#were gosetsu still here he would NOT help he would in fact make it worse—

[fisherrprince]

putting me, alisaie, and lyse on a team is exactly like putting zane nya and lloyd on a team

[therovingstar]

The Interpretation (and Potential Assassination) of Dreams

@ffxiv-writers

Summary: Dreams are fickle, fragile things, unless you have another with which to share them. So does the Warrior of Light face a most difficult trial: convincing the Lord’s Shadow that she belongs in the lord’s bed, while also inadvertently revealing that she is, in fact, already in it. Hien x WoL, Yugiri Mistwalker, ~6,000 words; fluff, politics, and a touch of spice for flavor.

Also available on AO3; link through my blog.

She’s easing out from under plush quilts and silken coverlets when she feels a heavy arm lock tight around her waist in a piteous attempt to stop her. “Don’ go,” she hears murmured, and looks behind her.

Hien lies in a sprawl on the futon, his hair like a hundred shattered black inkwells pouring forth from his head, strands loose and long and wildly tumbled across the pillows. Moonlight gilds his face and naked chest, making silver out of the gold of his skin and, beneath the bangs strewn along his forehead, his barely-opened eyes.

Odzaya smiles. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Where are you going?” he asks, ignoring her comment, his lips forming lazily around the words. His eyes close only to open once more, a touch wider. Odzaya’s lips curl higher in amusement.

“To the washroom, if you must know.”

Hien hums absently, his eyes fluttering closed under the weight of a deep breath. She thinks he has succumbed to slumber until they slit open again, intent and even more awake. “You will return?”

She sighs. Stubborn dzo of a man, even in the dead of night. “Go to sleep,” she gently commands.

“Return,” he commands back, and tugs at her by way of his hold on her waist, surprisingly strong despite his dazed state. Odzaya huffs laughingly and resists the pull.

“Why? My guest room is just down the hall.” And she should be in it. Should already have been in it, truth be told. And besides… “You,” she says, teasing as she reaches out a hand to pat his chest, “you seem quite done.”

The prince scoffs. “Hardly,” he replies, and Odzaya cocks an eyebrow as he shifts and stretches across the futon in an unexpected show of energy, the coverlets falling away from his torso entirely as his hand finds and fingers at the scales patterning her nude hip. “Simply waiting for my second wind,” he declares, and shoots her a languid, toothy grin.

She laughs. Cannot help but to, with the self-satisfied way he looks at her, still half-held in his dreams. Unabashed and beautiful in the moonlight, his chest and arms and now one sculpted leg exposed to and for her gaze. “Is that so?” she asks, smirking down at him.

“Return,” he entreats again, and beneath the rasp of exhaustion this time lurks a rumble of promise. “I will be here.”

Ready, she swears she hears, though he does not say it.

Odzaya leans over, purple locs falling over one shoulder and down her back to the floor as she stretches and bypasses the spectacle of naked skin before her eyes and reaches instead for the furthest part of him. Her hands find his face, smooth the bangs from his forehead, still tacky with sweat, and cup his bearded cheeks, recent memory recalling the tender abrasion of them on the insides of her thighs. The Kienkan’s master chambers are slightly muggy from the summer’s night and their own play, and her bare skin would feel a chill where her sweat still cools if not for the blankets and Hien’s near heat, concentrated in the broadness of his palm. When he presses himself into her hand, his smile widening, thick brows rising, his arm tightening around her middle with another gentle pull, she smiles back and leans in, brushing her mouth slowly over his.

“We will see,” she whispers in challenge, right into the parted seam of his lips, before letting him go to nab a nearby yukata, tossed earlier to the floor in impassioned abandon. Before Hien can react, she is up and enrobed and opening the shoji of his chambers, tossing her tail and a smirk over her shoulder as she slides it shut to the sight of him still splayed on his bedding, hilariously blinking.

She’s still silently chortling to herself at the spectacle he made as she proceeds down the hall on silent feet, mindful of her presence so close to his rooms. The Kienkan’s available suites are largely empty for the purpose of potentially visiting dignitaries and other important figures such as, apparently, herself, which means that, on most days, the pavilion is, by Hien’s accounts, dreadfully quiet. Yugiri has a room nearby, as is appropriate given her status as her lord’s right-hand shadow, but even she is often off on reconnaissance, as she is now. Hakuro has one as well, as one of his advisor, though he rarely uses it in favor of the nearby barracks, where he can more properly manage the Enclave’s defense forces. And Gosetsu would have had one, had he not chosen the path of pilgrimage. Add the small handful of staff living on the premises, such as Jifuya, and that still leaves near a dozen rooms unoccupied.

Too much lost, she thinks. Doma Castle, Hien once told her, was always lively with the comings and goings of visitors of all various makes; there was rarely a dull day, even with the pall of Garlean occupation hanging over the kingdom’s skies. Even as a young boy with too much energy and enough curiosity for a dozen coeurls, he never had trouble finding ways to occupy and exhaust himself, be it by sitting in on his father’s meetings or his mother’s social calls or Gosetsu’s training sessions.

There is much to occupy him now, too, in the form of the restoration efforts, or contacts with the Alliances, or touching bases with the nearby villages. “And yet,” he said, laughing gaily at himself, “at the end of day, when the night falls and the noise settles and I retire behind these walls, I often find myself restless midst the quiet.” He laughed again. “I suppose I am not all that different from the boy I used to be, after all.”

“Little Master Shun is lonely?” she lightly japed at him, only for her humor to falter when he gave her a fond, bittersweet smile.

“Aye, in my weaker moments, I suppose.”

To say she melted or her heart broke would be overstatement. But perhaps, in her regular visits to Yanxia, she began lingering a touch longer in Doma and at the Enclave, assisting in menial duties. And perhaps she lingered long enough and late enough for it to become rather inconvenient for her to teleport back to Eorzea or even to the Bokairo in Kugane. Faced with the Domans’ insistence on proper hospitality, she accepted a room in the Kienkan instead, and pretended not to be pleased when, instead of a servant, Doma’s prince himself showed up at her door with tea and tray and innocent invitation in hand.

Not quite so innocent an invitation now, more than a year later, but at least he still makes her tea. When and if they actually find the time to drink it, is another tale.

Soon enough, she is relieved and refreshed, and beginning the small trek back to Hien’s chambers, idly wondering if she should expect to be pounced on upon her return. The soft pad of her steps is all her horns can register in the stillness, joined only by the chirp of cicadas, the soft creak of the floorboards-

“Odzaya?”

And a voice that bounces off the walls and freezes her in her tracks, as through that sound quiet, someone distinctly not Hien calls her name.

Odzaya fights the instinct to spin on her heel, and purposely turns herself in the direction of the Kienkan’s sudden new guest, only to blink in surprise. No guest, but rather Yugiri, newly returned from her reconnaissance, it would seem, if her pitch-black shinobi’s uniform is any indicator. Too diligent to wait even for the daylight to return, she muses, and gives the other Raen woman a greeting as she approaches at a steady pace. “And the Lord’s Shadow shows her face. Where all have you been?”

“Everywhere,” she answers, coming to a stop a few fulms away. Hyperbole, it would seem at first glance, until Odzaya notes the rare show of exhaustion in and around her friend’s pale green eyes. “I returned later than planned. Thankfully no one seems to have found trouble in my absence.”

Odzaya smirks. “You mean Hien specifically, I gather.” She tilts her head. “He’s not the type to go looking for trouble, I would think.”

“You are correct. But he also has no habit of discouraging it when it comes looking for him.” Yugiri sighs, exasperated and fond in equal measure, and grants her a small smile of her own. “It does comfort me knowing you are here, however. Few troubles would get by on your watch.”

Especially when I am in the man’s room, Odzaya quips to herself. Outwardly, she shrugs. “I haven’t been here too long, actually. Since late this morning.”

“Ah. Then I gather the Committee has kept you well occupied?”

“The work is never done,” she answers in confirmation. “Fortunately, I do not mind it.” The sense of community is nice, in truth; it reminds her of her childhood on the Steppe. It doesn’t hurt that so much of the Enclave’s restoration is showing subtle Xaelic touches as a result of the tribes’ efforts. The particular way a tarp is stitched or a board is cut or a kettle is made. It is familiar in a way she has deeply missed.

Yugiri’s smile deepens. “Nor do your tribes. We would be in far worse shape without their generous aid over the past year.”

Odzaya shrugs again. “When they’re not busy warring and bickering, they do good work. That I can say with certainty.”

“I know Lord Hien deeply appreciates their efforts, as well as their lively presence. As do I.” Ever the ceremonious, Yugiri takes the opportunity to give her a grateful bow, though she at least keeps it shallow. Odzaya chuckles.

“I’ll believe you about the former, at least.” To her amusement, the other woman only clears her throat in response. “All the same, you’re here now, and your lord is in good health. You should wash up and eat something, at least before you start lying and prostrating yourself before people.”

“Sound advice, if a touch rude,” Yugiri’s eyes narrow over an amused smile that grows by the second. Finally, she shakes her head with a small, low giggle. “I assume you returned from doing something similar?”

“Ah. Yes.” Odzaya nods, and toys with the long eggshell sleeves of the yukata enshrouding her shoulders. “Woke up a bit clammy and thought I would freshen up.” She folds the collar of the robe tighter on her torso, unaware of the rather scandalous gap it made. Strange, it didn’t hang off of her when she first put in on, nor when Hien eagerly unwrapped her from it-

For the second time that night, the Warrior of Light freezes, her eyes falling to her person. She closely examines the sleeves of the yukata, falling well past her hands. And the hem, practically dragging on her heels. And the collar, already poised to gape back open and make a spectacle of her umber chest.

“Shite,” she hisses, and in the ever-so-present silence of the Kienkan, it is a shriek.

Yugiri watches her silently, her arms crossing casually, her expression innocuously blank. Her eyes, however, are keen as ever as they make contact with her own.

Slowly, her lips tug downward.

Shite squared.

Then the shinobi speaks. “You may come out now, my lord.”

Shite cubed.

Maybe her technically-failed studies at the arcanists’ guild paid off, after all.

There is a quiet shuffling at the other end of the hall as the aforementioned lord appears, looking not nearly as sheepish as Odzaya thought he might or as she currently feels. For some inane reason, she half expects him to be wearing her own robe stretched tight over his broad torso. He is not, blessedly; rather, he has donned another, of more intricate make, dyed deep crimson with golden embroidery gathered along the hem and sleeves. The comedic exhaustion that had him in its throes earlier is nowhere to be found; rather, he exudes perfect awareness and composure, his hair tied low and loose with his favored ribbon, the resulting tail falling over his shoulder and down his chest, bordering a generously opened collar. ‘Tis a night for exposing ourselves, Odzaya thinks sardonically, and absently tugs again at her own. Hien catches the motion, his eyes zeroing in on his yukata – on her person – with a delighted sparkle that she almost rolls her eyes at, before he schools his mien into something more befitting their current, mildly panic-worthy situation.

“You have returned to us, Yugiri,” he calls out, his characteristic grin broad as he comes to a standstill at Odzaya’s side. “I trust your mission was a success?”

“It was,” Yugiri answers easily. She bows again, this time far lower. “I will have the necessary documents detailing it all on your desk come the morn.”

“Bah,” he exclaims, waving a hand. “Only after you have properly rested, and no sooner.”

“Of course,” she accepts with her usual grace. “In the meantime, our members of the Eastern Alliance send their regards.”

Hien enthusiastically nods. “We will have to schedule an assemblage soon.”

“By your leave, my lord.” And that is that. It is an utterly normal exchange, and one Odzaya has witnessed at least a half dozen times before. If not for the late bell, the circumstances, and the frown still lingering at the very corners of Yugiri’s mouth, she’d think the encounter hardly worth mentioning.

And yet the gazes of master and retainer remain locked, as if at an impasse, for a handful of heartbeats, until, to Odzaya’s surprise, Hien decisively reaches for and grasps her hand, lacing their fingers together. “T’was by my initiative,” he declares suddenly and simply, and again, the words seem deafening in the silence. His mouth is a soft but unyielding line, his eyes unblinking. “Pray direct any criticisms at me.”

The shinobi remains impassive. “Lord Hien-”

“I love her, Yugiri,” he firmly interrupts, though the ease never leaves his face, and Odzaya’s breath catches quietly in her throat with the beat of her heart. She has heard the words before, generous as he is with them, but to hear them spoken so clearly, without preamble, before an audience, even if only of one…

Yugiri’s eyes minimally widen, though it does not seem to be in surprise so much as acknowledgment. And then they are on her, sudden and inquisitive. “And you?” she asks her, and the question to her horns is almost challenging.

And then she is taken back. To an early morning in late spring, during which the two of them had snuck from the Enclave for a flight over the One River to greet the dawn on yol-back. The excuse had been a lesson; Hien was, after all, still not the best rider, and she was. In the midst of teaching him a maneuver, he had fairly tossed himself into the depths and disappeared, only to reappear an age later as she hovered over the surface, looking for his silhouette, and pull her, yelping in mock indignation, from Sarnai’s back and into the frigid waters with him. A tussle and an impromptu swim eventually found them washing up on the shore, and as he had wiped the excess moisture from her face with a wrung-out handerkerchief, unconvincingly apologetic, she had watched the sun rise across his, illuminating his smile and setting his jade eyes aglow. Mayhap he had witnessed the same on her, because he had paused, his hands two warm, wide pressures on her cheeks, absently stroking the chill from her scales, and murmured something too quiet for her horns to catch before leaning in. The slightest brush of his cool lips against the crest on her forehead, over each eye, down her nose, and by the time he had reached her damp mouth she was already on her toes, aiming for his.

The memory is almost sensory in nature. Almost like the Echo, barring that it is her own mind and she feels no pain at the recollection. But then there has never been any pain in loving him. Not during that morning when she first chose to, and certainly not since.

Odzaya squeezes their laced fingers. “Yes,” she says definitively, “I do,” and feels Hien’s smiling gaze as easily as the tightening of his own grip.

Yugiri’s eyes widen once more. “Oh?”

“Come the lunar new year, I will be participating in the Naadam once more,” she abruptly announces, straightening her spine as she looks the shinobi in the eye. “I will win, and as khagun, I will have my pick of any unspoken-for individual on the Steppe.” She frees herself from Hien’s grip, lifts her hand, and taps the scaled back of it to the center of the prince’s chest, giving the other woman a small, simpering smile. “Hien, being an honorary warrior of the Mol, is included. I will choose him, and by law of the Sun, he will be mine. My lover. My partner. My mate.”

In the ensuing silence of her proclamation, Hien is clearly taken aback. He holds her hand to his chest and steps into her line of sight, locking round eyes with her own. “Odzaya,” he breathes, in a way that makes her face heat and her stomach jump, and opens his mouth to say more –

“Lord Hien.” Until Yugiri interrupts. Her own green gaze is focused on her, far more sharply. “Might I have a private word with your guest?” Odzaya lifts her eyebrows at her phrasing. Hien turns to her.

“Yugiri-”

“Please,” she says, with an authoritativeness she rarely uses, least of all toward her master, though she does still respectfully incline her head. The protest most likely on his lips dies as Hien notes it, and he sighs resignedly.

“Of course,” he allows, though his reluctance is obvious. He shares one last, long look with Odzaya – and accompanies it with one last squeeze of her hand – before turning on his heel, heading, she assumes, back to his chambers to await her once more. The two Raen women do not acknowledge one another until they can no longer hear the pad of his footsteps, and then Odzaya speaks.

“Yugiri-”

“He will ask you for your hand,” the other woman interjects again. “He will ask you to be his queen.” Odzaya sighs.

“I know.”

“Will you accept?”

“Is that not expected if I wish to be with him?”

Yugiri’s eyes narrow. “Is that the only reason? You will rule this country with your desire for him as your only motivation?” The shinobi shakes her head, her gaze severe. “That may be enough on the Azim Steppe, or in Eorzea, but it will not be enough here. Not for Lord Hien, however deeply his own desires run. And not enough for the people to whom his life is committed.” Her crossed arms marginally tense. “You are the Warrior of Light, Odzaya; you have risked your life and given your energies to thousands of other people, dozens of other places. But to pledge yourself to Lord Hien is to pledge yourself to Doma. Do you? Are you prepared to put her and her people first, above the many others?”

“A fair point,” Odzaya concedes. “Yes, I have devoted myself to others; other nations, other causes. It comes with the job.” She folds her own arms across her middle. “But is that wrong? So wrong that I should withdraw from Hien altogether, and take everything marking my devotion here with me?”

Yugiri’s eyes narrow again, this time in question. Odzaya clarifies. “Ishgard is currently in the midst of trade agreements between its knights and Tsuranuki’s smithy, yes?” The crotchety old man is still fighting them at every turn, loath as he still is to see Doma becoming “less self-sufficient,” but he’s coming around. “The agreements are being headed by the Fortemps family, who trusted me when I told them of the benefits such an exchange would bring.”

“I have heard of this,” Yugiri confirms.

“Then you have heard that the Stalls will soon begin receiving regular shipments of Ala Mhigan rock salt, courtesy of dealings I oversaw with Lyse and Raubahn. You have heard that the Botanists’ Guild in Gridania will be purchasing persimmon seeds from Inari, in attempt to create an Eorzean strain.” Odzaya straightens, her red-eyed gaze intent upon the woman opposite her. “And you know that, by my decree as khagun, the Steppe tribes came here, offering resources and labor to assist in Doma’s revitalization. We have traded with you; exchanged hands, currency, and ideas. Should we leave, and take it all back with us? The lumber we cut for your homes, the cloths we sewed for your clothes, the dzo that we gifted to plow your fields? Should I inform Magnai, Sadu, and Cirina, the Qestir and the Kha and the Bolir and the Dazkar, that joining the Eastern Alliance is not, in fact, a sound investment, because the Lord’s Shadow has deemed me unfit to warm his bed?”

“You would do no such thing,” Yugiri boldly surmises. Her eyes, though, hone in further, scrutinizing. Odzaya smirks.

“Of course not.” She uncrosses her arms. “I’m no monster, after all.” She shrugs lightly, and the curve of her mouth softens. “Just a girl in love, I suppose.”

Yugiri doesn’t react; her eyes remain like sheets of Araragi’s best paper: clean, crisp, near razor-sharp, and utterly blank but for the calculation with which she watches her.

And then, all at once, words and feeling form across the parchment, and her friend sighs with a slump of her shoulders and an acknowledging lowering of her gaze.

“Well done,” she concedes, and gifts her a small smile. Odzaya immediately returns it.

“You forget how I was raised, Yugiri. War runs through my veins. I am always prepared to fight for what I consider mine.”

Yugiri hums. “So, you are,” she agrees, before giving her a pointed look. “And exactly how long has my lord belonged to you?”

Odzaya emits surprise. “You mean you truly did not know until now?” The shinobi shrugs.

“I...suspected,” she admits. “Lord Hien has harbored affections for you for some time, and while I witnessed the two of you growing closer in friendship, I could not determine whether or not you felt similarly.”

“Well,” Odzaya replies, and plucks at the collar of Hien’s much larger robe on her person, “I suppose the answer is obvious now.”

“Indeed.” To Odzaya’s amusement, Yugiri’s cheeks blush just the slightest bit pink, though her smile returns, in full force this time. “I apologize for the interrogation, my friend. I am happy for the both of you, as much as I am appreciative of all you have done in providing for Doma.” She rubs at her black-clad arms, just this side of sheepish. “But as I am sure you’re well aware, I am also rather protective of my lord and adopted home. I did not wish to see long-held dreams come true, only for them to be lost to oversight.”

“You worried we were allowing passion to guide our decisions. I understand. But tell me.” Odzaya takes a handful of steps forward. “Near a decade ago, you took the Doman people as your own and made this country your home. Why?”

Yugiri blinks in surprise. “Pardon?”

“Was it by logic? Proximity? A matter of convenience? Did you toss a shuriken at a map? How did you decide that Doma, of all the places throughout Yanxia, would be your home after you left the sea all those years ago?”

Yugiri’s eyes widen in understanding. Odzaya continues. “It was a feeling, was it not? Love for a people that grew in your heart, passion for a cause that ignited your soul.” She lifts her brows. “We are not so different, are we?”

The other Raen woman sighs. “Perhaps not,” she quietly agrees.

Odzaya takes another step forward, until she and other Raen woman stand only a fulm apart. She lifts and turns her hands in invitation, palms facing her own person. The scales on their backs gleam in the moonlight flooding the hall, and she smiles. “Through duty, you fell for these people and became one with them, and you’ve been one with them ever since. Sharing sorrows and joys, hopes and dreams.” She pauses, her mind filling with fond recollections of conversations under the stars. “We have a habit of sharing the same, Hien and I,” she says. She lifts her eyebrows at Yugiri, gently beseeching. “Might I, in proper time, learn to share the same with Doma, as you did?”

To her relief, her friend seems already to have her answer. Yugiri takes the last step forward, and presses the backs of her own hands against hers. “Of course,” she says, with a solemn smile. “There is little, I believe, that would make my lord and the people of Doma – myself included – happier.”

“Are you sure?” Odzaya asks, half-jesting. “I can walk to the washroom without fear that a half-dozen shinobi will be waiting to assassinate me mid-journey?”

“While I would not recommend you traverse these halls with total abandon, I doubt you would have too terribly much to fear if you did,” Yugiri replies, pursing her lips in thought. “If these years have proven anything, it is that you are almost disturbingly difficult to kill.”

Another fair point. “Then what will you do if I do prove unfit to be at Hien’s side?” Odzaya eyes her, legitimately curious. This time, it is Yugiri’s turn to smirk.

“I suppose I will simply have to trust that my future lady will not disappoint.” She flips her hands around to gently clasp Odzaya’s own. “Fortunately, I do not believe that trust will go unrewarded.”

“Mmm.” Another relief, then. Though…Odzaya wrinkles her nose, squeezing the shinobi’s hands. “You won’t really start titling me the way you do Hien, will you?” To her chagrin, Yugiri chuckles.

“It tickles me to know that you detest proper denomination as much as he does,” she says, “if not more. You truly are fit for one another.” With another fond laugh, she steps back, apparently satisfied with their duel and subsequent truce, and turns on her heel to finally head for her chambers.

“Once you have deemed me fit, we will discuss this,” Odzaya calls after her. “I have enough ridiculous honorifics attached to my name; I will not have you adding another!”

“We will see,” the other Raen woman calls back, her voice suggesting a wide grin.

“Shite to the fourth,” Odzaya mutters, shaking her head with a smile that only brightens as she ponders their exchange.

The remainder of her journey back to Kienkan’s master chambers is blessedly uneventful, though she is surprised to see little sign of its occupant; the bedding still lies in a haphazard heap, though her robe has been lovingly folded and put to rest near the small mountain of pillows. The air is also different – a touch cooler, as if a window has been opened to let in the summer night’s breeze.

And then she sees that, in essence, one has, as her gaze finds the open screens leading onto the veranda. A shadow casts itself on the paper panels, familiar in size and shape, and she purses her lips in question and follows the now near-deafening cacophony of cicadas, her interest piqued.

As soon as her foot touches upon the polished wood, Hien is looking up at her expectantly. He grins. “Ah. I was beginning to wonder if I would need to rouse the guard.”

“Worried my encounter with your shadow would bring the Kienkan down around your ears?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow. He lounges casually, his legs crossed at the ankle as he leans back on his hands, the tail of his hair dancing on the breeze’s current. She makes her way to his side and goes to ease herself down next to him, only to let out a startled, gasping laugh when he immediately nabs her around the waist and hoists her into his silk-lined lap, his legs folding agura to create the perfect seat. So settled, he encases her in his arms and rests his chin on the top of her head, humming once.

“T’would be a shame to lose two homes I‘d wished to share with my ‘mate’, yes.”

Odzaya‘s heart gives a resounding, telltale beat, her cheeks warming. She contentedly lays her back against his chest, her hands coming to rest on his forearms, her tail draping itself over a knee. “That appealed to you, did it?” she asks. Hien’s chin migrates from her head to her shoulder, his hair tickling her neck. She angles herself to meet his gaze, and finds his as warm and dark as the summer night.

“Beyond words,” he says quietly, intensely. In contrast to his eyes, his smile is bright as the moon. “Did you mean it?”

This time her heart skips right over the beat. She simpers. “Silly Fire Walker,” she whispers, teasing. “You should know by now that we of the Steppe say nothing we do not mean.”

Hien kisses her almost before she can finish, the curve of his smile an imprint on her lips as he tilts her chin and his own to angle them closer together. “We have never spoken,” he murmurs, “of a future so definitively before.” He catches her lips and hums again, his gaze half-lidded and captivating. “How proud I would be,” he breathes in the scarce margin between them, “to belong to the Steppe’s greatest khagun.”

Perhaps the idea appeals to her, too, more than she anticipated, because she brings their mouths back together with a force that takes even her aback, her hand finding the tail of his hair and using it to tug him even closer, her mouth falling open to catch the surprised huff of his laughter, to meet the lap of his tongue as he seeks out her own. His comforting hold on her waist becomes an iron grip on her hips, and she feels the flex of his arms as he effortlessly lifts and twists her in his lap, her knees landing on either side of his thighs.

She sits, and makes a breathless discovery.

“Oh,” Odzaya utters, and rests her forehead against Hien’s with a smile. “Someone found his second wind, after all.”

Hien’s grin is lascivious. “T’was a promise, yes?” A promise he intends to keeps, if the sneak of his fingers into her – his – robe, is any indication, calluses and blunt nails catching at the border where her skin meets scale. “I hope you will keep yours come the new year.”

“Careful Yugiri doesn’t overhear you sounding so eager,” Odzaya warns with a chortle, cupping his face in her hands. “Our discussion went well, but I suspect she worries that I might just steal you away one of these days.” Scraping her nails idly along the curve of his bearded jaw, she watches Hien’s eyes slide shut as he leans back with a quiet groan, and the sight and sound ignites her blood and tumbles like liquid down her spine.

“I have thought about it,” he admits, “in my weaker moments. Alone after an Alliance meeting concluded, or at my desk, my only company a veritable mountain of paperwork. Daydreams, instances when my mind wandered and inevitably found you.”

“Daydreams, hm?” Odzaya smirks. Hien must somehow hear it in her voice, because he grins.

“Aye. Of holding your hand, of traveling with you and your Scions as an adventurer. Of living on the Steppe, and kissing you beneath that boundless sky every day.” He tugs her closer, and his questing fingers tighten on her scales until her breath catches. “Of touching you under the stars,” he murmurs. “Of making you mine on the moonlit grass, and then becoming yours by dawn’s light.”

Her heart pounding like a Xaelic drum, Odzaya hums. “Your daydreams are not far off, I would say,” she muses. “In essence, you are a part of the Steppe, adopted as you were by the Mol. And the Mol and Malaguld have merged into the Enclave so well, I almost forget its inhabitants are not of them.”

An irresistibly soft look comes to Hien’s eye as he opens them. “Are you saying you see those of the Enclave as your tribe?”

Odzaya’s smirk curls higher. “There are a number of tribes I call my own these days, all connected, from one tip of Eorzea to the far end of Othard.” She caresses his cheek, softening herself when he nuzzles into her palm. “T’would be nice, I think,” she suggests, bold and yet bashful, “if I could call the Doman people mine, too.”

“Mm. Kami know that I already am,” he returns, pressing a heated kiss to her palm. Odzaya snickers.

“Not ‘til the Naadam, you’re not, if we are still seeking to be ‘definitive’.”

“Bah! Away with officialisms!” Odzaya laughs harder as Hien hauls her into him, her near-exposed chest pressing so intimately to his own that she swears she can feel the confident beat of his heart, his warmth seeping into her skin. He wraps his arms firmly about her waist, his expression almost deathly serious, though his eyes sparkle with jest. “I declare it now, before the moon and stars, and the sun come morn. I am yours, and you are mine. Agreed?”

“What about a ceremony?” she asks, ignoring the flutter of her heart as she notes how closely his words come to those spoken between lovers on the Steppe. Hien’s answering grin makes her wonder if he knows it, too.

“Come winter’s end, I will approach my advisors,” he begins. He gives another kiss to her palm where it still cradles his cheek. “I will inform them of my choice for Doma’s next queen. They will rejoice, as they should, there will be a ceremony, and we and our many connected tribes will live happily ever after.”

Odzaya freezes. Is this how he felt, hearing her plans as she spoke them to Yugiri? His breath leaving him in a rush, his heart pounding so loudly he swore it could be heard across the entirety of Yanxia’s countryside? Joy, rising through him with so much heat and power it seemed at any moment it would leak out of his skin as sunlight, pour from his mouth as song?

What actually comes out of her is a whisper. In the silence, it is a scream.

“Agreed,” she breathes.

Hien presses his forehead to hers, closing his eyes and humming so deeply in satisfaction she feels the vibration through every bone in her body. “Agreed,” he repeats, tugging her impossibly closer.

“You will remove this from me, now?” she suggests, brow lifting as she tugs at the yukata still stubbornly hanging from her shoulders. Hien beams.

“Of course, my intended,” he says, his fingers already going to work. “You did return, after all.”

[livvyplaysfinalfantasy]

The last section of the 4.2 main scenario, with most of the plot development out of the way, involves further insight into Asahi sas Brutus and his motivations. We've learned that he has come supposedly to negotiate peace between Doma and the Empire, plus many reasons to doubt his sincerity. But as a bit of a distraction from the political discussions, Asahi asks that you, Alisaie and Yugiri accompany him for a tour around the very region where he grew up. This tour passes uneventfully at first, with Asahi remarking at several points how Garlean rule ultimately affected Doma for the worse.

No kidding.

But as you make your way to the town of Namai, you find Isse and Azami in the road, being accosted by Kojin of the Red. These Kojin were Yotsuyu's former mercenaries. Asahi is first to spring to the children's defense - and when the Kojin are defeated, with your and Alisaie's and Yugiri's help, he's also the first to comfort Azami. He refers to the Kojin's murderous behavior as "desperation", and "mismanagement" on the Empire's part. When Yugiri finally calls him out at 11:18 for taking such an apparently dim view of the Empire despite allying with it, he says that it's crucial to "look beyond narrow allegiances," and that the only way to change the Empire is not through external conflicts but through "change from within."

This then prompts a choice in the Warrior of Light's dialogue that, like similar branching points, feels entirely too binary to be of much use: either you agree wholeheartedly with Asahi's stated goal of internal (read: nonviolent) change of an evil empire, or you state that the Empire will never change at all. That the first choice is even offered in the first place seems to downplay everything that the Garlean Empire has stood for thus far in XIV's entire storyline, particularly in 4.0. We have seen absolutely no indication that the Garlean Empire, as a figure of imperialism, will ever change without direct opposition, because Garlemald would have to stop being an empire for it to change in any meaningful way. Similarly, while we have seen plenty of good and honest and noble Garlean characters, they have all chosen to forsake the Empire expressly because of its imperial policies; in all the years of XIV's story, we know of absolutely no one within the Empire who would be able to bring about the kind of internal change Asahi is describing, except for maybe Asahi himself, and that's assuming the player has completely missed every single villain cue thus far. On the other hand, while it is true that the Garlean Empire will (by definition of it being an empire) never change, this response seems to conflate all Garleans with imperials - an implication that’s furthered when Asahi immediately compares Ishgard's reformation to a wholly theoretical Garlean reform, which feels completely irrelevant to the question at hand. No matter how awful Ishgard's thousand-year theocratic rule was, no matter the atrocities it inflicted upon dragons, Ishgard’s steadfast isolationism was not comparable to Garlemald’s aggressive expansionist policy in any real and meaningful way.

Back at the Doman enclave, Hien is apprised of the Red Kojin's attack. Of course, neither he nor the others seem to be able to decide whether or not to trust Asahi. That said, Hien believes that the Garlean ambassador's demands will be easy enough to meet: the Domans do not practice summoning, and the stores of aether in the Kojin's sacred relics will take a long time to be restored. As Hien sees it, the only other "unfinished business" left to attend to is Yotsuyu's fate.

And so he enters the chambers where Gosetsu and Yotsuyu are being held, and he draws his katana with the intention of killing her. As he speaks to her deliberately for the first time in the entire patch, he says that she "should be at the bottom of the river" despite her tragic life. Again, Yotsuyu still has no memory of her past actions. Gosetsu argues on her behalf, saying that the "sins" of Doma's occupation lie with both those who gave the orders and the soldiers who carried them out, and that Yotsuyu has no sin to atone for without the memory of her crimes. This explanation completely bypasses the notion that not all of the cruelties that took place in Doma came from the Empire, or even as a result of war: it absolves Yotsuyu's family of their abuse, and it absolves Jifuya again of enslaving Yotsuyu. This distinction is important, considering so much of 4.1's main scenario focused on the flaws in Ala Mhigan politics and society that existed both before and after the Empire. The fact that hardly any attention is paid by comparison to the apparently deeply entrenched mistreatment of women like Yotsuyu, and that none of Doma's main cast see it as a priority to be addressed, makes this entire arc and its notions of morality feel that much more arbitrary. In the end, Hien listens to Gosetsu as the old samurai explains that he believes it to have been "the will of the kami" for Yotsuyu to be given a chance at a new life without the memories of her sins: speaking once more to Gosetsu, he says that Yotsuyu's life "is [Gosetsu's] to safeguard," furthering the idea that even in what is supposed to be her second chance, Yotsuyu's life is not really her own.

Try as I might, I can't come to grips with Hien in this scene; there's no way for me to examine his actions without thinking he comes off as pointlessly unkind. Maybe there would be more understanding of Hien's behavior if the story addressed what he might be thinking. After all, he's confronted with the woman who did so much harm to him, to his loved ones, and to his countrymen; her arrival has thrown into question his plans for Doma's continued peace. But Hien's pain is not ever the focus of this story arc, and it's at odds with 4.2's portrayal of Yotsuyu as a pathetic figure who's capable and maybe worthy of redemption.

As the peace negotiations continue soon thereafter, Hien comes clean about Yotsuyu's state and proposes that she will be turned over as a prisoner only if she manages to regain her memory by the time the exchange occurs. (The overacting of "dango" here, and in later cutscenes, has become an inside joke among me and @traversingtherealm and others.) Regardless, Asahi goes to meet with Yotsuyu in private... and though they are gone for a long time, he offers no objections as to the state of their arrangement when he returns, agreeing that she has indeed lost her memory.

It's when you escort Asahi back to the Garlean airship that things get really interesting. In the midst of a private farewell to the Warrior of Light, he at last drops all pretense of joviality and goes - for lack of any better description - feral. He calls you "savior of the savages" and threatens you with "a reckoning," and from there you're launched into an Echo vision of an event from Asahi's past two years ago. Asahi participated in the bitter reprisal against Doma's revolution efforts - thereby proving that his supposed concern over Doma's state during his tour around Yanxia was a lie, since he was there while it happened - and he was cornered by samurai and shinobi. Only through pure luck did Zenos yae Galvus happen to stumble upon the battle and take down every Doman, to a man. A Doman soldier described this moment during 4.0's story as the point at which Zenos slew countless trained samurai and took up the katana for the first time. True to form, Zenos bears no interest for the soldier whose life he saved and is focused only on where he can find a formidable opponent - and an awestruck Asahi informs him that of Lord Kaien's continued rebellion, thereby showing us that Asahi may be indirectly related to the circumstances of Hien's father's death.

Upon returning from the vision, it becomes clear that that moment bore a great significance not only for Zenos and for Doma but for Asahi, who is staring at you with murderous intent for having been the one to kill his "lord." He goads you to strike him and thereby jeopardize Doma's prospects for peace. Ultimately you do nothing - and neither does Hien, even once you tell him that Asahi has been misrepresenting himself and his motivations throughout the entirety of the negotiations. The return of Doman prisoners of war has become top of mind for Hien, and rightly so - however, while Hien does not by any means trust Asahi, he is nonetheless determined to "play his game" to secure the prisoners' freedom and will make preparations just as he and Asahi agreed.

As far as Asahi goes... after having over a year to reflect on him, I can't entirely say for certain if I would have enjoyed his character more if the 4.2 story had been different. I'm intrigued by his connection to Zenos, and I think that his role as a purveyor of information about differing Garlean factions is fascinating - especially since he is so obviously not a trustworthy source of other information. That said, I can't reconcile these concepts with the knowledge that he was complicit in Yotsuyu's abuse - and it's difficult for me to enjoy him as a villain knowing that his existence contributes to an inability for her character to grow on both a textual and metatextual level.

The 4.2 story wraps up on that relative cliffhanger, with a couple of scenes to hint at what may be coming for the future. For starters, Asahi is thoroughly pleased with how things went, which can't be good for us. While Asahi met with Yotsuyu, he gave her a strange mirror - and alone in her chambers, she uses that mirror to try her hardest to remember who she is.

Meanwhile, in the Garlean capital, we see our first glimpse at... someone who may or may not be Zenos yae Galvus recovering in a medical wing, with heavy bandages around the neck that Zenos himself slit atop the Royal Menagerie.