For an instant, she froze. But her heart skipped, as if surging her back to motion and at once she grabbed it up. Her fingers slipped beneath the lip as she popped the wax, and as she flipped it open she came face to face with a half sheet of parchment occupied by no more than two lines.

You were right.

Thank you.

There was no signature, but it needed none.

Shandrelle huffed a laugh. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

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ffxivwrite 2021 - #18 Devil's Advocate

Continued from #17 Destruct ( first | second | third | fourth )

Gridania, 1565 6AE

Naturally, the first thing she did was tell Ezette.

It had to wait until evening, and after the girls went to bed, but the two of them collected into the conservatory- or once was anyway, until Shandrelle made the choice to move the plants outside. Drawn shut against the evening stars, the thick green curtains on every window spanning its several slanted walls blanketed the room into more cave than dwelling, and all the cozier for it in the orange glow of the oil lantern sitting on the end table between their plush yellow chairs.

There in the comfort of home, wrapped in a soft woolen blue robe with golden vine embroidery fringing the cuffs and a cup of rapidly cooling tea clasped in her hands, she disgorged the story. Ojene’s sudden arrival, the unexpected response. The threat. Then the mystery she brought with her, and her last request.

At the end Ezette sat back. The slim handle of her porcelain teacup dangled absently between her brown fingers as if she’d forgotten it was there, yet she was well into her second cup. Dressed for evening she wore a matching robe of scarlet, the patterned vines blooming to her throat.

“Well, that’s a lot.” The ends of her hair bobbed as Ezette spoke- let down for the night it haloed her head in a cloud of tight black curls.

“It is,” Shandrelle exhaled in a sigh.

“If you want to get involved… Do you want to get involved?”

“I’m not sure… I don’t know what I’m going to do about it yet, I’ve barely had time to let it sink in, let alone make a choice.”

“Of course, of course,” Ezette murmured, and with deliberate economy she poured herself a third cup of tea. “Do you want to talk it through?”

Despite the seriousness of the situation they found themselves in, Shandrelle couldn’t help but crack a small smile. “I’d like that very much.”

“All right.” Squaring her shoulders, Ezette settled in, planting both elbows upon the arms of the chair as the rest of her body flowed languidly before her, shins peeking out from between the folds of the robe. “Well- my first thought is that you don’t owe her anything.”

“Don’t I?”

“Of course not. It was thirteen bloody years ago when you saw her last. That’s long enough for any blood debts to be paid.”

“Try telling her that,” Shandrelle laughed dryly, but whatever joke there was fell flat, desiccating midair between them. “No, I guess that was the strangest thing. I don’t think she really cared about that- but who knows! With her, it could turn up a few moons later that she’s been carrying this grudge toward me all along, but then I don’t really know her anymore, do I? And she doesn’t know me.“

“True,” Ezette offered.

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t be surprised if part of all that was whatever old ire she might hold against me, but she hardly addressed it. It was all about what was happening now. And maybe if the question is resolved she’ll just drop off again and we won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“That would certainly be nice,” she said dryly. “I know you’ll probably have already tossed this into the bin, but you wouldn’t consider turning her in, would you?”

“No!” Shandrelle blurted aloud. “No, of course not.”

“Then, I suppose we’ve got two options left. Either you work with her… or you don’t. Though I suppose if you did work with her, you don’t have to do what she said. You can do some other thing for her, if she’ll agree to it. Maybe… I don’t know, go to a few dinners, ask your father some leading questions- the works.”

“Maybe.” Shandrelle groaned. “My father. I can’t believe that he might be tied up in all of this. Again.”

“Would he be the one, do you think? If what she said is real.”

“To be honest… I don’t know.” At long last, Shandrelle took a sip of her tea, but the tepid liquid was merely an excuse to pause and think. “I don’t think it makes much sense, but then again- he did tell her to leave the Twelveswood. And now she’s back. It depends on whether or not he’d be willing to enforce that over a decade later, I suppose.”

“And who else would it be, really,” Ezette mused to herself.

As the two of them lapsed into silence, Shandrelle let her eyes close. Behind them sat a hallowness that throbbed with the slow beat of her heart, one that on another day could have threatened to spill into fresh tears. Yet in the maw of exhaustion that surrounded her, nothing came.

“Maybe I’m just scared, Ezette,” she murmured at last.

Ezette’s head jerked up. “Of what?”

“That it is him… but also that it isn’t. I don’t know, maybe it’s the whole of what this could mean. We’re happy now, or at least I’d like to think we’re happy-” In response, Ezette’s brow pleated and she outstretched a hand. Shandrelle snatched it up, clinging on tight. “This could upend… everything. And she said it was bloody dangerous, to boot.”

Gradually, Ezette’s fingers eased between hers, squeezing them softly at the base. “You don’t have to be afraid of that,” she said softly. “At least not for us. For the danger- if there’s more than what she’s said we’re going to have to talk about it. But we’ll be fine, no matter what comes.”

A deep breath chuffed through Shandrelle’s nose, and her cheek crimped around one side of her quiet smile. “I thought you were going to try to talk me out of it.”

“Well… I thought I was too.” With another squeeze of her hand, Ezette released her grip and settled back into the chair. “I’m not thrilled by the thought of you in danger, but- your work has always been riskier than mine. I can live with it, as long as you don’t do anything rash. And if you try your best to be safe.”

“Of course. Always- without question.”

“Then… do what you think is right. Just go carefully about it- and maybe tell me once you’ve made up your mind. Before you do anything, so I don’t break myself worrying about you in the meantime.”

Quickly, Shandrelle captured Ezette’s hand and gave it another firm squeeze. “Perish the thought,” she said, her throat unexpectedly tight.

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ffxivwrite 2021 - #21 Feckless

Continued from #18 Devil's Advocate ( first | second | third | fourth | fifth )

Gridania, 1565 6AE

By the next morning, Shandrelle made up her mind- she wasn’t going to do it.

It could have been any number of things. The way Ezette’s hand lingered on her waist that morning as she leaned past her at the vanity, or the muffled chatter of high voices through the door. The burnt umber flash of Devone’s new dress as she twirled in the foyer one way, then the other, like a flower blooming and furling in rapid succession that danced to the tune of life flooding through the kitchen. A morning’s routine, as the teapot’s wail cut through the clatter of pots and scrape of utensils, and Shandrelle poured the girls’ tea first before sitting down with her own. She lifted it to her nose, but the faint floral bouquet was undercut by the cloying scent of fresh porridge spiced with cinnamon and cloves and the thicker aroma of sausage sizzling on the stove.

As the four of them sat down at the table for breakfast, the girls chattering about a nook beneath a footbridge they discovered yesterday, Shandrelle met Ezette’s eye. Pools of deep brown, in the shadow they often gleamed as black as her hair. But now, as a sliver of morning sun fell across her face, the light scattered through her irises like a pair of twin jewels, splitting into a topaz sunset.

And in that moment, as the girls’ conversation devolved into incessant giggling about normal bodily functions, it was as if the light painting Ezette’s face touched her too, blooming a warmth into her core that spread up her skin as if she was a corrugated flower, Shandrelle beamed.

Of course she wasn’t going to do it! The warmth carried with her as she strode on to the Stillglade Fane, like a sun-kissed stone tucked into her middle. Her family needed no interruption. Her family- not her father or her mother. And certainly not her relatives. The most important thing was the girls, and her wife. She would brook no interruptions- no unnecessary dangers. Whatever Ojene’s business was, it wasn’t with her. She wouldn’t aid it, but nor would she stop it. If her kin was up to something foul, eventually the truth would out.

Two days later, her father found her.

She hadn’t heard him coming. Caught up in the Fane, her thoughts lingered on her smallest patient from earlier that day- a small Hyur boy with a terrible rash spreading up his throat. His voice splintered on every word, or what little he could manage before it shattered into wheezing coughs. Half mindlessly her fingers glided across the shelves, drifting over small jars before plucking down one or two. A poultice, she decided- it’d soothe the ravages of what the elemental’s succor could not. She’d only just reached for a mortar when his voice struck her from behind, melodious and cool.

“Ah, Shandrelle.” Efrault Roiveaux emerged from the hall. His once chestnut mane of hair, struck white at the temples and bound with ribbons of grey and platinum, was tied tightly behind his head with nary a loose strand in sight. Its long tail trailed over the shoulder of his robes, the deep azure of the Fane bound with the embroidery of his station- the sort that made the new apprentices quail into silence when he passed.

“You’re back,” she said simply- she didn’t turn around.

“I am, and a couple days early at that.” The smile he tossed at her was easy. Relaxed, as it pleated the wrinkles collecting around his mouth, crinkling through skin so much paler than her own- she’d been born with her mother’s complexion, and thank the Matron for that. “Your mother and I were wondering if you and your family would like to come over for dinner.”

The pestle scraped against the side of its bowl a little too hard, stone against stone, before it stopped short. “Tonight,” she said flatly, though it was more of a question.

“Not necessarily tonight. But this week perhaps? It has been too long since we’ve seen the girls- and Ezette, how is she doing? Is she still working on that wardrobe for the Guillenoix?”

“No.” Shandrelle twisted her wrist sharply, grinding a flake of leaf to dust. “She finished that a moon ago.”

“Ah,” he said simply. “Well, how about on Earthday? If you’ve plans I expect Astralday would work just as well.”

“I’ll ask Ezette,” she hazarded. “Now, I really must get back to work-”

“Of course.” He cast a glance down at the jars at her elbow. “If you need any advice, I’ll be teaching today. Just a little ways down.”

“Thank you, father,” she said dryly. “Goodbye.”

It was only when he left that she released the pestle, and she struck a trembling hand down the side of her robe, her palm slick with sweat.

Dinner? The thought snapped at her heels the whole way home that evening- just before the turn that would take her within sight of their respectable house Shandrelle kept going, clasping her empty lunch basket tight to her side. Her father hadn’t invited them to dinner in moons- and granted he’d been on his usual sojourn through the Twelveswood. A person of his ability was in frequent demand after all. But even when he was home, these days he rarely came to call. So why now?

Why now indeed. A shiver sluiced down Shandrelle’s spine.

Perhaps she wanted to spare her family the trouble, but it was already too late.

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ffxivwrite 2021 - #17 Destruct

Continued from #15 Thunderous - ( first | second | third )

Gridania, 1565 6AE

The bell was nearly up by the time Shandrelle returned, and if it was possible she was only more cross. First the air had changed the moment she reached the creek. If had only been able to get down to her picnic spot on time she’d have been able to eat in peace in that perfect spot on a span of flat warm rock right beside the creek bed, where she would lay out her blanket and soak in the quiet solitude punctuated only by the garrulous contributions of birds and frogs as she gradually consumed the crisp sandwich Ezette had made for her that morning, alongside half a jar of spiced apples she’d purloined from the pantry and a mug of wine.

But no! Instead she had to hunch under the large oak tree that oversaw the outcrop, clasping her meal beneath her to guard it from the errant raindrops that rolled through the foliage, battering her nerves in solid wet plops, then a stream.

Then the rain stopped but moments after she left her shelter. As if the gods found all of this funny somehow. Well if they did, she wasn’t laughing! Instead she was stuck smearing water from her forehead and ringing out the edge of her robes, but there was nothing to be done for her underclothes which would assuredly slick to her skin as if she was a drenched rat until she managed to run home.

If she had been in any other mood she’d have abandoned her outdoor lunch and skittered back to somewhere drier the moment the weather turned, but this whole affair had already wasted at least a third of a bell, and she would be damned if she let Ojene ruin the rest of it!

And so, soaked to the bone and shivering in the breeze, clutching a water-slick basket over her arm, Shandrelle scowled at the empty space where she’d left Ojene to begin with.

“You’d better be hiding,” she called out. “Because if you’ve gone and vanished on me after all that, I am going to be very cross.”

“I’m here,” came a voice behind her.

With a yelp, Shandrelle spun round to see Ojene standing there - how was she dry? - as if she’d been there the whole time. “Good gods, don’t scare me like that! Matron, have your feet ever made a sound? Sit down.”

Ojene obliged, and silently, claiming her spot on the now-damp fallen tree. Frown deepening, Shandrelle flipped one side of the basket up and, claiming two of its contents, poured the rest of her wineskin out into her glazed pewter mug, then with an audible huff stuffed it into Ojene’s hands.

“Tell me everything,” Shandrelle proclaimed. “But maybe not everything because I don’t have a surfeit of time. The brief notes, for now, to give me the gist.”

Ojene blinked, staring down at the mug as befuddlement creased between her brows. “Wine?”

“Yes,” Shandrelle snapped, and she gestured sharply. “Drink!”

Grimacing, Ojene set it to the side, balanced in a splintered crook of the fallen tree where old lichens scaled the bark between intermittent shelves of fungi, and she folded her hands together at her knees, hunched forward. Despite the fact that she had escaped the rain, she somehow seemed bedraggled in a way Shandrelle hadn’t noticed before- the leather armor she wore was scuffed in places, caked here and there in dirt and filth, and there was a gauntness to her face that Shandrelle suspected wasn’t just the product of long years past.

“I went to Ala Mhigo,” Ojene said, “from the start. I expect you heard what happened?”

Shandrelle’s arms twitched in surprise. “Yes- of course! Who here hasn’t?”

“Well,” her eyes averted to the ground, “I was there for a good long time. Fighting the Garleans. Helping people. Doing everything I could, no matter what it cost…. Did you ever go there after I left?”

“No,” Shandrelle answered regretfully. “I didn’t. When the city fell at most I wound up in the east, healing those who were. Or the refugees.”

Ojene nodded. “The refugees,” she repeated softly. "That’s the main thing I did- helped them get far enough so you lot could take them to- wherever they needed to go. The Garleans- they are truly terrible, Shandrelle. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.”

“Not even here?” Shandrelle asked before she could stop herself, and a bitter laugh burbled silently behind her teeth.

“Not even here.” Ojene’s eyes flicked up, meeting Shandrelle’s with a vivid intensity that- Shandrelle noticed in an instant- lacked the lethality it had before, for the dagger was safely sheathed at Ojene’s hip. “It all pales by comparison. And they’ve sought to bring the rest of Eorzea to heel, too.”

A prickling seared down Shandrelle’s spine. “I saw the wall,” she blurted. “The thing they’re building… it might even be done, now. Did you come here across it?”

Again, Ojene nodded. “Though not in the last few moons. Suppose it’s just as well, since my work was getting exponentially harder since they started ramping that damned thing up, but I’m entrenched on this side of it now, for better or for worse.”

“All right,” Shandrelle breathed, “well- what does this have to do with my family?”

“Your family,” Ojene uttered, and a muscle flickered in her jaw. Again, she glanced away, but if Shandrelle didn’t know better she’d have called their silhouette troubled somehow, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why she thought it. “It started a couple years ago,” Ojene said. “First it started with the Garleans. I’d been trying my best to be a thorn in their side, true, but it was odd that they sent people for me specifically. Trying to catch me out, or by surprise. There were better people for them to go after, I’d always thought. Or at least, other people. It made little sense that they were always out for me.”

“But then,” Ojene continued, and her eyes jerked back, regarding Shandrelle through their corners, “one time we brought a new crop of refugees past the Wall, and it wasn’t a Garlean who attacked me, but an Eorzean.”

“An Eorzean?” Shandrelle repeated, dumbfounded.

“Yes- a mercenary, and of the sort seeking their fortune around these parts. It’s not the first time the Garleans got Eorzeans to do their bidding of course, beyond the people they’d already enslaved, but something seemed odd about the whole thing. I tried to get that one to talk to no avail, but the second one told me the truth. That some Gridanian paid her to do it. And when I got to the bottom of it, there was only a single name behind it.”

Blithely, Ojene shrugged. “Roiveaux,” she said.

“Roiveaux,” Shandrelle repeated, and a shiver rippled through her shoulders. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. It’s all I was ever able to get, beyond a hunch now and again that the attackers I dealt with that day weren’t Garlean either, but now I’m on the other side of the Wall and I just- want it to stop.”

Biting her lip, Shandrelle skated one hand over her rain-slicked hair. “Damn,” she breathed. “I’m sorry, Ojene- I had no idea this was happening to you.”

“I’m a little relieved to hear it- to be honest.” Quickly, Ojene’s gaze fastened to her folded hands- only to flick back up at Shandrelle shortly after. “After dealing with them for so long- I had no idea what to expect. No notion of who to trust. It’s an agony of a sort.”

With a deep sigh, Shandrelle nodded, and despite herself some small layer of spiteful anger cracked, dissolving its contents into something gentler. “So that’s what that whole- incident was about. Well, I’ll forgive you, Ojene- though I don’t know if I really should- as long as you promise not to go shoving any more blades in my face.”

Ojene flinched, and yet as her fingertips curled into the beds between her opposite fingers, her face twisted in a quiet frown. “You have to understand my position here. Even now as I tell you all of this, I don’t know if you’re someone I can trust. If you’re a person who is willing to go against your own family. Or an empire. You might think you are-” she bullied on, cutting off Shandrelle as she opened her mouth, “but a person’s mettle never shows until it’s tested. You say you don’t want to harm me and- I could believe that. But what happens when you have to choose?”

“Between you- and my family you mean?”

Quietly, Ojene nodded. “It could happen. And if you chose to help me, it probably will. Are you sure you could handle that?”

“I mean…” Shandrelle tossed up her hands, though the weight of the basket swinging on one arm stayed it at her side. “I don’t know! When you put it that way, I couldn’t say. But I’d like to think I could. Unless it turns out you’ve lied to me or some shite and you’ve really become some sort of criminal they’re out to hang.”

Ojene smiled, and darkly, a bitterly humorless note that seized something in Shandrelle’s gut, like a rabbit frozen in the bush. “Not unless you have. Very well. A test, then. Do you come down this path often?”

“Er…” Shandrelle shifted on her heels. “Every day I get the chance, usually. Which isn’t always, but often enough.”

“Then, let’s give it a week. You’ll come back here and meet me at this same bell. You won’t confide in anyone what we spoke of, or even that you’ve seen me at all. And, if you’d be so obliged, you’ll take a peek in whatever ledgers you can to see if there’s mention of me. Wailer records would likely be the best start.”

“Wailers-” Shandrelle gasped. “That’s assuming I can even get to those!”

“Perhaps not. But if you’re to help me with this, it’s largely that sort of work I’ll need you to do. Not with Wailers specifically, but reconnaissance in general. Spying. You know, the lot.” Ojene’s eyes narrowed sharply. “If you can’t figure out how to do that- well. You were always smart. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Without preamble, Ojene climbed to her feet, and leaving the mug of wine untouched in its dead wood cradle, she turned into the thicket of foliage. “In a week!” she called over her shoulder, then with barely more than a rustle of leaves vanished from view.

Alone Shandrelle stood by the vetch, eyes rapidly fluttering as her mind struggled round the pieces.

“Ojene!” she yelled into nothing. “That’s not very nice of you, Ojene!”

Only silence responded.