Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Leviathan isn't lost, she's just taking the scenic route.

Or her summoner is, anyway. Farah isn't exactly fond of the idea of being used as a siege engine for war, nor were her progenitors. The motes of water had collectively chosen to fuck right off from Valisthea nearly a thousand years ago, take on a new name, and keep the massive sea serpent that occasionally showed up amongst their number firmly under wraps. 

Until some waterlogged tart in a low cut shirt showed up on the shores of Madain Sari while Farah was busy trying to remember which way was north. 

Again, not lost.

His hand is turning to stone, which is annoying. He's delirious and yammering at the bloody moon. Ignoring her completely. Also annoying.

Farah reaches down and feels around in his energy field for the requisite weirdness causing the problem. She finds… a lot. Several varieties of weird that makes the giant fuckoff sea dragon living in her body sit up and take note. Farah's long since figured out how to ignore her though, and manages to find the thing causing the problem with a little more patting around. She yanks the curse out of him before it starts interfering with his ability to do important things like breathe or send signals to his nerve endings. 

And he thanks her by immediately passing out.

The guy is enormous. Big enough to give her boss a run for his money. She's a strong woman but she'd be hard pressed to carry him all the way back to town by herself. 

She drags him by his stupid little cape up the beach past the tide mark. There's not much in the way of fuel to start a fire here but she manages to assemble something that will at least ward off the chill and dry off Mr. Cleavage, and keep the animals from bugging her. 

She looks at him in the firelight. Messy dark hair, pale as a ghost, big nasty scar from cheek to shoulder. 

"Well." She says, looking up at Metia. "The fuck am I 'sposed to do with this?"

Leviathan grumbles unhelpfully. 

Clive doesn't expect to wake up. He does anyway.

He's still on the beach, but it's daylight, and the ache in his arm is gone, as is Ultima's power, and the Phoenix. 

He'd put the Phoenix back in Joshua. He'd used Ultima to destroy Origin, but it had still been there , under his skin as he lay dying. Now there was just an absence.

All other Eikons accounted for. Ifrit feeling oddly sated for the first time, as opposed to his usual restless energy clamoring for use. Like Torgal after an elk bone and a good scratch. The beast inside Clive's body is calm, if not quite asleep.

He sits up, groaning, body still protesting from the fight. Clive is almost thankful for the pain, convincing him that he hadn't dreamt the entire battle. No, he had definitely fought, definitely watched Ultima die, definitely smashed the final crystal to bits with the stolen power.

He could still be dreaming, though. He doesn't recognize the birds circling overhead, or the precise shade of aquamarine the water has taken on. He certainly doesn't understand what he's seeing when a young woman's head emerges from the water, followed by the rest of her, strolling up the sand. She's glowing blue, her arms look like they have fins for a moment before the light flickers out. 

"Hope you're hungry." She says, so casually it's nearly jarring. "I was going to wait until you woke up but I'm fuckin' starved." 

"I'm-" Clive blinks. She's holding a net with some kind of fat fish inside. The glowing, emerging from the ocean like she'd just been taking a casual walkabout, the fins. She'd looked like a dominant who had semi-primed.

But there were no more dominants, other than him and Joshua, if Joshua was even still alive. For all he knows, Clive may have only reconstituted his little brother's corpse. 

Or maybe Clive is dead and this is the afterlife. Maybe this woman is Great Greagor welcoming him into her bosom or some such religious nonsense he never bothered to take the time to learn. He'd never have pictured the Goddess to be quite so muscular or covered in tattoos, though. 

The woman, maybe in her mid twenties with a tail of sandy brown hair pulled over one shoulder and more skin on display than he's used to seeing at once, flops down beside him with her catch. Her sandalled feet crossing at the ankle as she pulls a knife out of her belt and starts cleaning the fish between them.

"Who are you?" 

She hums, her accent is strange. Her letters flattened in places he doesn't expect. "Right. Manners. I'm Farah. Leviathan, if you're sitting here wondering why your Eidolon is being weird."

Eidolon? "Eikon?"

"Whatever you want to call the elemental spirit using your body as a sleeping bag." One of her hands waves, the other one cuts fish and tosses guts out to the crowding gulls further down the beach. "Fire, right? Would you mind…?"

She indicates the smoldering pit in front of them.

Clive finds the flame comes to him just as easily as it had before. He had expected it to resist him, to exact a toll on his body like it did for every other bearer or dominant who drew on raw aether for their needs. After Ultima's toll was paid he thought whatever resistance he'd had to the curse would have all but evaporated.

But there's no pain. No hesitation. Just heat and light and burning twigs and dry beach grass to cook the chunks of fish she's skewered on a sharp stick. 

"Leviathan is supposed to be lost." He says, watching her spin the skewer over the flame. "He hasn't been seen in hundreds of years."

"That's by design. She wasn't interested in drowning coastal towns in the name of some uppity king. Or we weren't, anyway. The Tidemother is pretty unspecific about her opinions at the best of times." 

Clive watches her shove fish in her mouth, takes the offered portion in limp hands.

"Why am I alive?" He finally asks when she's consumed the rest. 

"Philosophy isn't my strong suit." She says. 

"I was turning to stone from the bearers curse not hours ago." He thinks he must sound irritated, he is irritated. This woman, a dominant, has been left unscathed by Ultima's reach, ignorant of everything that has been happening for the past two decades on the other side of the blue gulf before them. 

"Oh, that. Yeah I fixed it."

"You… fixed it." 

"Petrification is old hat. Panacea spell cleared it up." She leans back on her elbows, relaxed as you please watching the gulls fight over the discarded fish head. "It was attached to one of your Eidolons, I think. The thing felt weird and I couldn't get rid of one without the other. Figured you'd rather be alive and missing one of your collection than dead and hoarding wardens." 

Clive is aware that he's staring. Staring and absorbing the information given by this absolutely baffling woman. 

" How ?"

"Magic?" She shrugs. "I dunno the theoretical bits but in practice you just kinda fuck with the energy until it does what you want. Kyva would know better." 

"With no crystal? If you're the Eikon of water you shouldn't be able to use other elements."

She looks at him like he's gone cross-eyed. "I mean, your body is mostly water. Energy sorta flows like blood." 

"The Phoenix has domain over healing." He states. It was a fact, something everyone knew. 

"Does he now? Huh. Well I'll let Levi know." She looks down at her own torso, lifting her shirt to reveal more tattoos, including one wrapping around and up her body with a recognizable head. "No more healing, tidemother. The driftwood says that's Phoenix's thing." 

Clive is speechless. He opens his mouth despite his lack of words, closes it, and worries at the skewered fish between his fingers.

"What's your name, Driftwood?"

"Clive."

"Well, Clive , if you're done looking gift-chocobos in the beak we should probably get you somewhere you can wash the sand out of your ass and then find you a way home. Hm?"

She takes a somewhat circuitous route back to town, having to climb up a hill to find the road again. Farah had been absolutely positive that she hadn't been that far up the coast but apparently her feet had taken her a good clip before she came across her foundling. 

Said foundling, Clive, is stoically silent as she marches them all the way to the stone walls of Madain Sari proper, like a leather-clad ghost that's glommed onto her personage.

One that everyone in town can see, apparently. So at least she's confirmed that she's not hallucinating or dead. That would have put a serious damper on her good mood.

Nobody says anything, but one of the kids runs up the road towards Old Baku's house, which is a bad sign. The man is going to have more than a few words for her in the near future. Likely the same ones he had yesterday that had her going for her walk in the first place, before the answer to her problems presented itself like flotsam on the sand.

Priorities, though. She kicks open the door to her apartment and waves her erstwhile companion inside. 

"Bathroom's over there. Should be enough water in the hopper for a shower. If you need more just shout. I can refill it. I'll get lunch. If you hear screaming just ignore it." 

The man looks like he's coming down from a particularly nasty high. Walking through a fog, he follows her instructions and passes through the curtained side door into the shower. Farah, meanwhile, throws herself onto the couch and paws around for the mango she distinctly remembers falling between the cushions at some point yesterday. A pre-lunch snack is what she needs, no doubt about it. 

Shes picking fuzz off of her prize when the front door flies open. 

"And just where the hell were you?!"

Baku's bulk takes up the doorway more efficiently than her raggedy excuse for a front door ever could. The man is built like a brick shithouse. 

"Out." She says. "Busy." She adds, as he squeezes her way into her home like an overweight cat through the gap in a fence. 

"And what the fuck is this I'm hearing about a guest!?"

"Found a dude washed up on the beach while I was Out and Busy." Farah digs her nails into the mango, peeling the skin away. 

The aforementioned dude shoves open the curtain, one hand on the nasty looking sword and the other on the frog he's gotten unhitched from his back. Naked from the waist up. The low cut leather shirt hadn't left much to the imagination, vacuum-sealed as he was inside the damned thing, but it's no less nice to look at without. 

Priorities .

"I said to ignore the screaming." She says. "Clive, Boss, Boss, Clive."

"The fuck are you?"

Baku is so polite, it's a wonder anyone listens to him. "Fire Eidolon." Farah supplies.

"What?!" 

"Alexander's nutsack, Baku, the man needs a minute!" She tosses her half peeled mango at her chief, pinging him on the shoulder. Farah doesn't stand, because it wouldn't put her at a much more level playing field with the man and would just make the yelling even louder. 

"I apologize for the intrusion." Clive says, evenly. "I'll be returning home as soon as I can commission a boat."

Baku looks from Clive, back to Farah, gaze lingering suspiciously.

"This isn't over, Farah." He says, finally deciding that the confrontation isn't worth having in front of a foreigner. "You stay in town."

Farah sucks her teeth, putting her feet up on the table and crossing her arms. "I'll take your request under advisement."

Baku gives her a look sour enough to curdle milk, but leaves her house with the rattle of a slammed door. 

"That man is… very loud." Clive says.

It surprises a bark of laughter out of her. "Oh, that was nothing. He's a regular fog-horn when I get him going. Absolutely terrible. Don't know how he managed to snag a wife with all that blustering but apparently he was something back in the way back." 

The wife being someone Farah's going to need to talk to very shortly. Kyva should be able to convince her husband- and everybody else- not to chuck Clive into the sea like a bad catch. Farah isn't one to appeal to religion but she's fairly certain the keeper of the Eidolon Wall won't be too keen on murdering a summoner just because he's a foreigner. 

Maybe.

Clive can hear the yelling from the floor below. Sitting with a plump older woman who's determined to feed him tea and biscuits and see him clothed in something that will keep the heat off. He hadn't thought he'd need it, having spent a fair amount of time in the desert, but the humidity here made his skin itch under his usual garb and everyone seemed to know it.

"Should we not check on them?" He asks, concerned at the alarming sound of shattering pottery. 

"Mm? Oh no, dear. They'll wear themselves out soon enough." The woman, Kyva, shuffles through a stash of brightly dyed fabric, pulling loose a pair of baggy red and grey trousers and a long sash. 

These belonged to one of her many sons, she'd explained, before they'd grown as large as their father.  Clive wonders at how the island is able to support six men of that size. 

Or how none of them had managed to inherit their mother's miniscule stature. The woman barely reaches his chest, and even that is only with the aid of a pile of dark braids amassed on top of her head. 

"They do this often?"

"About once a week. Twice if Farah's really digging her heels in. Spirits know where that girl gets all her stubbornness from. Ah- this should do." A shirt is added to the pile, pale grey linen and sleeveless. 

"She certainly seems…" another crash. Furniture being broken. "Spirited." 

"I would say it was her Eidolon, but the other summoners all seemed to be as placid as a tidepool. No, that girl's nature is just a little wilder than most. Always has been." She hands him the bundle and he's directed toward a curtained off room. Another bathing chamber like the one he'd made use of in Farah's house. It had taken him a moment to work out how the system functioned, with a pulley that sent water down from above into a stone tub. He was used to baths, or a basin and washcloth at most inns.

He changes out of his father's old clothes and into the provided linen. Emerging in time to see Farah come up over the landing with a reddening bruise under one eye and a split lip. Baku follows with a bleeding and broken nose.

"You get that out of your system?" Kyva asks.

Baku grunts, Farah claims a full teacup and sips it while shoving her hand against her opponent's nose. There's a sickening crunch of cartilage and then he's as good as new. 

"We need to get him back home. I can take him-"

"You're not leaving the goddamned island!"

"Fuck off!"

Kyva stands, grabbing both of them by the ears and yanking. "Enough!"

There's some pained hissing but otherwise the two cease their bickering. 

"I apologize for their manners." Kyva says. "Though it does beg the question, what do we do with you? We've survived as long as we have by isolating ourselves from the rest of the world. You could return to your kingdom and tell everyone what you've found."

Clive understands the risk. It was one he had taken with every person he let into the hideaway, everyone who left and returned could be followed by an enemy, or used as a pawn against him.

"I wouldn't." He says, honestly. "I have no reason to. It was an accident that I happened to wash up here."

Kyva looks at him, her flinty gaze probing. "I don't believe in accidents. A summoner of one of the dormant Eikons arriving on the island inhabited by one believed to be lost? This, I think, is fate." 

Clive has had enough fate to last several lifetimes. He wants to go home, to make his own choices for however many years he has left. He wants to figure out whatever the hell it was that was between him and Jill. Had it only been a bond forged from trauma or something more? And did Joshua survive? Did he make it out? Did Dion? 

The answers to his questions were an ocean away. 

"I'd say it's a sign that we've been out of the world too long." Farah says, more serious than he's heard her in their short time together. "Leviathan has been hiding for a millenia, the world has gone on without us."

Baku growls, shaking his large head. "A strategy that has kept us and the tidemother free and safe."

"Safe sure. But free?"

"Free from the oligarchs and sycophants that would use us!"

"Use me!" Farah stands, turning on the large man. "The last time I checked, chief , I was the one playing host to an Eidolon. I'm the one at risk!"

"And you could be used against us!" Baku slams a fist on the table, making the teacups clatter warningly.

Farah, growling out a curse, flattens her features into something stern and guarded, but doesn't throw back another retort. She just turns on her heel, rushing out of the room. Clive hears the front door slam shut. 

Farah doesn't leave town. Baku probably has tattle tales posted everywhere to keep her from leaving anyway. It's not worth the effort.

Instead, she stalks the perimeter, feeling more and more like a rat in a cage. She eventually winds her way around to the place she always ends up when she's lacking in options.

The Eidolon wall is at the edge of town, surrounded by the oldest buildings that mark where her predecessor's made landfall so long ago. Red rocks rise up in a nearly perfect cylinder, painted with every Eidolon the summoners were aware of. Stelae every few feet are carved with the names of Leviathan's past hosts. 

Farah doesn't know why she consistently picks a place full of reminders of her own inadequacy to sulk, but somehow her feet always take her here and she always ends up feeling vaguely less irritated after an hour or two amongst the art. Maybe it's Leviathan inside her, enjoying reminiscing on her… siblings? Friends? Coworkers? The relationships between Eidolons have never been perfectly clear, but she supposes the interpersonal dramas of the gods aren't exactly the business of mortals.

The wall itself doesn't do much to make it any clearer. Staring at the serpent's pointed face picked out in phthalo green against the rocks, Farah exhales gustily, dropping her forehead against the stone.

"Well, Levi? Any ideas?"

The tidemother shifts under her skin, restless. The fight with Baku didn't soothe her, or the conversation after. Kyva hadn't said anything to reassure her either. 

Leviathan hadn't been known to spur wanderlust in her summoners, at least none of them had ever suggested feeling the call to leave the island. No, Farah was the only person who felt the itch under her skin to run. To do more than bless her home with fair tides and protection from storms. 

It's selfish. It's also, she thinks, the only way forward. More and more often there have been foreign ships sighted beyond the reefs, far enough away that they wouldn't be able to spot Madain Sari in its sheltered bay, but still too close for comfort. It was a matter of time before the world came knocking, and Farah would much rather be the one to do the knocking herself.

She'd gently harassed Clive for information. What was the state of the world beyond their island? How many Eidolons were currently awake? What had he been doing that had him washing up on some nowhere spit of land in the middle of the sea?

There had been a war. He was carrying most of the Eidolons himself now, with the exception of the Phoenix and her own. A grand total of six knocking around inside him, though the only one he seemed to be bonded with was Ifrit. Some kind of God had tried to kill him for his body, but Clive had killed it first and stolen its power to destroy a thing called "Origin" and stop something called "Blight" from spreading. 

She would have called him full of shit if he hadn't said the whole thing with a straight face and a look in his eyes like he needed a stiff drink and a nap. 

All that while she'd been worrying about the fisheries and getting laid by someone who wouldn't go bragging about having bagged the tidemother. 

The stelae have names and achievements of the last dozen summoners in their line, mostly things like stopping a tidal wave or restoring the barrier reefs. Her predecessor built a system of aqueducts and plumbing for the whole town, a machine that pulls the salt out of seawater and makes it drinkable. Someone else set up a clinic and trained healers. A few generations back, a Leviathan figured out how to grind grain using the tides to spin a mill. Civic innovations. Important, sure, but Farah is closing in on her thirties with nothing to her name but street brawls with the chief and a reputation for having a terrible sense of direction. 

The Eidolon wall is vacant this time of day, with her lonely exception, so she doesn't feel awkward for laying flat on her back and staring up at the cloudless sky and listening to the ocean breathe in the distance. 

She's interrupted by the crunch of footsteps at the entrance, but decides she's not getting up. It's not Baku, he'd have already started cursing, or Kyva, because Farah would be able to smell the heady incense that seems to cling to the caretaker's person from two blocks away. 

"That can't be comfortable."

Ah. Clive.

"If you clear out the particularly pointy rocks it's pretty great." She replies. 

"Kyva said I'd find you here."

"Congratulations on your great success."

"She also said I should ask you about the wall."

Farah snorts, turning her head from the sky to look at her visitor. He's getting a sunburn on his nose. Can fire eidolons burn? "She knows more than I do."

He shrugs. "I'm just repeating what I've been told."

She sighs, bringing her hands together over her sternum. She doesn't need to see the wall to clearly picture the composition in her mind's eye. The bright pigment swept over rusty red rock, figures grouped and interacting in concert with one another. "Alright. Sure. Crash course then. Left to right: Atomos. Fenrir and Shiva; they're supposed to be buddies. Carbuncle and Bahamut are both light Eidolons. Alexander and Odin, who apparently aren't fans of one another. Phoenix and Ifrit, obviously related, then Yours Truly. Then Titan, Ramuh, and Garuda. Ramuh is supposed to mediate shit between the two. And Necron. Can't forget him."

"There are so many of them." Clive says, quiet enough that the usually echoing space absorbs most of the sound. She can hear him walking the circumference of the space, pausing, continuing. He speaks a few things to himself as he walks, nothing she attempts to pick out over the sound of the ocean or the birds. He can speak up if he wants her scanty religious lessons.

"Does Necron have another name?" He asks after reaching the end and lingering in silence for far longer than she expects.

"The Anti-life. Warden of Entropy. The Last Eidolon. Probably some other shit but, again, Kyva knows more."

More silence. Farah closes her eyes and stretches out in the dirt, basking like a lizard. It's a wonder she's not the fire Eidolon of the two of them, she's always enjoyed being uncomfortably toasty by other people's standards. Baking in the sun like a beached whale. 

Or a beached sea-snake, she supposes.

"Ultima?"

"Huh?"

"Necron. Was he ever called Ultima?" 

Farah decides she's not going to be able to have this conversation on her back. Talking about the inevitable end of mankind is the kind of thing that requires sitting, at the very least, standing preferably. "Ehn. Maybe. Necron's a weird one. Nobody's ever actually summoned him, as far as we know, he's just… I dunno? There , I guess. A reminder that everything ends somehow."

Clive looks sort of haunted. More haunted than he already looked after waking up on that beach, which was saying something. He's staring at the painting, all blue and black and white. Multiple arms and wings of some persuasion, blue eyes shining, floating menacingly on a splotch of dark stone. Necron has a whole lot going on for a being meant to embody the Big Zero.

"I killed him."

"Fuck off you killed him." She laughs. "You killed the embodiment of the end of the world?"

"That's who's power you… removed ." He looks down at himself. Frowning.

 Clive had no reason to lie, at least not that she's aware of. He could just be making shit up for clout, she supposes, but he looks a bit too fucked up about this for it to be a ploy to get into her pants.

"Well fuck me running." She says. "That was the god then?"

He nods. 

"Huh." She repeats. "Weird."

"Is everything weird to you?"

"When it comes to you?" She sucks her teeth, "Yeah."

He laughs, barely, a sort of weatherbeaten sound that seems involuntary on his part. 

"So now what? You stabbed the Last Eidolon to death. How are you going to top that?" 

He sighs, swiping his hand over the painted stone and turning away from it. Clive looks, suddenly, very tired. "Hopefully I won't have to. I'm fairly sure that overthrowing several kingdoms and destroying the status quo for thousands of people is going to be the work of several lifetimes."

"You did it for the mages, yeah?" She leans against Titan's umber shaded leg.

"Bearers, we call them, but yes. And my brother." 

"The Phoenix."

"Yes. If he's even still alive…" 

She gives Clive's shoulder an awkward pat. "Phoenix is the Warden of Rebirth. You shoved all of that into someone who wasn't even cold yet."

He looks at her, mouth thinned into a tense little line, eyes scanning her face like he thinks she's lying. The guy has eyes that could look through a person, she thinks, and Leviathan uncurls ever so slightly under her skin as if trying to get a good look at the other Eidolon.

Her hand is still on his arm, fuck he's warm. 

"Thank you, Farah." He says, "That… that helps. Really."

She huffs, averting her eyes and pushing off the wall. "Yeah, well… don't thank me yet."

Madain Sari doesn't have any inns, and so Clive finds himself sleeping on Farah's couch for the next week or so.

He learns very quickly that the woman spends her days in a role similar to his own at the hideaway. She goes out and solves problems for her town, while Baku takes the role of Otto and keeps the day to day business of the place running. 

They fight over everything, everything , except for the needs of their people. Bearers and non-bearers alike are respected for their roles and treated equally. There are no brands, no public punishments, and the only disdain he sees on any faces has more to do with shirked duties or starting fights during working hours.

Fighting outside working hours, he learns, is the local sport.

The first time it happens, he nearly jumps in to help. Farah says something absolutely disgusting about a man's ability to perform sexually and he leaps at her like he means to kill her.

Bare fisted and cackling he watches the two beat on each other until the cursing turns to wheezing laughter from both and Clive watches the smaller woman flip the man onto his belly with her legs and wrap her arm around his neck until he slaps the ground.

It happens again, a younger woman with wicked looking nails calls Farah an ugly name in the middle of the street and gets planted in the dirt, laughing merrily.

The only exception seems to be Baku. They regularly fight until both are bloodied, and usually have to be physically separated. Kyva had advised Clive to expect a fight once a week, but he's watched them come to blows nearly every day.

The context is important, he learns. The people of Madain Sari fight for any number of reasons. It eases tension, reinforces their bonds with each other, keeps them fit and shows other members of the community that they're suitable partners. They also fight out of plain anger. Though, grudge matches like the ones between Baku and Farah are, apparently, rare. 

"Nobody tries to fight me." He points out.

"Nobody knows you." Farah points out, drinking a bottle of rum that he's fairly certain she won off the unfortunate young man whose arm she just nearly ripped free of its socket. "You don't fight someone you don't know unless you plan on killing them."

" You know me."

She laughs, offering him a drink. "You wanna go?"

He takes the drink, but not the offer of a brawl. Mostly because he doesn't like the way Ifrit perks up like an excited dog at the idea. 

She doesn't seem offended. Farah takes him out to deal with a bunch of problematic beasts on the coast. She teaches him how to gut fish. She drags him out on a boat and teaches him how to rig a sail.

This, she says, is all in service of her master plan. He wants to go home, she wants to leave hers. She can't stay primed for the several days she expects they'll need to span the sea between Madain Sari and Storm otherwise she would just swim the distance and drag him on a boat behind her. 

She didn't really ask if he was amenable to smuggling her out but he supposes having the Warden of Water with him to cross the sea is wiser than not. Would be that he had had her company when Odin split the waters of the channel between the twins in half. 

It's a sentiment that stays with him when he watches her fight. The brawls in town are one thing, but she's absolutely ruthless with a pike. She strikes as quick as one of Ramuh's levinbolts, propelling herself around their quarry with the assistance of her Eikon's water. She's acrobatic and deadly, vicious, and Clive finds himself rushing to keep up with her kill count when they're hunting.

Ifrit is thrilled with the challenge. It's like fighting beside Cid again, fast and competitive and a little mean. Farah doesn't hold back, doesn't hesitate. She semi-primes easily and frequently. Her skin glows with scales and spines, fins of blue light blossom from her arms and down her back and he follows like a burning comet in her wake.

He hasn't followed anyone in five years, another comparison to Cid. He missed it. She points and he obeys because he wants to. Simple. 

Another week passes. A storm rolls through overnight and Farah disappears into the rain. Clive looks out onto the horizon from her porch and watches the lightning backed silhouette of a creature as large or larger than Titan emerge from the waves, holding the sea at bay while the wind beats against the coast. 

Cid had called them gods, once. Clive wasn't sure he believed him until now.

"Boats fucked." She says, groping for a towel. "I'm gonna have to pay Wedge to fix her."

"That sets us back a week?"

"Mm." She's exhausted. Summoning Leviathan always takes her out at the knees, and she'd been at it all night. "Sorry."

"It's hardly your fault. I'm fairly certain you stopped the entire town from getting swamped. We would have had bigger problems than needing our boat repaired."

"The couch is probably fucking up your back by now." She says. He's tall. Her couch is not. 

"It's fine." 

Clive tosses a second towel at her head, which is a relief because her current one had stopped absorbing water and was about as useful as a boat with a hole in it, and Farah already has one of those. 

"Well, if you change your mind we can trade for a bit. Im gonna go pass the fuck out for the next dozen hours though." 

She changes in the bathroom, a sacrifice she's made for the sensibilities of her guest. Gone are the days of stripping naked in her foyer and throwing herself on top of her sheets. She actually does her laundry regularly now. Clive might be a bad influence.

When she emerges she's being handed a bowl of fruit and nuts.

"I'm always starving after I prime." He says. "If I don't eat before sleeping I wake up feeling worse."

Well fuck. Farah's tired but he's not wrong. "Like a hangover?"

" Worse ."

"The headache is a real son of a bitch

 And I always end up eating my weight in raw fish for a week after." She huffs, shoveling the offering into her mouth. "I thought it was a me thing. Didn't have anyone to compare."

"It's all of us. I think. All the dominants I've spent enough time with to discuss have cravings after. Food. Sleep. Jill would sleep in cold storage sometimes."

"Shiva. Yeah that makes sense. Sometimes I'll sit in my tub for a whole day after." She laughs, sitting down on her mattress with her nearly empty bowl. "You feel the need to get knee-deep in any lava flows?"

"Not generally." Clive's mouth quirks up in his version of a smile. "Scalding baths seem to do the trick."

"Gods help my hopper if we both need to prime." She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "Thanks for that. I'm bushed. If you need anything just kick me conscious again."

"Baku's conscripted me into helping clean up the fallen trees around town, so I suspect I'll be busy until nightfall." Clive says, looking completely unbothered by the fact that her people are once again handing him their odd jobs. Baku could- and has - handled their post-storm tree removal on his own. Clive just seems to enjoy helping.

"Oh good. Then don't wake me unless another storm hits." She waves him off, falling back onto her mattress with a groan.

He leaves shortly after, the morning sun blazing into its full afternoon heat. Farah rolls over to lay face down as she dozes, while Leviathan takes the opportunity to fully and completely sleep, something the Eidolon doesn't indulge in often. Exhausted by the storm and unconcerned with the wider world. Farah gets the impression that the serpent feels safe. 

Which is weird only because it's a new sensation. Farah would assume "safe" was the default when you were the biggest thing within several thousand kilometers, but apparently that's not the case.

"Well, fuck." She huffs. "Was the whole Necron thing stressing you out? Any other Eidolons not on friendly terms?"

Predictably there's no reply. Leviathan doesn't talk so much as she feels . Mostly things like hunger, irritation, or protectiveness. Rarely, interest. Occasionally longing that feeds Farah's own wanderlust. 

Farah's never been homesick but she imagines the feeling must be similar. 

But there's none of that, now. Just deep contentment and a sense of complete ease. If something happens there's another Eidolon here to deal with it, she doesn't need to be constantly vigilant. 

Another Eidolon, Farah notes, that absolutely wrecked The Warden of Entropy. 

"Okay." She says, understanding. "Yeah. Good. Enjoy your nap."

If Wedge is as good as he claims, the boat should be ready when they return.

For now, Clive follows Farah back into the more wild part of the island. Up the coast and inwards until they find the nest of axebeaks that have been giving the hunters trouble. They look like stouter, meaner, chocobos. Purple and grey with talons that could split a man stem to stern if he's not careful. 

It takes them hours to find the damned things, and Farah gets turned around and has to climb one of the venerable old trees to determine their location in relation to Madain Sari. She insists they're not lost, but they still decide to bed down in the woods overnight and pick up the trail home in the morning. 

He shouldn't be surprised that she's managed to pack a bottle of the town's beverage of choice alongside her pouch of elixirs. The spiced rum doesn't exactly pair well with the meat from one of the fallen birds but he enjoys the meal nonetheless. 

The difference, he thinks, is he doesn't have any obligations. He doesn't have anyone waiting for his orders or relying on him to save them. Today he woke up after sunrise and had a slow breakfast on Farah's porch before they wandered out into the wilds to take care of some nuisance animals. Not a bloodthirsty Dominant or a God looking to undo its creations. Just a flock of bloody big birds . 

Will this end when he returns? Will he ever be able to sit back and look at everything he's accomplished and say " this is enough "? 

"You stare into those flames any harder and you'll tan your eyeballs." 

Farah kicks him lightly, handing him the wineskin again. 

"Sorry. Just thinking." Clive takes it, taking a sip of the rum and letting it rest on his tongue like he'd been made to do with wine in his youth. The flavour would linger anyway, he thinks, strong as it is. Old habits die hard.

"About…?" She kicks him again. Insistent.

"Home. Responsibilities. The work that still needs to be done." He lists, resting his chin on his knee. "I do want to go home but this has been…" 

"A break." Farah supplies. "From everything you've told me, you've been hauling your ass hither and fro from crisis to crisis since you were, what? Sixteen? You're fucking tired. That's half your life, Clive." 

She puts it so succinctly. Perspective, unbiased beyond the boundaries of their weeks old friendship. She wasn't there to watch the world fall apart around him - because of his actions - so that the people of Valisthea could have a chance to build a better one. 

But that's the point, isn't it? The people have to choose to build a better one. He did his part tearing down the old world. 

He can focus on his little piece. His people. Like he's been doing in Madain Sari. 

"I just don't know if I deserve it." He says.

Farah, having had enough of his pity party, smacks him on the arm. Hard.

"Fuck you."

"What?" He blinks at her, dazzled by the fire with his arm stinging. She stares back at him with an exasperated line between her eyebrows and an incredulous look on her face.

"I said fuck you. Fuck that. 'Deserve'?" She scoffs, hitting him again . "You know what I've been doing for the past decade? Sitting on my ass, drinking, and fucking my way through increasingly meager pickings. Occasionally I get off my numb fuckin' backside to keep town from flooding or punt some shitheel sea monster out of the reef. 'Deserve'. People treat me like a goddamned queen for doing the bare minimum and you feel guilty for taking a second to catch your goddamned breath. Bite my entire ass."

Clive could swear her eyes glow blue for a moment. A flash of aquamarine in the dark like some deep sea creature. Ifrit churns in his chest, whether by the presence of his counterpart or the threat of violence. He's taken interest in the proceedings.

"I watched you hold back the tides for an entire night. That isn't nothing." He says.

"You killed a god and ended several governments over the course of a decade. I'm feeling a little bit fuckin' inadequate here, Clive." She laughs, self-deprecating. 

"I only did what I had to."

He's not sure why, exactly, that phrase is the one to snap the tension after her tirade, but the next thing he knows Farah is lunging at him, grappling him onto the forest floor and cursing like a sailor. Growling like an animal.

He twists in her grip. She's strong, but he's bigger than she is and he flips her, palm landing heavily on her tattooed bicep. Her other elbow knocks his unoccupied arm out from under him and her thighs grapple his waist, using the new leverage to rock him onto his side, then neatly onto his belly.

Farah isn't tall, but muscle is heavy and her weight on his back is like an anvil. He feels the spike in energy curling around his limbs, responding, and he tries to keep Ifrit down but the fire blazes out of him anyway. Semi-primed, he hears a dual-toned bark of laughter from behind him, Leviathan rising to meet the challenge and he throws her off.

He leaps, flames lighting the clearing and the sea green skin of his opponent. 

He throws a punch, she dodges with a sideways twist that takes advantage of her flexibility, grabbing his arm with a hiss of steam and sending him stumbling. Titan had been slow but powerful when they'd fought, a boxer mostly, but Leviathan is faster and engaging her entire body in the effort. She tags him in the side hard enough to sting and he responds by wheeling around and slamming her back into a tree with a hand on a heavily scaled sternum, the other grabbing at the knee that comes up to jab him.

Farah is grinning. She spits water in his face and he stumbles back, releasing her with a curse that would have earned him a boxed ear back home.

"Come on, Broody." Farah goads him, arms out in invitation when he clears his eyes.

He lunges again, taking her to the ground, grabbing her arms and locking them over her head, shoving his face against her shoulder so she can't pull the same dirty trick again. She smells like brine, warm spice, and their campfire. It's not soft or feminine, but neither is she.

He forgets about her legs. They twist around his own and she rolls him onto his back. Farah reverses the hold he has on her wrists, arms twisting to mimic their legs effectively anchoring him into stillness. 

Fuck he's hard . He doesn't even know when it happened, but his body's interest is making itself known with an embarrassing intensity.

"Yield?" She asks, bluegreen and grinning down at him. 

He strains against her hold, breathing heavy, trying to keep his obvious arousal concealed. "You want me to?"

She laughs, " Fuck no . This is the most fun I've had in years."

Clive obliges, because he can. Because he wants to. Which is the point. He gets a hand untangled and grabs one of her thick thighs, prying her loose. 

They tussle in the dirt, laughing. Trading blows and jockeying for position until the strain of being semi-primed for too long leaves them with only the tools of the average human to fight with. Gasping hands and bodyweight, their own hard won strength and flexibility. 

Farah is a dirty cheat, though, and she gets a fist in his hair and bites him hard on the meat of his shoulder. Clive has no way to disguise the way he shudders, releasing a punched out noise and jerking his hips.

"Oh, fuck. Uh-" Farah starts to pull away, Clive feels a growl leave him, half feral.

"You bloody well better not stop."

She laughs, relieved. "As long as we're on the same page."

She presses her teeth against his throat, yanking his head back by the hair. Clive's hands grab at her biceps with enough force to bruise and he feels her hold on his legs release as she moves to straddle him instead. 

The pressure and heat is vicious. He's so hard that the contact is almost painful, aching low in his stomach. Farah hushes him when he releases a strangled moan, her tongue licking over the bite. 

"So tense all the time. You just need someone to take care of you a little, huh?" 

Clive huffs a labored breath, the angle of his neck is enough to restrict his oxygen unless he concentrates on breathing through it. Farah seems to know what she's doing, how to zero his thoughts down to the act of inhaling and exhaling.

How long has he been the one making decisions? Where to go, what to do, who to fight. Eating, sleeping, breathing with nothing but his goal in mind.

"Good boy."

" Fuck… " his whole body twitches, his hips jerk up and Farah oblidges his senseless thrashing by pushing down and giving him something to thrust against. Two words shouldn't be enough to take him so close to the edge, to scorch his senses so thoroughly.

"If you want to stop you just have to say so, yeah?" She nuzzles close to his ear. "You understand me, Clive?"

He nods, a jerk of his chin she allows him by releasing his hair. Her blunt nails soothe over his abused scalp, so sweet in comparison to the rough treatment.

"I need a yes or no." She murmurs.

"Yes, damn you." He hisses, feeling her grin against his jaw.

Farah tangles her fingers in his hair again, lower, near the base of his scalp. She doesn't pull as hard because she doesn't have to. Clive feels his entire spine light up, his heels digging into the dirt as his back strains into a bow. Farah snaps her teeth against his chin, teasing, and uses her free hand to ruck up his shirt and pet over his chest and abdomen like he would Torgal. 

No wonder the hound likes it so much. Something about the action makes him acutely aware of his skin, combined with the vulnerability of an exposed throat. Trust, he thinks, he trusts Farah not to hurt him in any way he'd dislike. He trusts her to stop if he asks. He trusts her to take the weight from his shoulders, even if it's only for the moment.

Clive trusts her, and Ifrit trusts Leviathan with a surety that's older than civilization itself. 

She presses a cool palm over the ache in his trousers and Clive whines, wanting more. Needing more. 

"How the fuck to you hide this thing in those leather pants of yours?" Farah huffs, squeezing the shape of him. 

He goes to reply but words skitter out of his brain as soon as they form. His hands move from her arms to her shoulders, the ties of her shirt. The movement is senseless, just an excuse for him to feel the calculated tension in her body, the visceral thud of her heartbeat, the effort brought to bear on his behalf. 

With Jill it had been all tender affection. Desperation of another kind. It had only happened the once, and then they'd gone back to surreptitious touching and the occasional chaste kiss. 

This thing with Farah burns him. The struggle, the power exchange. He should probably feel some kind of guilt, but no promises of faithfulness had ever been exchanged and- 

Farah puts a hand on his throat the moment the strain on his spine starts to become too much, easing him out of the uncomfortable arch. Gripping him with firm fingers around his windpipe, firmer fingers around the base of his cock, the sensation making his head spin. He's still able to breathe, able to make sounds that he's never heard himself make before, but even with his own arms free he's had his control neatly supplanted. He expects to feel panicked, unmoored, but instead there's a strange sense of safety in the act of letting himself be handled.

Clothing is removed, just enough of it to allow him access to the places she wants to be touched. The narrow valley of her waist, the modest rise of her breasts. She has a scar that curves over her ribs, covered by the geometric black ink making up Leviathan's body on the canvas of her skin. The only way anyone would know it was there would be to feel the staccato line with their fingers where it skips over bone and resumes in a sharp line towards her navel. 

"Your hands are so hot." She sighs, eyes half lidded as she leans into his touch. "That your Eidolon or just you?"

He doesn't know, he just knows that she likes it and he wants to give her more. He wants her to take from him until he's empty. 

She shifts, her pants sliding free, bringing his hands to her bared hips. She sinks down around him with a delighted noise that makes his blood flare up like a firestorm with the urge to rut into her. Base animal urges that demand to be fulfilled. 

He tries to push up, to find more friction and slippery heat, but she holds him fast, chiding him lightly with words that don't fully register in the hot fog consuming his senses. 

Her hand slips up over his throat to his chin, turning his head to look at her where she's hovering above him, teeth bared in a feral smile, amber eyes soft and pinning his gaze. 

"There you are."  She huffs, thumb swiping over his lip. "Slow down, Clive. Let me do some of the work."

He eases his grip on her hips, stops trying to take. Farah sighs her approval and pets his hair back before returning her hand to his neck. 

She sets a slow pace. Maddeningly so. She rides him like she has all the time in the world, like the tidal rhythm doesn't strain her patience. She savors every messy thrust, every desperate sound he makes is rewarded with an answering squeeze, a warm murmur of approval.

" Such a good boy ."

He shivers, jerks his hips despite her hold on him, whines like a dog as she thwarts his push for more, faster, harder, deeper. She's relentless in her control. Farah bites her lip and bears down on his cock with a lazy hum of pleasure and Clive lets the hand on his throat anchor him inside his own body until his breath falls in sync with her own and the rhythm of their coupling. He gives into her like a stone being ground down by the tide. 

Letting go feels less terrifying than he thought. Handing over the reins and letting himself give over to someone he knows is here for the sole purpose of mutual pleasure, whose interest in him stems from simple attraction and mutual understanding beyond the tangled complications of a war that devoured most of their lives. Farah doesn't look at him and see a commander, a bearer, a childhood friend, or a savior. She sees a man, damaged, scabbed over from a life of hard work and harder choices, but still human. Someone who deserves peace, even if it's only for a moment.

Clive clings to her, breath shivering out of him as she rewards his release of control with a gradual increase of their pace, a grinning kiss to his temple. His fingers dig bruises into her back but she doesn't flinch or relent, not even when the heat flares under his palms and the sweet ache suffusing his nerves reaches its peak. He comes so hard his vision goes bright and spotty, flames stuttering over his skin as his body goes tight and then releases all at once, spilling inside her.

Farah praises him, not stopping her pace but losing rhythm for a moment as she rides out her own pleasure, mouth hot against his neck, gasping.

She goes limp on top of him, trusting him to support her as she shivers. Clive traces over her spine, counting the hills and valleys as he returns to his own skin.

"You okay?" Farah asks, unmoving.

Clive feels a laugh puff out of him. "Extremely."

"Beautiful." She sighs. "I'm gonna be walking like a nonagenarian tomorrow."

"You're welcome?"

She bites him, a gentler, pinching thing in contrast to the one she'd given him earlier. He expects to bruise, but isn't sure if he really cares one way or another. 

In time they uncomple and dress, at least as far as they need to in order to settle into the nights schedule of sleeping and watching for any unexpected fauna. He goes to bed down a few feet away while she sits up with her back against a tree, but Farah seems to sense some other longing in him and tuts at the distance until he shuffles his kit closer and lays close enough that she can card her fingers through his hair. 

It should be annoying, he thinks, but instead the delicate scratching is soothing and lovely. Ifrit settles inside him, content, and Clive feels his own eyes go heavy.

For once, Clive sleeps without nightmares.

Chapter Text

It's like watching the sea close in around a person. A crowd of people calling in greeting and coming down around Clive in a wave of relieved shouting, and cussing him out for making them wait so long.

Oops.

Farah sidesteps the deluge and leans on her spear while the locals hug and grab at Clive. A reasonable response to someone crawling out of their grave, she figures. Though, she thinks she'd be more pissed off. 

A week of walking and hitching rides on carts had left them tired and dusty. Farah had seen more bullshit in that time than she's seen in nearly an entire decade back home. Lands turned black and dead, people owning other people, folks who looked at her and Clive and figured robbing the heavily armed summoners was a smart play. 

She's killed men before, pirates and unwelcome guests around Madain Sari, but the mainland is full of people willing to shank her for her boots and she has done nothing but cut foreign throats every day since they docked. 

Well, okay, not nothing else. She's done Clive plenty. Or he's done her? Either way, there's been a marked increase in the frequency of orgasms in Farah's life and for that she is intensely grateful. Gods know her dry spell lasted long enough. She was pleasantly surprised that everything still worked. 

And, well, now he's kissing someone else. On the mouth. Huh. 

They've never done that.

Farah watches the other woman, gorgeous with hair the colour of a stormcloud, petite, sweet-faced, kissing Clive with so much relief that it seems he has to hold her up. Big arms wrapped around her and keeping her close. 

They're cute together. 

Welp .

Farah feels something brush against her leg. A dog- no, a wolf . Grey and white, tail wagging.

"And you must be Torgal." She says, holding her hand out so the beast can get a good huff. For all that he's three times the size of the dogs back home she assumes he must act similarly enough, and she's proven correct when he pushes his enormous wet nose into her palm and sniffs curiously. Satisfied that she's not a threat, he shoves his massive head under her hand and lets her dig her fingers into the scruff of his neck for a thorough scratch.

There's a frisson of energy there. Memory. Recognition on Leviathan's part. This wolf is familiar to her.

Hello, Fenrir .

"Pass the sniff test?"

Another new voice pulls her from her investigation. An old woman with mismatched eyes and a stern expression.

"I guess so." 

"Charon." The woman says by way of introduction. "You'll have everyone's thanks for dragging our fearless leader home by the ear. Be waiting a mo for someone to be free enough to assign you a room, though."

"I'm Farah. He dragged himself home. I just drove the boat." Farah says, introducing herself with a shrug.

"You got quite the accent. Big for a lass too." Charon ignores the modesty. Farah gets the impression that the woman doesn't have time for that kind of thing and immediately decides she likes her. 

"Where I'm from we're force fed vegetables until we're taller than our mothers." She deadpans. 

"And made to carry 'em too I reckon. Thews on you could give our Clive a run for his money."

Farah resists the urge to say that she did. Twice, yesterday. Something must show on her face though, because Charon barks a raspy laugh and waves her, and her newly acquired furry companion alongside the thronging crowd and up a set of steps. 

The ancient construct is covered in wooden additions, doors and tables and extra walls, chairs, a little kiosk that Charon beelines to. The main atrium is big enough to house the eidolon wall twice over, light pouring in from all sides and making the etched lines in the stone stand out in stark relief. 

Torgal trotts ahead, evidently knowing that the other woman has some massive snack for the beast. The wolf practically bounces in excitement when Charon hands him the heavy looking bone. Farah finds a plate being handed to her too, loaded with bread and cheese and meat, presumably from whatever produced the bone Torgal is happily chomping away on at her feet.

"We were having Lunch." Charon grabs her own plate, obviously picked over already. "Seeing as that boy saw fit to leave you on the doorstep."

"Thanks." Farah leans against the wall beside the desk, holstering her spear and assembling the fare together into a sandwich. "He was excited to get home. I get it. And it's not like the company that found me is bad." 

"Oh she's full of compliments, this one." Charon huffs. 

They eat, listening to the continued hubbub echoing in from outside. Laughter and shouts. Farah rolls her shoulders and lets the newness of her surroundings make her feel very slightly homesick for a moment. 

Clive hadn't realized he lost track of Farah until he was being bullied into the mess by a crowd of his friends and family.

First, he had been absolutely floored by the proof that Joshua was not only alive and here, but healthy . He doesn't cough or have those awful bruised looking circles under his eyes. He's whole and hale and his arms are firm around him. 

Jill is that dangerous combination of ecstatic and furious with him. She alternates between kissing him and beating against his chest. Calling him all kinds of names and then sobbing in relief. 

He's going to have to tell her, soon. About Farah. 

And Farah can probably guess about Jill, now. Or maybe she left before the entire scene began. Either way, he needs to track her down and make sure she's settled. Introduce her to everyone. Apologize for not telling her about his… situation.

Charon gives him a nod in greeting, never so demonstrative as to make herself look pleased to see him. 

"If you're looking for the big woman she's down by the pumps." She says instead of asking after his health. 

Sure enough, he finds her in the backyard, sitting at the edge of one of the flower beds with a hand in the uptake pool, pushing the black out of the water while Torgal presents his chin for scratches from the other. 

Clive thinks he might be jealous of his own dog, right now. 

"Found yourself a job already?" He asks. 

"You know me. Work, work, work." She says, smiling and flicking her fingers free. The ring of clean water that had formed around her arm where it had been submerged closes back in, the black swirling back into place. "How's it feel to be home?"

"Exhausting." He huffs, "And amazing. I missed everyone. It's just…"

"A lot." She offers. "I get it. Don't worry about me, though. Charon showed me around a bit." 

Charon showing anyone around sounded like a fairy story, but then the merchant had known where to find Farah, and Torgal was here, tongue lolling out of his mouth as Farah gets both her hands involved in the business of massaging his thick neck while his tail wags so hard it shakes the entire back half of him. 

Clive is definitely jealous of his own dog right now.

"Have you been introduced?"

"Just to Charon, and Blackthorne. He's a real gentleman." She laughs, "Sized up my pike faster than I've ever seen. Says he'll hook me up with something a little meaner."

"Did you give him the rum?"

"Charon may have suggested I be liberal with my booze." Torgal pushes himself even more into Farah's space with a whine, head pushing into her chest and making her chuckle, arms hugging his furry body. "Oof, you're a heavy boy."

"I'd love to introduce you to my brother, but it seems you're trapped." Clive chuckles, ignoring the way her mouth forms the word " boy " so affectionately. 

"If this is how I die, I suppose I've had a good run." 

Torgal puffs, sounding insulted that she would even suggest such an outcome. Clive still has to bribe the hound to get her free with a promise of another soup bone and a long run around the perimeter of the hideaway. Eventually they manage to climb the stairs back to the atrium where the crowd is still celebrating. 

"Is everyone in your family so leggy?" She teases, evidently spotting Joshua leaning on the bar and making the correct assumption. Clive doesn't think they look much alike, fair and dark, sharp and soft as they are. 

But then he remembers that Farah's ability to sense Eikons is a bit more developed than his own, and he considers that she may have only had to sense the Phoenix to make the connection. 

"I believe our father passed that particular trait on." He says, waving to Joshua. 

The other man straightens, grinning. The months of relative peace have been good to Joshua, he seems happier, less weighed down than he was even in their childhood. Clive can't help but smile back, his heart full. 

"Farah, this is my brother, Joshua."

Joshua bows formally, taking her stiff hand in his own and bending to press his mouth to her scarred knuckles. The look on her face is one of mild shock and confusion. Clive struggles not to laugh.

"I'm honoured to meet Leviathan the Lost." He says.

"Not lost." Farah replies, reflexive. "Late to the party, though. Sorry I wasn't here to help you kill God."

If he's shocked by her bluntness he hides it well. Clive is fairly certain Joshua's eyebrows raise a little, but otherwise he just laughs politely. "We would have been happy to have you, but as it is you've found us now and we have a lifetime of work ahead of us where your talents will be invaluable."

"Preferably after she's had the chance to settle in, brother?" Clive interjects, already seeing the wheels turning behind two sets of eyes. Farah is possessed of an intense curiosity about other Eikons, and Joshua is a scholar through and through. Between them, Clive expects at least a cursory and mutual grilling for information at some point. 

"Of course." Joshua gives Clive a significant look. One he doesn't entirely like. "Have you met Jill yet, my lady?"

"Just Farah please. And I haven't had the pleasure."

Clive is reminded that his little brother is a meddlesome little shit. Jill is deep in conversation with Tarja over by the orchestron, but perks up when Joshua waves at her. 

And this is not an introduction Clive is ready to make. He assumes Farah already knows , because Jill had been more than obvious in the fracas by the elevator, and he hadn't exactly been keen to turn her down. Jill is, thus far, oblivious to his indiscretion and he isn't particularly enthusiastic about the possibility of doing this in the middle of the atrium. Even if he knew what, exactly, he should be doing in the first place.

But in the time it takes him to come up with half a solution Jill is already there, hands folding over Farah's. Thanking her for bringing him home.

"I just drove the boat." 

And kept him from turning to stone, and reminded him that he was allowed to enjoy being alive.

Clive swallows around his own protest. The conversation moves on, and Farah is smiling and laughing like none of this bothers her. 

Does he want it to bother her? Does he want her to be jealous? 

She whacks him on the arm "Oy, you're smoking." 

Clive looks down, his gloves are indeed smoldering a little. He tamps down the flame rolling unpleasantly within him.

Joshua's eyebrows have risen higher. Jill looks concerned. "Are you alright?" 

"Fine. Just tired." He lies. 

Except he can't lie to save his life and now he has three pairs of eyes boring into him.

"He hasn't lost control in a few years."

Jill looks up the steps leading to Clive's little hidey-hole, where he's disappeared with his brother. Concerned furrow between her brows and a delicate frown on her face.

"Didn't even summon Ifrit once while he was with me." Farah shrugs. "Maybe he should. Might help him let off a little steam."

Considering her method of release is no longer viable. 

"Is that something you've found helpful?" Jill looks a bit surprised. No wonder considering what the woman has been though. Farah's people lived in fear of Leviathan being used to wage wars, and not so long ago that was Shiva's reality. A natural disaster made flesh. 

"Sometimes?" Farah offers. "Levi mostly just wanted me to leave home. I get the impression Ifrit is more active." 

Jill nods, fiddling with the stem of her goblet, snowcloud eyes thoughtful. 

"I just worry." She says, a little softer than before. "I honestly never thought I'd see him again."

"I don't think he expected to get out of that mess. He asked me why he was alive when I scraped him off the beach. I had to drag that curse kicking and screaming out of him, and his first reaction was to tell me that Phoenix is the only Eidolon who can heal." Farah scoffs, taking a drink from her own mug. 

"It's surprising. We were raised to believe that there were exactly eight Eikons, all with their own dominions. I suppose Clive already challenged that dogma, though." Jill sighs. "More Eikons, a cure for the bearer's curse. How little we know."

"The world is a big place and it's way older than anyone knows. The only reason my people know what they do is because they decided to run away." 

In hindsight it had been a good call, it saved them a millennia of torment and kept that knowledge from being systematically wiped out by Necron's plan. 

Farah has theories. A wiggling sort of dread that she knows exactly what happened to the other Eidolons and why they disappeared from memory on the mainland. Part of her doesn't want to check the massive library here and find out if she's right or not, but the other half knows that the idea is going to bother her until she investigates. 

Gods help her if she's right. Leviathan is going to be pissed . 

Jill shows Farah to a cozy room on one of the lower floors, a window looking out over the polluted lake that sits black and glassy under the rising moon. She shows her the women's baths, and introduces a few new faces while Farah takes the opportunity to wash the road off of herself. A seamstress offers to make her something a little warmer for the climate, and she ends up exchanging stories with one of the "cursebreakers" who asks after the claw-marks marking up one of Farah's shoulder blades from a scrap with a particularly mean coerl. She hadn't had the skill to heal herself at the time, still too new to Leviathan's gifts as she'd been. 

Jill has a few scars herself, hidden under layers of fabric. Thin and even over her shoulders. Silvery and old. 

Whip marks. Clive has them too, though they're deeper and meaner looking than these. 

Both Clive and Jill had been considered someone's property once, Farah remembers. No wonder they had to rip the whole system apart, it was rotted all the way through.

It's a strange sight to come upon in the backyard first thing in the morning. Concerning, at first, until he realizes that both parties are smiling.

"From your shoulder." Farah laughs. "Come on, girl. You can't have gone this whole time and never punched someone."

Jill swings her fist at Farah's palm with a dull slap. "It wasn't ladylike to hit people in Rosaria. Gutting them with a shortsword is more elegant, obviously."

"And if you drop your sword?" Farah slaps the next hit aside.

Clive watches Jill's expression pinch, annoyed, but still motivated enough to make another swing, this one much straighter. 

"Nice! Again!" 

Joshua leans up against the railing beside Clive. "They've been at it all morning." He says.

Clive blinks, opens his mouth to comment, then closes it. 

"I'm next. My arms are too skinny, apparently. Your friend is something of a task master." Joshua's emphasis is pointed. He also doesn't seem particularly upset about the idea of participating.

"Her people treat these kinds of fights like a local sport." He warns. He no longer has to worry about Joshua's health suffering from an overabundance of physical activity, at least. 

"So I'm told." Joshua watches Jill throw another punch, harder, then shake her fist out when she evidently makes an impact at a slightly awkward angle. Farah straightens the other woman's arm out and arranges her fingers into something more effective.

She spots Clive and waves.

There is no escape. Joshua laughs at him as he takes the stairs down into the practice space. He needs to speak to both of them, individually, alone, before something slips out and he loses his chance to do any of this delicately. 

"Punch him." Farah says to Jill.

"So I'm here to play training dummy?" He huffs, crossing his arms. 

"Would you rather I hit you?" She laughs. "Our Queen of Diamonds here needs a bigger target."

"Are you making fun of my aim?" Jill chides, smiling. 

Clive sighs and raises a palm. "Fine."

He doesn't expect Jill to pack as much force behind the punch as she does, but she's always been a quick learner. It smarts, briefly, before he relaxes his fingers to move with the blow instead of bracing against it. 

"I've suggested that Farah teach some of the other women as well. It would be good for them, I think." Jill says between blows. 

Farah snorts a laugh, taking a sip from her waterskin and wiping at the back of her mouth. She seems happy, focused, more than she had in Madain Sari, at any rate  " Basic self defense, at least. Some of your men could use a lesson too, honestly." 

"You just want more people to brawl with." He says, teasing.

"Well we can't have your royal Cidishness getting his ass handed to him by the foreigner can we?" She puts a hand on Jill's shoulder, a simple but firm correction to the other woman's form. 

"You two fought before?" Jill asks, and Clive tries very hard to disguise the wince as a result of Jill's next hit. 

"Best fight I'd had in nearly a decade. Your boy is a real scrapper." Farah says, not a hint of salaciousness in her voice. "I still got him in the end though. His grapples are really easy to slip out of."

"That sounds-" a punch, a breath, "Violent."

"We both had some shit we needed out of our systems." She nods, stepping away. 

Jill keeps hitting, laughing as Farah turns to taunting his brother down from the balcony with some decidedly uncourtly language.

"I can see why you like her." Jill says, softly.

Founder, she could mean that in any number of ways. Clive keeps his expression carefully neutral.

"She's been good to me." He says. 

That's not a lie, at least. 

It's a tidy little study, if dusty. Apparently nobody had taken the space after Clive left, despite the fact that he'd been presumed dead. He has a lot of mementos, little curios and objects arranged neatly about the space, bottles of booze that were probably gifts, given the labels in comparison with his tastes. 

Farah knows he likes cheap ale and slightly sour wine. The stuff from the threadbare inns between the east coast and here. Her tastes had run more expensive, ironically, and Clive had looked absolutely horrified at how many gems she'd traded to drink something half decent. Of course this just meant she had to keep up the habit, if only to wheedle him.

"You needed me?" She asks, watching his shoulders rise where he's leaned over his desk, pen pausing its scratchy path on a piece of paper.

"I- yes. I have to speak with you."

Hesitance. Definitely not about the errand Charon's asked her to run, or the group of petrifying mages in one of the northern towns, or the books Joshua wants to retrieve from some place called Rosalith that might help their research into the missing Eidolons. She doesn't think the idea of her volunteering to go wandering would be surprising enough to make him sound this worried. 

Farah runs her tongue over her teeth. She figured they wouldn't have to have a whole conversation about this. "About your thing with Jill, yeah? I'm not gonna say anything. You were in a weird spot and needed an outlet. We don't have to make a mountain out of a molehill." 

Clive looks at her, brows drawn together, frowning. "I see…"

Well shit. He's upset now? Why? She's handing him what he wants, right? Farah's always been garbage at this kind of thing. It's why she prefers her liaisons to be brief and casual. No use getting hung up on something you can't have anyway, not when you share your consciousness with an immortal that is constantly telling you to pick up and leave. 

"Listen, I really like you. You're a great person and you deserve to be happy. Jill is gorgeous and has an absolutely wicked sense of humor under all that ice. If she makes you feel something then you owe it to yourself to pursue that. I'm not gonna pitch a fit because we bumped uglies a few times." 

Clive looks like he's chewing on her words. Like he has several things he wants to respond with but can't quite pick a favourite. It's cute, in an irritating sort of way. Farah thought they were past the point of walking on eggshells around one another after months of extremely blunt conversations about the apocalypse, and religion, and the right for all human beings to be free to choose the particulars of their lives. 

A mean part of her brain hisses " maybe he only talks about that kind of thing with people he intends to fuck ." And Farah thinks it sounds a little like Leviathan would if the snake had a voice. 

She sighs. "Listen, Clive, I'm gonna give you some space. Joshua has some stuff he wants to go dig through up North and he wants an outsider perspective on some of it."

It'll give him a week to get out of his awkward attitude, at least. Maybe get a bit cozier in his relationship with Jill and feel more secure when Farah comes back. 

It'll let her get out of her own head, too, for a bit. Learn more about the Eidolons here and get a better idea of the situation she's walked into. Test the absolutely wicked new spear Blackthorne finished for her this morning. 

She leaves without another word, stopping to load up a few supplies at Charon's. Joshua is bothering some very cross looking woman in the infirmary but seems fine to leave when she tells him she's ready.

Farah pointedly avoids looking back across the lake as they ride out. 

Martha's Rest reminds her of home.

It's the type of place where everyone knows everyone else's business, where the whole place is pulling together to make a hard situation liveable. This town has been through it, recently, and there's an excessive number of people with weeks old wounds and partially petrified limbs. 

Farah doesn't like it, but she figures she and Joshua would be able to do better work if they let the problem sit while they bedded down for the evening. It's late, when they arrive, and it's not like any of the injuries are bad enough to send someone to the grave if they're left overnight. 

And she's more than a little exhausted. They hadn't run into anything that needed a decent beating on the ride from the hideaway, but the morning's conversation had been enough to make her mood sour for the rest of the day. Joshua had carried their intermittent conversations, keeping a running list of things he was hoping to find when they reached Rosalith. Filling her in on the history of the area he'd been slated to rule, eventually, before everything went to hell in a handbasket.

And his almost boyish excitement carries them both into the infirmary set up along the main road. Farah tries not to grouch about there being no rest in sight.

"I'm interested to see how your healing works." Joshua says, following her to the washbasin where she takes to scrubbing the dirt off her hands.  "Mine sort of… burns away the pain, disease, anything that isn't healthy, and encourages the body to repair itself."

Farah hums her understanding. These things are intrinsically tied to their Eidolons, or so she's been told. Kyva had tried to bully theory into her skull, but as with most things to do with Leviathan, Farah was much better at doing rather than explaining.

"It's like uh," she gestures to her own arm, trying to illustrate. "We're all mostly liquid. Blood, spit, the water in our brains. Our bodies are like a river, carrying stuff downstream. Sometimes things get stuck, or someone fills in part of the river with rocks. You just kind of have to clear away the debris."

"Show me?"

She's not short on options, at least. The infirmary is busy even well after sundown. The lead healer, a tall man with a very square jaw, seems particularly worried about a man with a nasty gash on his leg, bright red and definitely infected if the colorful goop dribbling off of it is any indication.

"Sorry, do you mind if I…" She points lamely at the man's leg.

"One of Cid's are you?" The healer asks, frowning. "By all means, have at it."

Farah looks to her patient in askance, but he looks sort of green and like he's not entirely present behind what must be a wicked fever. She huffs, pulling energy into her fingers and planting her hand on his knee, feeling the flow of blood where it's sluggish and too hot. Carrying poison throughout his body. 

"Can someone bring me a bucket?" She asks. Blind as she focuses on the pulse of infection pooling in several important places. 

"What for?" Joshua asks, curious but apparently trusting her enough to drag something metal next to her that sounds fairly bucketlike. 

"This might be messy…" she says, the only warning she can give when she begins drawing the infection out through the wound in a long stream, throwing the vile smelling garbage into the bucket in a few disgusting pulls. 

Her sight returns and Joshua looks horrified and fascinated in equal measure, as does the healer. 

"I will admit, that was a bit more visceral than I expected." Joshua says. 

"We can't all burn the sepsis out of everyone we meet, Phoenix." She laughs.

Curiosity sated for the moment, she and Joshua split up and tackle the worst injuries in the infirmary. Despite her earlier exhaustion, she does enjoy the distraction, the almost tedious work of getting bones back in place and flushing old infections out of festering wounds. Farah doesn't have much in the way of a bedside manner, and she's always been better at fighting than healing, but she can't deny that this is good work, especially when she moves onto the petrification cases and manages to push back some of the creeping stone from struggling lungs and failing livers. She doesn't have the raw power to heal them completely without performing a partial summon, which she's not keen on trying in a room full of strangers, but she's able to give the worst of them some relief. 

By the time she's made her way around the whole room she doesn't have any room left in her head for stupid things like feelings . Particularly once they leave the hospital and settle in at the inn and there's a whole two pints worth of free booze from a grateful Martha to drink. 

"How do your people court one another?" Joshua asks, because he's apparently interested in harshing her mellow.

"Are you planning on courting one of my people?"

He laughs. "I'm just curious. But if I were -"

"You'd need to do a few more push ups." She grins. "We fight each other, or other potential suitors. We exchange gifts. Normal stuff."

"Fighting isn't the usual method here. Gifts though? What would someone give to a woman like yourself?" 

Farah sighs, giving up trying to put an early end to the conversation. She tries to think back on successful passes made in her direction. She'd gone through periods where her standards had been lower, then higher again after taking a chance on mediocre lovers had led to disappointment. The ones who had proven worth her time had a few things in common, though. 

"Food. Stuff to help me maintain my weapon. One man fixed a leak in my roof and stopped my front door from creaking." 

One of Baku's boys, and the creaky door had been a result of Baku's constant kicking in of said door to yell at her. Honestly if it hadn't been for the abject horror she felt at the idea of Baku becoming her father in law she might have kept on with the guy. 

Joshua seems thoughtful, and too amused by half. 

"And who are you looking to impress, Skinny?" She prods, clacking her pint against his. "It's not me , I know that much."

"Beautiful and astute, my lady." He grins. "I'm afraid it's someone I have no chance of impressing, however."

"Uh huh. And why's that?" 

"She's married to her work." He makes a face, like he's trying not to frown but failing. 

"Ah. Mid, then?" She'd met the girl briefly when Charon had taken her around the hideaway, and Farah had asked how the pumps worked. The actual engineering flew over her head, but the idea of filters being used to purify water moving from one tank to another was an easy enough concept to grasp. The ones back home just used gravity instead of the powered suction of those Mid had designed. 

Mid was intense, to say the least, and definitely crazy. She'd probably be really good for Joshua.

"I've tried, ah, wooing her the traditional way. Flowers and invitations to spend time together."

Farah snorts into her ale, "Doing what? Sitting quietly and keeping your hands to yourselves?" 

" Walking ." He grouses. "We're not exactly spoiled for choice at the hideaway."

That poor girl. "A girl like that needs to have her hands busy at all times or she's gonna be bored to tears. Find a project and work on it together, something that forces you to communicate."

Joshua nods, fingers tapping on his mug. "Maybe something to do with the ferry system she wanted to build to make traversing the Bennumere easier."

Farah shrugs, having no idea what he's talking about but assuming he's on the right track. How he has the energy left to give anything serious thought at this hour is a mystery to her, but then again she figures he's at least a decade her junior. 

Alexander's great metal ballsack, for the energy she had at twenty. 

"I'm starting to lament my old age. Time for bed." She grumbles, downing the remains of her ale. 

Tomorrow, they'll finish up with the healing and make the journey as far as Eastpoole. Then, ideally, they'll arrive in Rosalith in time to spend most of the day digging through books. Then two days back to the Hideaway, or some excuse to linger elsewhere for her. 

At least it's not Leviathan making her want to run this time.

"You're an idiot."

"I know."

"An absolute fool, Clive. A complete imbecile."

"I'm sorry." 

Jill punches him, greatly improved from her practice with Farah. "You should have said something!"

"I know." He repeats. "There was never a good time!"

"Bollocks to that! You were scared." She proves his point by hitting him again. Why does he like people who beat on him so much? Is he broken?

Well, yes. He's definitely broken, but he's not sure that that actually has anything to do with his taste in lovers. In the evening gloom of his chambers, lit by candles and the dwindling hearth, he considers just how much in common the people he's been attracted to in his life had had in common.

Dominants with strange senses of humour and an eerily perceptive eye for when he's choosing to self-flagellate instead of solve the actual problem.

"She's probably furious." Jill says. "I'm furious!" 

"It just sort of… happened." He finishes, lamely. Clive digs the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, his elbows into the wood of his desk. 

"Oh, not about that. I'm actually- well, I'm relieved, really." She puffs something like a laugh. 

Clive looks up again, and feels his eyebrows knit together in complete bafflement. "I'm sorry?"

"I-" Jill makes a noise, hesitant, "I wasn't sure . About us. And I thought those sorts of conversations would be better to have when the world wasn't on fire and you weren't freshly back from the dead. As you said, the time seemed… less than ideal."

"And kissing me when I came back?" He knows he sounds frustrated. He can't keep the strain from his voice, even knowing that the mistake is ultimately his own.

"I was overwhelmed! And it's not like I don't love you still, Clive. Just not in the way I thought I did." She sighs, shaking her head and smiling a bit, "But I think I knew. You froze up, and then you kept looking around like you expected someone to run up and throw you into the lake at any moment."

Farah hadn't, though. She'd disappeared and he hadn't found her until the sun was setting and Charon had pointed him in the right direction. 

Clive doesn't know if what he's feeling is more than a strange combination of lust and the kind of affection reserved for a friend. He doesn't know how he's supposed to feel in these situations. He just knows he hates that Farah had seemed so frustrated with him before she left.

She's told him, more than once now, that he deserves happiness. He isn't sure how to feel about that either, but he knows that every time she says it he believes her a little more. 

"She probably would throw me into the lake for wasting the week agonizing over how to tell you." 

"Well you'll be able to find out soon, I suppose." Jill huffs, standing from her seat and pressing a cold palm to his shoulder. " Talk to her, Clive." 

He waves her off with a noise of confirmation, letting his head fall onto the desk when the door closes behind Jill. What did he do to deserve a friend like her? 

Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to earn him more than Jill's leniency, however, because instead of Farah and Joshua returning that evening Clive receives a massive shipment of books and a note from his brother telling him they've decided to ride out to Oriflamme. 

" Farah has a theory about the mothercrystals and we've decided to head straight to the former site of Drake's Head to investigate. We will return in a month's time, given good weather and fair roads. I will send another letter from Northreach when we arrive ." 

Clive tries not to let the disappointment ruin the rest of his night, despite the alarming sensation of his entire heart dropping into his belly like a stone. 

The choice to not report back in person seems oddly… spiteful. But maybe he's reading too far into it. Joshua is likely enjoying the freedom afforded to him by his health and Farah had expressed interest in exploring the continent. 

Clive had just thought she'd meant to do it with him.  

In every farming village, in every small town, people talk about "Cid".

The man himself had told her there had been two. Himself and the original. Clive had carried his mentor's name after his death. The lines between the two blurring in the retellings of all these provincial towns. 

And the site of Drake's Head, the first mothercrystal destroyed by Clive in his crusade, is the same place that he took Cid's name.

And Farah has more than a few suspicions about what killed him. The thing that Necron had under his control. She still hopes she's wrong, that the puzzle pieces are only fitting together so well because she's forcing the edges together, but…

"Are you sure you should be going down there alone?" Joshua has the good grace to look concerned as she kicks off her boots. The area beneath the abandoned palace is flooded, it smells like seawater and old aether.

"I'm not sure how smart it is to dunk a fire Eidolon in water." She says, rolling her socks into a ball. 

"I know how to swim." He scoffs, sounding an awfully lot like his brother and making Farah's teeth ache.

"Yeah, well I don't know how to make you grow gills." He averts his eyes as she unties the lacings on her trousers and doffs them. Farah's respect for the boy's prudishness ends where her need for warm, dry, clothing after she returns from the freezing fucking northern ocean begins. 

"If you find anything-" he starts.

"I know, I know." She waves a hand dismissively. "Be back in a jiff." 

She dives into the frigid cave, pulling a mote of Leviathan's energy to the surface as the water closes over her skin like an icy embrace. She lets herself sink down and jet along the old staircase, the sea growing darker as she sinks lower. 

Leviathan navigates largely by sound. Like a whale, Farah supposes, she's able to sense her environment by the tap of objects in the water, the creak of old metal, the flurry of motion coming from creatures that have followed the flood inside. She follows the sound of the current, and the sensation of it against her skin, down and into a massive cavern hollowed out by the combination of erosion and human hands.

This place housed the core of the mothercrystal, built up like a place of worship by the people who relied on it for magic and didn't know they were being manipulated by a nihilistic perversion of what Eidolons were supposed to be. 

Farah's religious education was more extensive than most, thanks to Kyva's insistence that Leviathan's summoner be knowledgeable about her history. She has some idea of the mythical origins of Eidolons as a whole, despite Necron's best effort to erase the evidence. 

The world has a crystal that provides life and magic, and from that original crystal came the Eidolons charged with caring for Valisthea's natural world. The seas, the winds, earth, fire, gravity, light and dark, snow and storm, the fundamental forces of the planet all had a warden to keep their little berg from reverting to a barren rock floating in space. 

Necron wasn't part of the original set, as far as she can tell. He came from elsewhere. Slaved the Eidolons to his own purpose. 

And like all great artists, Necron stole his greatest work wholesale from the original crystal. 

Farah's suspicions are entirely about what he used to accomplish the task.

At the end of a long bridge the water spans out into a great gulf. The stonework here is crumbled and fragmented, nearly obliterated in places. Farah has to feel around for a spot to perch in the dim, finding a berg of old masonry to hold herself in place against. 

There's a sort of residue here. Something familiar and ancient that makes Leviathan more active in her observation. Whispering, almost. A bright sort of energy that feels like the swing of a pendulum, the beating of feathered wings…

There was something important lost here.

" Alexander ."

Farah feels the serpent lurch inside her, rage and grief stinging her throat as her theory is confirmed all at once.

The mothercrystals were Eidolons. Dead ones. Stolen kin . 

Leviathan seethes under Farah's skin, thrashing, ungovernable as the sea she commands. Farah only just manages to keep control, holding a hand over her heart and breathing into the sorrow and guilt that originates from another mind.

" I'm so sorry, Levi."

In the dark it's easier to see inside Leviathan's head. Memories of a war so far back in time that the world itself was unrecognizable. Alexander chose to stand and fight the threat instead of running like Leviathan had. They had been captured and used in other ways, made to show their obeisance and tied to the new life seeded onto Valisthea. 

Farah wraps her arms around herself. Leviathan is weeping inside her, the loss bleeding out, and the only comfort she can provide feels so selfish. Her own hands pressing against her own skin as she tries to impart some sense of sympathy onto a being who is incomprehensibly ancient and still sees fit to share its mind and body with her. 

" Clive killed him. Ifrit killed him ." She says, speaking firmly within herself. " It won't bring them back, but it can't happen again. You're safe ."

There's a slide and shift inside, like a deep breath shaking on the exhale. It's rare that Farah can hear the Tidemother's words, but this place is teeming with sea and aether and darkness. A communion, of sorts, is easier here.

" You left him behind ."

" Clive ?"

" Yes ."

What a weird thing for Leviathan to be thinking about right now. Farah supposes he's been on her mind more than is entirely appropriate, though, even if she's been doing her best to stomp out any feelings she might have about the man like little sparks escaping a bonfire.

" He's safe ." Farah says. " He won't end up like Alexander ."

Leviathan doesn't respond to that so much as she seems to just sigh. 

Chapter Text

Clive is on the road with Torgal less than an hour after the message makes it into his hand. Ambrosia's gait eats up the distance between the hideaway and Northreach in far less time than is probably safe. The warbird is uncomplaining with the pace, however, and his reputation precedes him; most of the bandits have long since learned not to test a man riding a white chocobo flanked by a wolf twice their size. 

Joshua had said they'd learned something that had set Farah on edge. Made her go after some of the nastier and more heavily armed slavers in the region with " a viciousness that seems close to madness ". 

The bearers around Oriflamme and Northreach had been subjected to worse backlash than most after the fall of the mothercrystals. The imperial holdouts had turned to rounding up any bearers they found into camps and using their labour to maintain a defunct way of life. Without crystals to supplement the use of magic, they were burning through their bearer's aether instead.

Or they were . Even as far west as the Norvent, Clive starts hearing about a "madwoman" single-handedly tearing apart camps and drowning men in their own blood. A massive serpent rising out of the sea and dragging a ship down while the Phoenix carries its human cargo back to land. 

There are more people in Northreach than he remembers, and many of them have brands. 

Isabelle must be expecting him, lingering outside the Veil under the anemic light of a lamp as she is. 

"It's been so long since you've paid me a visit, Clive." The Dame smiles knowingly. 

"I was dead." He says, passing Ambrosia off to one of the attendants who seems to just appear in anticipation of his need. "Is Joshua here?"

"Mm, yes. I don't think he's the one you're here for though, is he?" She flicks her eyes over him, assessing. "Don't be cross with me, hm?"

Why would he be cross with her? 

Clive's confusion must show on his face, because Isabelle just waves him inside the brothel with an elegant gesture. 

The Veil is appointed in silk draperies and soft couches lit by smoldering amber light, it smells like soft jasmine incense and argan oil. There are trays of dainty foods and fine wines being carried by courtesans wearing just enough to tantalize potential clients. 

Clive expects to ignore the pageantry as he usually does in favour of taking the stairs down to the basement rooms Isabelle keeps aside for the curse breakers. He expects to find Joshua and Farah there resting. 

Instead he finds Farah lounging on a couch, legs akimbo with a bottle of wine in one hand. Grinning conspiratorially up at a muscle-bound and oiled up man with a mane of curly dark hair, tall and broad shouldered with a slender waist and a booted knee pressed between the vee of her legs while he looms over her, far too close. 

Clive isn't as familiar with jealousy as he is with raw anger, sorrow, exhaustion, or even happiness. He doesn't recognize it at first, confusing it with upset that he's ridden all this way to find her relaxing and drinking with a man who is prettier than he is useful.

But then that man touches her, hooking a finger under her jaw affectionately, and Clive realizes that the urge to burn down the entire Veil is entirely his own doing. 

Torgal, ignoring Clive's order to stay outside, squeezes past him and trots over to Farah without preamble.

The man between Farah's legs stumbles sideways at the interruption, and Clive tries not to laugh at the little victory. 

"That's called cock-blocking, puppy." She says, scrubbing her hand through Torgal's fur. "It's very rude."

"Sorry to interrupt." Clive lies, stepping into the little ring of couches and tables she's decided to take to herself. "I rushed out here thinking to find you knee deep in slaver viscera, but apparently I was misinformed."

She blinks at him, the smile she'd paid to both Torgal and to the courtesan bending into a frown.

"I bathed." She explains. "I can take you out to the camp from today if you feel like you're missing out." 

She sounds irritated. Annoyed at him specifically. He takes a breath to steady his nerves. "Can I ask why you're suddenly trying to single-handedly depopulate the countryside of bandits?"

He's saved, he thinks, by Torgal's insistence that she continues petting him, and the fact that the massive hound is effectively creating a wall between them and keeping her from just standing up and leaving.

"I needed to blow off some steam. This seemed like the most productive way to manage that." She arranges her arms over Torgal's back, bandaged hand curling against his shoulders. 

"And risky." He says, feeling his own irritation return. "Joshua said you've been sneaking off alone."

" Rat ." She laughs, managing to sound both annoyed and oddly fond. "Yes, I go alone. What are they gonna do? I'm meaner than they are and Leviathan is in enough of a mood these days that even if they do manage to lay hands on me they can't do much before all of the water in their body evaporates."

Clive wants to argue, he wants to fight with her and have a screaming, plate-throwing row. 

He also, irritatingly, wants to kiss her and drag her to bed. Not even for anything salacious, but so he can sleep for a solid twenty hours without the horrible nagging worry gnawing at him. He just wants to touch her. Be near her. Hide his face against the narrow sweep of her shoulder and indulge in the sea salt and leather smell he'd gone and gotten himself addicted to over the course of a bare few months.

"Are you planning on doing it again?"

She sucks her teeth, glaring up at him over Torgal's ears, eyes like honey in the lamplight. "Yeah."

"Then I'm coming with you." He says.

"Fine." She huffs. "Is that all? You look like you're about to fall over."

Clive sees the dismissal for what it is, feels the spike of jealousy again when her eyes pan across the room and away from him. 

"Come, Torgal." He says, and the hound whines in protest but obeys, following Clive downstairs. 

"That looked rough."

The courtesan drops into the seat beside her, demeanor gone from salacious to companionable. A shift Farah is thankful for at the moment. Oren has become her favorite here for a reason, and it's not just because of the frankly insane amount of stamina the man has in the bedroom. 

"Ugh." She replies, laconic. 

He passes her another drink off a passing tray. 

"Does he know how you feel?"

"Pretty sure I don't know how I feel." She pulls the cork free with a twist, letting the bottle dangle for a moment before taking a sip. "He's spoken for, and I get the impression non-monogamy isn't on the table."

Oren hums his understanding, putting one of his toned arms over her shoulders. "You wanna fuck about it?"

" Gods yes . Fucked if I'm gonna be able to get anything working after… that , though." She gestures vaguely to the basement staircase. 

"Shame." Oren kisses her temple sweetly. "Let me know if that changes. If I'm not available I will make myself available."

"Flatterer." She huffs, "I'm going to bed. Charge me for the night anyway."

"I do love being paid for doing nothing." He grins, plucking the wine from her hand and taking a sip before passing it back and elegantly vacating her little bubble of self-deprecation.

The rooms kept aside for them are small but comfortable, more like luxurious cells than anything. Farah's spot at the end of the row takes her past several others, including one with Torgal lingering on the threshold. Clive sitting inside and rubbing circles into his temples. 

He looks up as she passes, scowling like he expects to see something other than her dragging her heels over the stone and leaning down to ruffle Torgal's fur briefly. 

She continues down two more doors to her own room, kicking the door shut behind her and unclasping her shoulder guard with an irritated hiss. 

This is-

It's so stupid . Why is she so hung up on this man? They fucked around and travelled together for a bit. It shouldn't be a big deal. She's not some weepy virginal maiden committed to waiting for " the one " or some other saccharine bullshit. Her and Clive hadn't even kissed. The hell is she doing mooning over the guy when Oren had been both available and enthusiastic- not to mention goddamned gorgeous- in her lap barely five minutes ago.

The ewer on the dressing table is empty, and Farah knows better than to go to sleep with a belly full of nothing but wine and anger, so she grabs the thing and goes to fill it at the pump just outside, opening the door with an irritable jerk and running right into the object of her animosity.

"Gah! The fuck?"

He's a brick wall, barely moving despite her momentum. "I apologize." He says."I was… going to knock."

"What for?" She sounds haggard. Shrill. 

"I want to talk to you." Clive keeps his voice low, conscious of the other occupants of their hallway. "Can I come in?"

"It's a small room." She says, stupidly. 

His eyebrows tick together, mouth flattening into a pensive line. 

"You're upset."

"I'm fine . I need water. And-" she doesn't know. Farah panics and tries to squeeze by him but Clive is, again, a wall in her way.

"Farah." He says, hand landing on her shoulder, hot and heavy as lead. "Why are you alone?"

The bark of sound that leaves her could be a laugh, if she was insane. A distinct possibility given the way her body seems primed to dash for the nearest exit and keep running until there's an ocean between her and whatever this is once again.

"Because I want to be! Obviously! Now-" 

He kisses her.

Holy shit .

Wait-

Farah seizes him by the collar and yanks him back "Clive, what the fuck !"

"I made a mistake." He says, red in the face and fingers wrapping around her wrist. "I should have told you about Jill, and then told Jill about us. I should have realized what I wanted before and just… said something."

Farah releases him like she's been burned, making a high pathetic sound at the back of her throat. "What the fuck!?" She repeats. "I thought- you-?"

Clive is cognizant enough to step fully into the tiny room and shut the door, pressing against the wall beside it to give her space. 

"I'm sorry." He says "I didn't know what you wanted. I didn't know what I wanted, and when I did you had already left, and then you just… stayed away."

"To give you and Jill space! So you could figure your shit out together!" She practically slams the ewer down on the table. "Not- not so you could decide to turn around and change your mind ."

"It never changed." He says. "Jill even knew, she just wanted me to work it out for myself but, well…" Clive sighs, shrugging. 

Farah can feel the emotions playing out across her face. Outrage, disbelief, confusion. 

"You absolute cock !" She squeaks. "You obtuse little shit!"

"I know." He has the wherewithal to look guilty. "I'm sorry."

"You're not forgiven. Get over here!" She reaches her arms out and is relieved that he comes immediately, despite the absolutely unhinged tone of her voice. She takes his face in her hands and glares at him, takes in the contrition in those pretty blue eyes. 

He wraps his arms around her waist, gently like he's afraid to spook her. "I'm here." He murmurs. 

"Asshole." She says, then kisses him. It's a slow, tentative thing. Warm and hungry.

He pulls her closer flush against him with his hands sprawling across her back and his breath coming in hot puffs against her lips every time they pause. Slick when his tongue presses questioningly against her lips and is met with her own demanding one. 

Farah tangles her fingers in the laces at the front of his stupid shirt, more for support than anything when he backs her up against the table and she ends up half sitting on it with her legs tangled with Clive's. 

His hands are shaking. 

"You're exhausted." She huffs, doing the math in her head quickly and realizing that he must have rode nearly non-stop for a week to get here as quickly as he has. Faster than Joshua's sneaky little letter took to get to the hideaway, at least. 

"Doesn't matter." He says. "Want you."

"The feeling is absolutely mutual but you need sleep." Farah itemizes the colour of his face and the bags under his eyes, the shallow tremor in his breath that can't be explained away by arousal when all the other signs point to the fact that he should be asleep on his feet. "Sit down. I've got you, idiot." 

"You're so mean." He says, but obeys, dropping down onto the mattress with a grumble. 

Farah pulls off his boots, lining them up at the end of the bed. The armor on his legs is tricky, but she has experience in her favor and nimble fingers besides. His cape is already gone, so his gloves follow, and his shirt, and then his trousers. Clive is mostly naked in her bed and making a valiant effort to get her in a similar state, hands managing her shirt and then giving up on her belt when he tangles the rope worse than it had been.

"Scooch. The bed is small and we're both big." She gets her pants off and crawls in beside him, pulling the quilt up. 

She doesn't need to, Clive is a furnace and she's plastered skin to skin, soaking up the heat like a sponge while his hands stroke down her spine. 

"I missed you." He says in the quiet. "I was half-mad with worry after Joshua's letter." 

"Remind me to get revenge for that somehow. Meddling little shit…" She presses her nose into the hollow of his neck, inhaling sweat, chocobo, dust, and woodsmoke. It's not the most pleasant he's ever smelled but she takes a deep breath of it anyway.

"He means well."

Farah grumbles, absently tracing her fingers over his chest, feeling the buzz of his heartbeat and the flutter of Ifrit below the surface. "What did he say?"

"That you learned something and were taking stupid risks."

It's not untrue, she guesses. "Yeah… we found out what the mothercrystals were made of and Levi was ready to level that whole city. We compromised." 

Or Farah placated the serpent with promises of targeted violence. Either way. Leviathan was enraged by the murder of her family, by the perversion of their purpose for some slave-driving alien's vanity project. Farah directed that rage at the actual slavers hurting people in the present and let the carnage distract her from the selfish hurt of a perceived rejection. 

Clive is smart enough, even exhausted, to fit the pieces together without her needing to be explicit. It's something she's thankful for. She doesn't want to find words for it again. He cups the base of her skull in his hand, tangles their fingers together against his chest, but says nothing.

"We spoke." She continues. "Sort of. When I was down where the crystal had been. Leviathan showed me things. We connected. You probably could too, with Ifrit."

He exhales, breath ruffling the hair at her temple. "Do you think I should?"

Farah gives a shrug, she wants him to, or Leviathan wants him to. Their wants are a little tangled together lately and attempting to distinguish the two is far from useful. "I think you might be able to get some questions answered. Maybe contact your other Eidolons." 

"Alright." He says, sleepy "Tomorrow, then?"

"Slavers tomorrow. Eidolon communion on Tuesday." She huffs.

He mumbles a quiet "That's fair." And then sighs. Relaxing fully in her hold.

Farah follows barely a handful of breaths later. 

Clive wakes slowly. Warm and comfortable, conscious of a slow hand carding through his hair and the soft sound of turning pages. Ifrit quiet inside him, but tucked up close to the surface to tangle with another familiar energy. 

Strange how he's become sensitive to it now. Ifrit's reaching had always been so aggressive before, maybe just because Clive hadn't allowed himself the space to feel it. He hadn't imagined the Eikon would have the capacity to want anything more than simple destruction. Vengeance. Rage.

Just like on Madain Sari, Ifrit feels almost happy here. Melancholy from the knowledge of what happened to his fellow Eikons, of course, but safe in the knowledge that he put the culprit down. He saved the ones who mattered. The one who mattered most. 

"Hey." Farah pauses the motion of her palm. "How are you feeling?" 

Clive succumbs to the urge to push his head against her hand, wordlessly asking for more of her touch and pleased when he receives it. "Less like I'm going to pass out."

"I'd hope so. You slept for most of the day." She laughs, scraping her nails over the nape of his neck in a way that makes him shiver. "You hungry?" 

Clive thinks he could put away several meals to himself after the week he's had, and the temptation to do that is only tempered by the warm bared skin under his cheek and the hand in his hair. He hauls himself up to bring their faces level with each other, watching her smile turn mischievous. "It can wait." 

"Good." She tosses her book aside, the careless thump of it landing somewhere on the floor. "We have some catching up to do."

He presses his mouth to hers, seeking more of the slow tenderness she seems so eager to give him. Letting her use her hold on his hair to control the angle and pressure, her thighs pressing him hot between her legs. Friction and heat building as his hips bear down in anticipation, a pantomime of what he wants to be doing. 

She doesn't make him wait long, thankfully, shifting her smallclothes to the side and pulling his down so he can sink into her with a shaking groan of relief. 

Weeks . It's been weeks without her and he's starving for it. He teeters on the edge of orgasm immediately, whining low in his throat and focusing on the sensation of her cool hand on the back of his neck and the sound of her shushing him, kissing his cheek just above the numb expanse of scar tissue. 

"Close, huh?" 

He nods, trying to keep his hips still so he doesn't embarrass himself.

"Poor thing." She murmurs, "Good that we have all day."

Clive gives a shaky laugh. "What happened to killing slavers?" 

"Easier at night." Farah says, pressing a heel into his lower back and pushing him deeper, causing his control to fray. "And after you've had a day to rest." 

He wouldn't exactly call this restful, not with the way his heart is trying to pound its way out of his chest. Clive feels hot all over and his only comfort is that Farah's casual confidence is being betrayed by the stripe of flushed skin across her cheeks and the heat behind those amber eyes. 

He leans into her, steady pressure so he can feel her breath catch when he licks past her parted lips, balance shifting to one arm so he can curve his fingers over her jaw. She lavishes him with a possessive snap of teeth against his lip, a rough pass of her tongue against his own, blunt nails scoring half-moons into his shoulder.

Clive cants his hips just so and grins at the harsh and growling gasp it earns him.

He'd missed her. Her lazy smiles and easy touch, the strange sense of humour, the vicious way she fights. It's crass, he thinks, that he missed this too. The hot, wet, clench of her on his cock and the primal sounds that make him want to snarl and bite and take her in ways that would be better suited to an animal than a man. 

The control. Her control of him, grasping fingers and low promising words. He missed that too. The way she can make him wait like an obedient hound without making him feel leashed. Petting hands and a hungry murmur of " Good boy " against his jaw making him willingly heel. 

"Come on, sweetheart. Don't make me wait." She squeezes her knees at his sides, like urging a chocobo forward, and it has about the same effect. Clive gives up trying to remain still and keep himself in check. He buries his face in her neck and nearly folds her in half, fucking into her and groaning from the slick squeeze threatening to drain him. 

Farah's voice shivers down his spine, sweet as a song, urging him faster and harder between complements. " Beautiful " she calls him, " so fucking gorgeous ". He doesn't know how to tell her how perfect she is. He wants to worship her like a god, on his knees or buried inside her like he is now. Clive wants to count the notches of her spine like a rosary and take in the scent of her perfume like the smoke of a censer. 

Clive has been a slave for most of his life but Farah is the only person he'd ever willingly bear a brand for. 

The realization makes his heart ache, makes him aware of the grounding tug of her fist in his hair and the sweet gentleness of her lips pressing warm and sweet against his temple. 

Clive's orgasm hits him with all the subtlety of a battering ram. Breathless and blind as he's suddenly and violently emptied by the force of his pleasure. His focus narrows to a single point, the sound of his name ragged in her throat like a prayer.

The tide recedes and he's aware that he's practically crushing her, and that she's still petting him gently as a pup despite what must be an uncomfortable amount of weight settled across her body like an over-warm and slightly sweaty blanket.

He goes to move and she growls . 

"Don't you dare."

So he stays.

Breathing underwater is a deeply disconcerting experience, at first. It's heavier, more effort to push water in and out of his body. 

Leviathan's blessing only allows him that much, unfortunately, the rest of the journey beneath Drake's Head requires clinging to Farah's ankle while she swims down into the dark, semi primed and moving quickly, navigating by sound apparently. He isn't sure how it works but she's confident in telling him that it does. 

They slow to a stop, and he feels her hands on him, illuminated faintly by an outline of glowing freckles. Her amber eyes are soft blue with Leviathan's power behind them, slitted like a cat's pupil. 

He touches her arm, assuring her that he's okay. 

It's mostly true. He's nervous, he never expected to visit the site of Cid's death again, but Farah had asked him to. She wanted him to connect with Ifrit like she had with Leviathan in this place. Darkness and aether, silence and pressure. 

She takes his hands in her own, and places them on an outcropping of rock, tapping them to tell him to hold onto it. He feels her cheek press against his, and her mouth, and then the flutter of water as she vanishes into the dark. 

Solitude. Another thing she assumes is needed here. 

Without the faint glow of her semi-primed form the water is black as pitch, freezing cold, and absolutely silent. A vacuum for his senses where all he can do is feel.

The rough stone under his fingers, the shift of his hair floating around his head, the slow thud of his heartbeat beneath his ribs. Clive focuses on the achingly slow pump of his lungs pushing and pulling water in and out, managing to eke out what little oxygen is available. 

He doesn't usually have to think about breathing. With the rare exception of respiratory illness, Clive has been blissfully unaware of the minutiae required to take a single breath and let it out again. Here, it feels almost unnatural, letting himself drown so he can avoid suffocating. 

Inhale and a flood of freezing water pools into his lungs, it tastes like salt and aether. It makes the roof of his mouth itch. Still, the relief that comes in the act is the same as on land. Exhalation feels like pushing back against a wall, it makes his chest ache from the effort, and he wonders how Farah is seemingly able to do this for hours without tiring. 

The last time she had been down here she had stayed for long enough that Joshua had been worried, apparently. Emerging after sunset she had spent the entire afternoon bathed in the remains of a forgotten eikon, dreaming.

" Remembering ." She had corrected him. " We can't remember everything our Eidolons have experienced. We're too small, or they're too old. But we can see pieces of them if we're open to it ."

What led Ifrit to be bound the way he was? That's the main question Clive has. Of all the eikons, why was Ifrit the one Ultima wanted to inhabit? What was different?

The warden of fire isn't telling. Clive waits until the darkness starts to look almost grey instead of black, until the silence seems to ring in his ears like the tinnitus after a blow to the head. The only thing that keeps him from panicking is the dull sort of sixth sense that Farah is nearby. 

She puts a hand on his shoulder, reassuring.

The hand is too big. Fingers too short. He recognizes it, though. 

Turning, he sees a familiar face. Greying hair and blue eyes that are nearly violet. 

"Been awhile, Lad. How's things?" 

Clive gapes. The man lights up a cigar in the half-light, fire blooming like they're not under hundreds of feet of water. He's standing on what looks like a solid pale grey surface, a stone floor that shouldn't be there. 

" Cid ?"

He thinks the word, he can't speak around the flood in his lungs. Still, he can hear himself somehow. 

"Mostly." Cid says. "A bit of Ramuh, too. Plus your Eikon and the big snake giving everything a fair push. Seems you have work to do."

Clive considers the fact that this could be a vivid hallucination brought on by the void in his senses, the cold water, the dark, the quiet. It could be the aether bath he's soaking in. The past several months could be a strange fever dream produced by a dying brain. 

Or this is real. Cid is real . 

Clive grabs hold of his friend's -apparently solid- body and crushes himself against it with a breath that escapes in a shaky kind of relief. 

"I'm sorry." He says. "Fuck, Cid, I'm so fucking sorry."

"For what? It was my time. And you managed to finish what I started." A gloved hand rubs between his shoulder blades, a comfort that nearly undoes Clive entirely. 

"You died ."

"Aye, and now I'm privy to the secrets of the universe. Funny how that works." Cid inhales, the smell of tobacco smoke filling the air around them despite the fact that there shouldn't be any air at all. "Speaking of…"

Cid manages to dislodge Clive, but doesn't let go, just rearranges them so his arm is over Clive's shoulders and he's able to reveal a cluster of shining stones in his opposite hand. 

"Gems?" Clive asks, stupidly. Of course they're bloody gems. Amethyst, white opal, peridot, jet, diamond, and yellow topaz. 

Only these jewels seem strangely alive. Shifting, almost, in Cid's hand. A flicker of electric energy flashing under the surface of the amethyst confirms it. 

"Are these the Eikons?"

"Sharp, you." Cid grins around his cigar. "You have work to do. I have some opinions, mind, about who you should hand these out to."

"Mid?"

"Aye. I didn't leave that girl much, and an Eikon is hardly a gift, but I know the old man will protect her while I can't." 

Cid sounds fond. Still, there's a note of regret there, the knowledge that he won't be able to be the one protecting his daughter. "I'll make sure she knows." Clive says.

"Make sure she keeps her head on straight." Cid huffs.

"And the diamond. Jill should decide if she wants Shiva back." Clive isn't sure if she would. Jill had suffered terribly because of her status as a dominant, and he wouldn't blame her for choosing to remain as she is. 

"That would be the smart thing to do." Cid agrees. "As for the others, I suppose they won't just bend to any master. You'll need to find people who the Eikons are willing to work with. Make no mistake, Lad, this will be work . Eikons were called wardens for a reason, and you'll be taking on those responsibilities in truth."

Clive feels himself laugh, an exhausted sound, "Secrets of the universe, Cid?"

"Aye." Cid laughs too, clapping Clive on the shoulder. "I won't spoil everything, but safe to say that I felt right stupid about more than a few things."

There's a sound like a rushing river in the distance, Clive looks down to see water pooling around his feet, rising slowly. 

"That would be our time." Cid says, sighing. 

The water swirls around Clive's knees, cold and faintly glittering with aether. "Where will you go after this?" 

"Onwards, I suspect. Back to… well. There's a big bloody crystal in the middle of the planet, one that doesn't suck all the life and magic out of everything. It makes it instead. Makes Eikons. Funny when you think about it." He sighs. "But that's all I can tell you without getting in trouble with the higher ups. The rest you'll have to find out yourself."

Higher, the flood closing around his chest now. Clive wishes he had more time. He wishes he could take Cid with him. The other man seems happy, though, peaceful despite his regrets. 

"Just for the record," Cid says, squeezing his shoulder and stepping out of sight just as the water closes around Clive's head and the world goes blueblack and silent. 

"I never felt stupid about choosing you."

Farah listens to a waterlogged Clive explain what happened once.

She then makes him explain it again. Slower. Not because she didn't understand the unlikely combination of words the first time around but because she needs to put the whole thing together in her head in a way that doesn't make her feel crazier than a shithouse rat. 

Dead Cid spoke to Clive. Dead Cid gave Clive a handful of shiny rocks with Eidolons inside them and tasked him with passing them out like Samhain candy to worthy humans. And he wants her help. 

"Joshua too." He says, when she stares at him across the damp stone floor above their access to Drake's Head with what must be complete disbelief written on her face. "And Jill, if she takes back Shiva."

Farah had made a lot of noise about purpose over the years. How she needed one, how hers couldn't possibly have been to lounge around on an island waiting for storms to come rumbling through. Still, this feels… big.

"And then when we've found everyone we just, what, tilt the world back onto its proper axis?" 

"I suspect it will be the work of generations." Clive moves to sit next to her, a furnace even after having been dunked in frigid water for hours. Farah lets herself soak in the heat like a lizard, leaning into him and letting out the world's longest sigh.

"Well, fuck. I'm not gonna say 'No' am I?" 

"Thank you." He drops his chin on her head, arms coming around her and squeezing. They're both still barely dressed, and the contact and heat feels lovely on the chill of her bare arms. She resists the urge to curl around him like an octopus. Barely.

The trip back to Northreach is uneventful. There are no slavers left to flush out, and the bandits give them a wide berth. They sleep, they resupply, and they return to the hideaway at a much more reasonable pace than Clive had used to leave it. 

She'd missed traveling with him. Camping at night and knowing without a doubt that he'd spot anything headed their way far before it got to striking distance. They catch up with Joshua and Torgal a few days West, and finding excuses to sneak off together without scandalizing the younger Rosfield becomes a chore in and of itself. They can only "go hunting" without the dog and return empty handed and slightly disheveled so many times. 

Joshua takes the news that they're going to be appointing new summoners and, hopefully, getting a start at rebalancing the elemental energies of an entire planet, fairly well. He nods along like everything his elder brother has just told him makes perfect sense. Like this is a logical next step and he knew to expect it eventually. 

"I think it might be wise if I do my part from Rosalith." He says, "After everything that's happened, the people need somewhere to go where they can feel safe, bearer or no." 

Farah grins, "I'm sure Mid will be very impressed."

Joshua's face goes red as Metia, and Clive looks briefly lost before she gives him a significant look.

"How long has this been going on?"

"It hasn't ." Joshua opines, glaring daggers at Farah. 

"Only because you haven't had the opportunity to try out my sage advice." Farah leans back in the rickety chair she's claimed at tonight's inn, swirling her too-expensive mead and waggling her eyebrows.

"Please don't get in a fistfight with Mid." Clive says, long suffering. 

"I absolutely did not suggest a fight." Farah huffs. "I suggested spending time together working on something that mutually interested them."

"Like building a ferry system across the Bennumere that doesn't rely on Obol." Joshua is too poncey to slouch in his embarrassment, but he manages to lose the ability to make eye-contact.

Someone is going to have to give that boy the talk . Soon. 

"Or running a duchy." Clive says, wry, then looks at Farah with poorly concealed suspicion "Or hunting axebeaks half-a-day away from town?"

"It worked on you, didn't it?" She tilts her mug at him. "I am a master of seduction." 

"I hate everything about this conversation." Joshua says. 

Jill decides to think about Shiva.

Clive had expected it. Encouraged it, even. Still, he doesn't know what to do if she ends up turning it down. He rolls the chilly diamond around between his fingers and tries to figure out a solution.

Mid, meanwhile, had sobbed openly and punched him repeatedly in the arm. She'd accepted the amethyst with a stream of curses, called him and her dead father idiots, called Ramuh himself a "bloody great git" even as the storm warden had infused himself within her. 

Farah steals Mid away to a scorched out bowl of land a few miles from the hideaway to teach her to control her power. Something Clive is no expert on. 

He wonders if that's why Ifrit is so keen on her. The eikon is a temperamental creature, fire and brimstone only tenuously caged by Clive's will. Farah- or, indeed, Leviathan- seems unconcerned with the beast's volatility. 

Not that anything Ifrit has done lately could be considered volatile. Farah returns with Mid after three days and Clive spends the better part of a day and night clinging like a barnacle. Skin to skin and either fucking or lounging in bed like a couple of indolent Sanbrequian nobles. He forgets to eat when she's not around. He doesn't sleep when he's supposed to. He falls back into old habits from when he had a god to kill and an apocalypse to thwart but with nowhere to direct it. 

And then Farah returns and reminds him. Firmly. Gently. He can't plan a journey to restore elemental balance without food and rest. He makes up for his neglect all at once. Eating, sleeping, and testing how soundproof the walls of his room are.

She wanders off again, this time with Jill. Not far, just a bit West to Three Reeds. This time with the threat of a boot to the arse if she finds out he isn't taking care of himself. 

It works. 

It works and he manages to get more done and stay in a better mood than he had when she'd been gone before, and that would have been reward enough. But she returns with Jill, renewed and focused as the Dominant of Shiva once more, and the look she gives him when nobody immediately complains about his bad mood and late nights is enough to make him nearly burn his entire outfit to cinders. 

"Two down." She says.

"The two easiest." He replies, leaning on her as they observe the Bennumere below them, inky in the sunset.

"Maybe. Still counts." Farah hooks her foot around his ankle. "I'm gonna start cleaning this lake out tomorrow. Not sure how long it'll take me but when I'm done… where do you wanna start looking?"

He groans, "I have no idea. I was hoping you would."

"With my sense of direction? Sweetheart, please. I'll get us horribly lost and stranded on some horrible atoll." She laughs, and takes his hand, sliding her fingers between his own and pressing his knuckles to her grinning mouth.

"East, then." He says. "We can follow the sunrise."

"We have a shitload of lakes to clean up between here and there." She agrees. 

Leviathan isn't lost. She's taking the scenic route.

Or the route with the most inns offering bathtubs and fancy wines. It's costing her a fortune but what else is she spending money on, really? Clive's penchant for cheap ale and seeming inability to sweat isn't exactly catching, and running around the desert is thirsty work. Farah would prefer someplace cooler and less liable to suck every drop of moisture from her flesh but, alas, this is apparently the best place to find someone Titan can agree with. 

Now, in Dalimil, Clive thinks he's found their man. Someone he knows well enough to recommend, anyway. And he's been kind enough to leave her to her soaking while he has the required grave conversation. 

Farah is on her second glass when he returns, looking pleased with himself and more pleased with the size of the stone tub built into their suite. He starts stripping without preamble.

"L'ubor wants to sleep on it, but I think he's amenable." Clive says, yanking his shirt over his head. He folds it and sets it aside before he starts on his boots. 

"Three down." She lifts her glass. 

"Three to go." He finishes, finally getting his trousers off and giving up on folding them. Instead he tosses them on top of his shirt and climbs into the tub across from her, legs tangling together, water wobbling and nearly sloshing over the sides. He makes a face at the temperature and she sighs.

"Go on." Farah holds her glass carefully away from the water and lets him abuse his magic in the name of hot water. Not like she hadn't done the same earlier instead of having some poor maid run water from the pump in buckets. 

He keeps it below scalding, this time. Thankfully. Cool enough that she can rearrange herself until she's leaned up against him and using him as a particularly handsome chair. 

"You're going to spoil me for the hostel beds." He chides, stealing her glass and taking a careful sip. 

"I'm just amazed you never bothered to try the fancy accommodations." Farah hums, tilting her head back and resting it on his shoulder. "You primed out here at least once, never thought to come take one of those boiling baths you mentioned craving?" 

"Was too busy." He admits, kind enough to top up her glass from the bottle sitting on the window sill. He passes the glass back to her, full and cold. "And I didn't think I deserved it. The coddling."

"Well, I hope you've changed your mind a bit. You saved the world, and you're sort of doing it again."

"I'm here aren't I?" Clive moves a few strands of her hair that have managed to come free and stick to her neck. He kisses her there, warm and sweet. "Thanks to a certain someone."

"I do like it when you thank me for things. You're very good at it." She grins, basking in the uninterrupted sensation of hands and lips on skin. Leviathan is sleeping again, she has been for days, seemingly content to let Farah do her own wandering unprompted and unharassed by an unidentifiable longing for places and people she'd never even known.

She found the place. She found the people. Farah has a purpose and a life now. 

All thanks to some tart in a low cut shirt washing up on the shore and nearly turning into a statue.