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ahollowgrave · 18 hours ago

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"Ah, Jane, a word with thee," Urianger called, stopping her attempt to sidle past unnoticed.

"W-what do you want?" she asked, as always somewhere on the nervous-to-panicked scale when presented with the sinister false prophet.

"Now that my deception hath been unveiled, there is much I must ask thee about the holes you claim twisteth like knots in the thread of your memory, for I have learned answers to questions you know not to ask."

"Um. S-sure." She glanced back and forth between Thancred, who was impassive but seemingly unconcerned with swooping in and rescuing her from this particular fate, and Papalymo, who smiled encouragingly and gave her a little nod. She was left with no one to save her from being lead to a quiet table in the corner of the Rising Stones.

She balled her fists on her knees to stop her shaking hands from betraying her, and studied the flame of the candle between them; the familiar whisper of fire brought some comfort even if Y'shtola and Krile had tactfully withdrawn for their privacy at a nod from Urianger, and left Jane utterly abandoned of friendly faces.

He didn't say anything, but stared, inscrutable, until she couldn't take it any more. "What?!" she demanded.

"Perhaps it would be best if you were to once more regale me with thy tale of thy flight from Ishgard, and the last things you remember of that night."

Her eyes widened even more than their normal darting state. "Umm, why? The Warriors of Darkness weren't there, were they? Were they?"

"Nay, I believe they arrived but recently. It... it is Elidibus's comments that have left me pondering."

She stared at him. Behind his goggles, he presumably stared back.

"And?!" Jane finally demanded.

"'Twould seem he had more than passing knowledge of thy situation, and called thee not Warrior of Light, but 'The Runaway' more than once. Indeed, I was not sure you were one and the same until thy path did cross with mine own schemes."

"I... I guess I did run away from Ishgard. Why would he care about that?"

"And that is why I bid thee recount thy tale once more."

She sighed, and sunk deeper into the chair, eyes once more darting to the warm candle flame. So much had happened since that night; so much of her perspective on the world had been changed, by force, by others and by scenarios she never could have dreamed of while selling potions from her parents' stall in the Jewelled Crozier.

Were the words she'd use now be the same as how she had first told it in shaky terms to Minfilia, lured by Thancred's assurance that she knew everything. That she could give all the answers to why Jane's dreams manifested the visions they did. And Minfilia had known almost nothing, told her only of the Echo but not of her own history, and left her to fend for herself. Left them all, now. And Urianger, mysterious and cryptic at the best of times, had pulled all those strings... And seemed at last to be someone who maybe did know more than they let on.

She swallowed.

"They were buying poisons from us. The heretics. I - I didn't know that. I just sold the ingredients. B-but they showed up when my parents weren't there. Left me in charge. A-and they made me feel like I was friends with them all. I thought some of them was highborns from the way they dressed, and some of them was knights from the way they walked, but they were fashionable, and charming, and... and I was just enjoying their attention. And they'd hang around for a bell chinwagging and scaring off boring customers, and when Temple Knights came by they'd buy something off the stall right quick and melt away laughing. I wanted nothing more than to go with them, but I - I didn't want to disappoint my parents."

"I'm sorry, Jane," Urianger said, startling her out of her reverie. He seemed to mean it, his hand falling back to his side like he had reached for her and thought better of it before she had looked up.

She shook her head. "What's done is done. They're at the bottom of Witchdrop and I'm here. I got Aymeric to look to see what happened to them, you know. And he couldn't even look at me. I know it was bad." She shrugged. "They got framed for poisoning the old Lord Commander and the Inquisition moves fast. There's a leatherworker in our old stall, now. I went and looked but I was too scared to see if the first coins were still under the loose cobble under the stall. If I got seen sneaking back at midnight to the scene of the crime, I don't know if even Aymeric would have seen fit to listen and pardon me."

"First coins?"

"You know, when you start a business and the first thing someone buys, you put the coins somewhere safe, for luck." She sniffed, and rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes. "Don't know why I'd want them anyway, come to think of it."

He nodded. "An ill omen to carry with thee, indeed."

She glanced up and gave him a strangled kind of smile, before returning to examination of the candle. "So that night. When the Lord Commander died. I think they knew they framed us; they wanted to ruin my family. I'm sure of it. They came right to me as I was folding up the stall, and told me to come with them, and I didn't even see how scared they were, I was so chuffed to be invited anywhere. I just followed them right down into the Brume."

"And then?" Urianger prompted.

She started, glancing around once more. "I don't know if telling you this is going to make me in even more trouble, but there's more than one way out of Ishgard. A couple of paths to the Highlands and all right sketchy tunnels. Smugglers and such use them, as well as the heretics. But you know when you get down there, nothing's safe anyway. Vilekin everywhere, caves full of bats. And all frozen over and infested with elementals since the Calamity to boot.

"I didn't know where we were going, thought they had a hideout or something when they opened a hatch under a barrel at the back of a house. But it was a tunnel and they were pushing me along it. And I realised how freaked out they were. The highborn one, the mage, he was really shoving my shoulder to make me walk even when my boots were slipping on the ice that was all over the ground. And then I think I heard the Temple Knights, and they made us run. I weren't the only one who slipped, I stopped to help one of them up, and we got behind the rest of the group.

"And then there was a dead end where the rock had collapsed, and they were all shouting, and making us go back, and then the Temple Knights were right behind us, so we got to some real steep stairs, over the Abyss. Even afore you got to it you could hear the winds sucking you towards it. And the highborn mage stopped, right there at the top of the stairs, and said, I'll hold them off. And - and his face. He... I didn't know what it was then, I was so scared. I'd never seen it before, you know. It was the Ascian glyph, and he was doing a summoning. I was trying not to slip on the stairs but I looked back because I felt the dark magick and I knew he was doing something really bad, and I was right where it was so slippy, and I looked at him and made eye contact and I know he was summoning a voidsent, but - that's the last thing I remember. I think I slipped; I think one of them must have carried me.

"It was three days later in Fallgourd Float when I next knew anything. An Ul'dahn merchant found me on the side of the road, unconscious; he thought the Dullahans had got me but I'd been lying there a while and they hadn't hurt me, so I don't think they cared to be quite honest. Anyway, he took me to the inn, and when I woke up I was so scared that we were anywhere near Coerthas when he offered to take me home I paid him all I had to take me to Thanalan instead. A-and that's where I was when Thancred found me and I ended up meeting swivin' Ascians everywhere."

"Did you recognise the Ascian who was amongst this heretic group?"

She shook her head. "One of those low level ones with the boring glyphs. I never saw one of that gang when we met all those heretics when we were investigating Iceheart, or since I went back to Ishgard. I was too scared to ask Ysayle if she knew them. Or. Or I didn't want to know. In case she said she didn't. But the more we learn the less I think she would've."

Urianger nodded thoughtfully. "I suspect they knew not who you were either, but sensed your latent Echo or some other sense of your destiny, and attempted to protect you for later use. I know not what other schemes Elidibus has, for I was allowed only to know the scantest details beyond that which I was charged for mine own deceptions. But between his manipulation of the Warriors of Darkness, and that which Unukalhai unfolded of his history as Elidibus's apprentice, I suspect he may have many other agents as yet unknown to us; many that he cultivateth for purposes as yet unknown even to himself, for their schemes speak both of long planning and sudden, spontaneous meddling. Perhaps thy presence in this long-planned poisoning scheme to throw Ishgard into disarray led to a desire to cultivate thee as well; in losing you they drove you to the bosom of the Scions instead, and thus does Elidibus muse on your presence, nay, even ask if I am aware of thy heresy in Ishgard."

"Aymeric did drop the charges and issue a full apology to my family," she said, pouting.

Urianger laughed softly. "And we are glad to have thee amongst us as a free agent, and many of thy fears allayed."

"But you still don't know what happened to me. Those three days between Ishgard and Fallgourd Float?"

He shook his head. "I wonder if the summoning did more to unsettle thee than thou thinkest; that you did not slip, but some other dark force came upon thee, given the affinity of thy magicks to the umbral and destructive, and the comfort with which you commune with voidsent. But as you had never chanced to see one until that day, there is no way to know if this is an innate ability, or one that has come upon thee as a result of thy travails."

She scrunched her nose, and looked away. "Well then. I guess I still know nothing. Wish I could just ask Elidibus if he did something to me, you know? I don't want to be cultivated."

"Mayhap a time will come when you may ask him for the answers you seek. If it reassureth you even a small measure, it seemed to me that he was both unsettled and somewhat scared of thee."

"Good." She pushed herself up out of the chair, and stretched. "Well, thank you, Urianger. I need to go... elsewhere now. But. Thank you."

He smiled at her, and for the first time he didn't completely terrify her down to the core. Unfortunately, his words had done that instead, and she felt nigh on close to crawling out of her own skin to remove herself from his presence regardless of it were his fault or his words.

Maybe it was time to return to Ishgard for a spell and enjoy her new freedom.

#this was so good i'm obsessed with this woman #what a mess

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