her held eye did turn
Nov. 20th, 2024 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seleniasTitle: her held eye did turn
Fandom: Final Fantasy XVI
Characters/pairing: Pre-Jill/Clive, Cid
Rating: gen
Word Count: 1000
Notes: A rewrite of an earlier summer work. I like this much more now. Old version left for funsies. Jill tries to understand that desire which is hard to name.
-
The gate is open and the church doors flung wide when Jill reaches the top of the hill, sweating some. Breathless, she touches the board that would have barred her entry, singed and black at the edges, still hissing. She imagines it will only be Cid.
Jill steps through a soft darkness as she walks down the aisle, steps dull and flat on the dirty floor, then utterly silent. It seems a third presence itself, and hardly peaceful. No icons would rest here of their own accord. It’s a place suitable for outlaws or squatters and the tattered banners of Greagor look touched by moths and bleeding men both.
“Praying?” Jill asks, stopping.
A pew creaks as Cid turns and waves. He’s smoking. “Not to the Empire’s bloodthirsty lot.”
“Well, I’m starting to think they don’t either.”
Cid laughs then stands, dropping his smoke to the ground and grinding it with his heel. All pleasantries, this man, but action too.
Jill observes him with the solemn familiarity of a puzzle; he’s patient and experienced in these garish hiding places, and unreserved about the unhappiness that drew them here. His palms chafe in the hollow quiet when he rubs them together, considering her in turn, more her face than the state of her blade. “Glad you’re here, Jill. Come on out, if you’d like. We might spot the lad in the field. I don’t think he’ll come quietly.”
“Clive will be fine,” Jill says, firm. “If he doesn’t stop to talk.”
“If so, we’ll just follow the smoke.”
Jill scoffs, but Cid is smiling with his eyes, so she forgives him. Yarrow past its season nods its head sleepily against the rock wall where Jill touches the stone for cool relief. In silence, his companionship strikes the same.
The Sea of Grace flickers hazily in the distance, sparse fields swaying against each other, rubbing shoulders with dilapidated fences and bare-headed servants. Jill raises her gaze to the prize, where the disparity only lends her further clarity and an icy inattention for its guard. Jill knows destroying a mountain should not be so easy as walking toward it, but Drake’s Head casts the labyrinth of towers below into deep shadows in fierce defiance. The chasm it will leave in its absence will hunger for their blood long after the blessing is gone, and it scares her about as much as anything else that she only knows as a thing that may come to pass.
Cid draws to the balls of his feet and sways like an overgrown boy, as if he knows nothing of it, or primal fears. But it can’t be true. To put her at ease then, he’s something more than all he can be. “Did you see the field hands on yer way up?” he asks abstractly. “Plucking the wheat?”
Jill laces her fingers together, quiet. “I did, but they did not see me.”
“Aye. Infuriating, isn’t it? Poor sods don’t even remember how to react to a good word.”
“It’s their silence or their safety,” she says. Familiar, that. Then, turning to watch the sun slowly cresting behind them, a consciousness of the world’s ugliness burns through her with such force she clamps her eyes to shut it out; Rosalith had been left to rot, and there is a festering wound that’s been stirred where Cid asks for her confidence where she worries she may have none to spare. If knowing were only enough, but instead all these choices must ache, and she cannot look away.
“Tell me something, Cid. Is that how Clive was too, when he went with you?”
It prickles her skin, the way he can get under hers, make the perception of her world shift. But Cid only smiles broadly as if humbled, cheeks pinching some in surprise, then barks a laugh.
“No m’ dear, I reckon he was far more concerned about your well being than his own. About slit my throat at our first meeting! Remember?”
“No,” she confesses, startled. Picturing it, more of a stranger than the boy she’d thought lost, she smiles some. Then wryly, appeased, “Did he truly?”
“No need to look so happy about it.” Cid grins. “Hardly the safe choice,” he assures. “But he’s not quiet for lack of words, as you well know. He’s made up his mind about our little plan now and has plenty of things he wants for himself, but forgive me if I’m not sure about you.”
“He trusts you,” Jill says, cautious, assured and soothed at once by her quick response; it wasn’t untrue. So I do too.
Cid, their modest hero in all but name, only fiddles with his smokes. She knows she would have turned his hand away had she awoken alone, and he wouldn’t have felt the burn of the sleight.
“I appreciate your calm head. You’ll keep us on the straight and narrow, I’ve no doubt,” he speaks, rasping some. Then he pivots closer with some relief in his step where he may share a secret, and she doesn’t pull away. “Speak of the devil though. Coming up through Moore! A stunning locale, by the way —”
Jill squints down into the village, searching. “Was it though? I went around —”
“They take the piss straight from Oriflamme. A collective of crowd pleasers, if you like. Clive won’t be long now, the better for us.”
What Cid perceives as bravery makes her wish she had more to spare. She walked here alone and no man looked twice at her with the silver of her blade steadily flashing, but they will always look at Clive and his brand and see what he can be used for first. What Cid wants is an impossible reality but these men are already bolting past it, sprinting forward, upturning the realm. She’s the suspicion she’s being waited on, but not for lack of trying.
Jill rests on the stone once more, patient and tired. “He should take his time. It’s a long climb up.”
Fandom: Final Fantasy XVI
Characters/pairing: Pre-Jill/Clive, Cid
Rating: gen
Word Count: 1000
Notes: A rewrite of an earlier summer work. I like this much more now. Old version left for funsies. Jill tries to understand that desire which is hard to name.
-
The gate is open and the church doors flung wide when Jill reaches the top of the hill, sweating some. Breathless, she touches the board that would have barred her entry, singed and black at the edges, still hissing. She imagines it will only be Cid.
Jill steps through a soft darkness as she walks down the aisle, steps dull and flat on the dirty floor, then utterly silent. It seems a third presence itself, and hardly peaceful. No icons would rest here of their own accord. It’s a place suitable for outlaws or squatters and the tattered banners of Greagor look touched by moths and bleeding men both.
“Praying?” Jill asks, stopping.
A pew creaks as Cid turns and waves. He’s smoking. “Not to the Empire’s bloodthirsty lot.”
“Well, I’m starting to think they don’t either.”
Cid laughs then stands, dropping his smoke to the ground and grinding it with his heel. All pleasantries, this man, but action too.
Jill observes him with the solemn familiarity of a puzzle; he’s patient and experienced in these garish hiding places, and unreserved about the unhappiness that drew them here. His palms chafe in the hollow quiet when he rubs them together, considering her in turn, more her face than the state of her blade. “Glad you’re here, Jill. Come on out, if you’d like. We might spot the lad in the field. I don’t think he’ll come quietly.”
“Clive will be fine,” Jill says, firm. “If he doesn’t stop to talk.”
“If so, we’ll just follow the smoke.”
Jill scoffs, but Cid is smiling with his eyes, so she forgives him. Yarrow past its season nods its head sleepily against the rock wall where Jill touches the stone for cool relief. In silence, his companionship strikes the same.
The Sea of Grace flickers hazily in the distance, sparse fields swaying against each other, rubbing shoulders with dilapidated fences and bare-headed servants. Jill raises her gaze to the prize, where the disparity only lends her further clarity and an icy inattention for its guard. Jill knows destroying a mountain should not be so easy as walking toward it, but Drake’s Head casts the labyrinth of towers below into deep shadows in fierce defiance. The chasm it will leave in its absence will hunger for their blood long after the blessing is gone, and it scares her about as much as anything else that she only knows as a thing that may come to pass.
Cid draws to the balls of his feet and sways like an overgrown boy, as if he knows nothing of it, or primal fears. But it can’t be true. To put her at ease then, he’s something more than all he can be. “Did you see the field hands on yer way up?” he asks abstractly. “Plucking the wheat?”
Jill laces her fingers together, quiet. “I did, but they did not see me.”
“Aye. Infuriating, isn’t it? Poor sods don’t even remember how to react to a good word.”
“It’s their silence or their safety,” she says. Familiar, that. Then, turning to watch the sun slowly cresting behind them, a consciousness of the world’s ugliness burns through her with such force she clamps her eyes to shut it out; Rosalith had been left to rot, and there is a festering wound that’s been stirred where Cid asks for her confidence where she worries she may have none to spare. If knowing were only enough, but instead all these choices must ache, and she cannot look away.
“Tell me something, Cid. Is that how Clive was too, when he went with you?”
It prickles her skin, the way he can get under hers, make the perception of her world shift. But Cid only smiles broadly as if humbled, cheeks pinching some in surprise, then barks a laugh.
“No m’ dear, I reckon he was far more concerned about your well being than his own. About slit my throat at our first meeting! Remember?”
“No,” she confesses, startled. Picturing it, more of a stranger than the boy she’d thought lost, she smiles some. Then wryly, appeased, “Did he truly?”
“No need to look so happy about it.” Cid grins. “Hardly the safe choice,” he assures. “But he’s not quiet for lack of words, as you well know. He’s made up his mind about our little plan now and has plenty of things he wants for himself, but forgive me if I’m not sure about you.”
“He trusts you,” Jill says, cautious, assured and soothed at once by her quick response; it wasn’t untrue. So I do too.
Cid, their modest hero in all but name, only fiddles with his smokes. She knows she would have turned his hand away had she awoken alone, and he wouldn’t have felt the burn of the sleight.
“I appreciate your calm head. You’ll keep us on the straight and narrow, I’ve no doubt,” he speaks, rasping some. Then he pivots closer with some relief in his step where he may share a secret, and she doesn’t pull away. “Speak of the devil though. Coming up through Moore! A stunning locale, by the way —”
Jill squints down into the village, searching. “Was it though? I went around —”
“They take the piss straight from Oriflamme. A collective of crowd pleasers, if you like. Clive won’t be long now, the better for us.”
What Cid perceives as bravery makes her wish she had more to spare. She walked here alone and no man looked twice at her with the silver of her blade steadily flashing, but they will always look at Clive and his brand and see what he can be used for first. What Cid wants is an impossible reality but these men are already bolting past it, sprinting forward, upturning the realm. She’s the suspicion she’s being waited on, but not for lack of trying.
Jill rests on the stone once more, patient and tired. “He should take his time. It’s a long climb up.”
