#Emelia Striker

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2024: 6 Halcyon

(2,480ish words taking place about 20ish years before ARR...)

“Papa! The caravan’s here!”

Rashae stood at the front of their stall, leaning over the counter to see farther down the street. Beyond her, he could indeed see the first of the wagons rolling in.

“Gather your siblings and cousins,” he said. “They’ll be weary from the trade routes and we’ll do our part to lighten their load as we welcome them in.”

Rashae nodded and dashed off. Tanzel joined the other men and women of their Cooperative in leaving his store to ensure the warehouse doors were open and the stables ready to accept the chocobos and their cargo. Friends and relatives greeted one another, separated by weeks or months since they had all left Davarresh for this trade season, plying the wares around the island, with some like Tanzel’s family coming straight to the capital.

He grinned as he saw one of the wagons belonging to the Ranaz family. “Jin!” he called, catching a glimpse of his oldest friend.

Jinrahn turned, smiling broadly to return the quick hug Tanzel gave him. “Good to see you, brother!” Jinrahn said. “It’s good to be home.”

“Until we go home to Davarresh when the wind cools. How was the road?”

“Dusty and hot, as always,” Jinrahn said. “But we’re a little lighter than normal for finishing out the season.”

“That good, eh?”

“Well, I had more charming help than usual.” Jin’s smile faltered slightly, a sympathetic tinge to it that Tanzel did not understand, until he followed his friend’s gaze to the two women wrangling the Ranaz children into some semblance of order. He knew Jinrahn’s wife, but the other woman took him a moment to recognize.

“Is that Emelia?”

“It is,” Jinrahn said. “She and her children arrived just before we left the village. That never ending war the Coerthans somehow have with their dragons—imagine!—claimed her husband.”

“I thought she’d married a farmer?”

“Aye. Something about giving succor to a soldier, some hero I guess, and got caught in the conflict. Lost their house and all. So she came home finally. She can still charm the stingiest Arkasodara grandfather into buying more than he meant, too.”

Tanzel nodded. It had been a shock to everyone when Emelia Ranaz had remained in Coerthas, having fallen in love there, after scorning the attentions of every local boy and even a few girls who had looked her way as she had blossomed from Jinrahn’s skinny little sister into a lovely maiden trained in bardsong.

Well, she was still Jinrahn’s little sister, that they had by turns teased and avoided as boys. At least until she turned and saw Tanzel, taking a moment to recognize him, and then smiling, offering a small wave.

He knew too well that particular sadness swimming in her dark blue eyes, the exact sort of tension in her shoulders.

Tanzel saw the same in his mirror every day.

-

The trade season kept the Cooperative families happily busy, another successful year passing by. Tanzel was now familiar with Emelia’s son, an energetic ten year old called Zaine, playing with the other children when not performing daily chores and light work. A helper, that one, willing to lend a hand as needed.

If he kept busy enough, he wouldn’t have to dwell on his pain, Tanzel knew, from watching his own boys.

Emelia’s daughter was a helper too, but she was quiet, and rarely left her mother’s side, unless she was with the old teacher, Shovanna. Still, Aeryn seemed like a good, hard-working child, who otherwise played or read silently, only rarely joining the other children’s games. Some folks whispered about the girl not being quite right in the head—what unhindered child made such little sound?—but everything Tanzel saw showed a bright, helpful girl, sometimes frustrated by her own silence.

He recognized the hurt in her, too. He saw it in his own daughters.

It was their last night in Radz-at-Han. In the morning—late, after tonight’s merrymaking with their neighbors and those of the Cooperative who would stay through the rainy season—most of them would make the trek up the coast to their little village, and the cycle would begin anew. Tanzel was eager to return to the quiet of Davarresh, after months in the city.

He was not so eager to join in the drinking, feasting, and dancing going on in the square outside the Cooperative’s compound. He put in a brief appearance for propriety’s sake, nursing a single drink while smiling politely and speaking to a few business partners and good friends. He soon slipped away, as had been his wont for the last few years. He just didn’t have the heart for it anymore.

As he found his excuse to return to the storehouse, he saw he wasn’t the only one.

Emelia was in one of the stalls belonging to her family, leaning on a stack of chocobo feedbags. Her hands gripped the canvas, her hunched shoulders stiff. Her long, dark hair hid her face, but he heard her sniffle. He made certain his boots made noise and she straightened, quickly swiping her face before turning with her usual dazzling smile.

“Oh. Hello, Tanzel.”

He smiled in return, but didn’t bother with his own mask. “Hello, Emelia. Not feeling up to the party?”

Her smile faltered. “I...no,” she said, letting the mask drop now. “Not really.”

Tanzel nodded. “Me neither.” He pretended to think for a moment. “Come on.”

She raised a brow. “To where?”

“Somewhere we won’t have to deal with well-meaning friends and their platitudes,” he said bluntly, but gently, heading away from the entrance and the festivities outside.

After a brief moment, he heard her light step follow after him.

He paused in his family stall long enough to grab a couple small, brown bottles from under the counter, that he had not yet packed on purpose. Then he led her to the stairs, and the winding climb up past the third story, taking her hand to help her up onto the roof.

The city glittered and gleamed around them, color and lights rioting under the starry heavens. It was a sight he could never tire of, and from the way Emelia sucked in a breath, it was one she had nearly forgotten, and had not yet taken the time to reacquaint herself with since returning home.

Tanzel and Emelia sat on the edge of the roof, opposite of the party up front, looking out over the city. He popped open one of the bottles and handed it to her, then took the other for himself. Emelia wrinkled her nose as she took a swig.

“Ugh, you and Jin still have terrible taste in booze,” she said, taking another sip.

“A man’s gotta have at least one vice,” Tanzel replied.

“Your grandfather’s favorite saying,” she said. “But he had better taste for proper liquor.” Her soft smile was genuine now, recalling those happy days of their youth.

“We can blame my uncles for being poor influences. Or your uncles. I forget.”

She laughed. Not as freely as she once might have, but genuinely, and that was good enough. “Remember when Uncle Fahr convinced you and Jin that a wish-granting djinn lived in a cave in the cliffs south of Yedlihmad?”

Tanzel chuckled. “I do, and the punishment we got for investigating—and stumbling on a nest of efts instead. You’d think that’d be punishment in itself!”

“Perhaps had something to do with leading them back to town.”

“Oh, perhaps. But you weren’t exactly a saint, either, as I recall.”

“I don’t know what you could mean.”

“That incident with the silk merchant and the fish comes to mind.”

“It was a crab, and that was a perfectly formulated plan for revenge.”

“My mistake. I do have to question your definition of ‘perfectly formulated’ though.”

“My plan was fine,” Emelia insisted with an exaggerated pout. “It was the crab and my target who were uncooperative.”

Tanzel laughed. They continued talking, recalling childhood and adolescent adventures and achievements, bright days when their futures had yet seemed limitless in possibility.

“And I remember,” Emelia said, as the contents of their respective bottles were low. “At your wedding, my brothers were so—” She stopped suddenly, looking away. “I’m sorry.”

“What for? If it was about the pranks they pulled on me just before we were to give our vows, I have it on good authority you had nothing to do with that.”

“I just,” she hesitated. “I heard what happened. And I haven’t taken the time yet…”

He leaned over and bumped her shoulder—not quite like when they were children, but in a similarly familiar manner. “It’s fine. I’ve heard the words often enough. Just like you have by now.”

She peered at him, absently batting him away, as she had done when a girl and he and her brother had pestered her like that. “Doesn’t it still...Are you…”

“Yes, it hurts,” Tanzel replied quietly. He looked out over the city again. “I’m not sure it will ever stop hurting. I might have lost myself in a pile of these bottles, if not for my children.” He smiled. “Rashae’s so much like her mother. Looks like her more and more, too.”

“Zaine looks like his father,” Emelia whispered. “And they both have his eyes.”

“Blessed reminders,” Tanzel said. “At least, that’s what everyone tells me. And on good days, I agree with them.”

“And on bad ones?” She didn’t quite look at him.

“I curse the gods for such a constant cruelty. Then I continue on, trying not to feel guilty, because what else can I do?”

He saw her bite her lip and nod ever so slightly.

“Still,” Tanzel continued, finishing his drink. “It doesn’t hurt to think of our wedding—not anymore. It’s still one of the best days of my life. Then our children were born, and those were blessed times too. At least until the little monsters started keeping us up all night,” he joked.

She chuckled, and he again took it as a victory. “At least you had family with you.”

“That did help.” He frowned. “Did he not?”

She shook her head. “His mother disapproved of me. So we settled in a village where he had friends, and...we did have good neighbors, who helped.”

“Fool woman, to not know what a gem of a daughter-in-law she had,” Tanzel sniffed.

“Thought I was Jin’s bratty little sister.”

“I never said you weren’t still that, too.” He bumped her again. She smiled wanly and shook her head. “You were happy though, weren’t you, Emelia?”

Her face crumpled. “Mostly. I loved him enough to stay in that cold, colorless land—I wanted to come home for years, but he didn’t want to leave, and now...” She leaned forward, face in her hands.

Tanzel rubbed her back for a time, letting her crying, saying nothing. Eventually she calmed, taking a shaky breath, and accepting his handkerchief to wipe her eyes and nose.

“Tell me about Coerthas,” he finally said. “It can’t have been all terrible, if you stayed for so long.”

“It’s all...tangled up in memories of him.”

“Of course it is. But the good outweighs the bad, doesn’t it?” As she considered that, he continued. “That wretched moment cannot overshadow all the time proceeding it. It’s a disservice to them and the joy they brought us. The children they left with us. The only thing that comes close to helping is remembering the times we laughed and loved. That one terrible day can’t take away the rest.”

They were silent for a long while.

“It had its own beauty,” Emelia finally said, voice hushed. “More stark, the mountains swooping over the vales. In Springtime suddenly the fields would go from gray and brown to a lush green and the flowers would bloom like rainbows fallen from the sky. We’d walk along the sheep paths and deer tracks…”

He listened, as she described the idyllic life of a Coerthan farm family—not that they hadn’t known hardship, and he understood her sighing about little Aeryn going through clothes and shoes like water, his Rashae was too similar—but what began in fits and starts soon fell into familiar bardic story rhythms as she told stories until they were both laughing over her children’s antics, her neighbors’ strange foreign actions, and her happier memories of her husband.

The bells chimed thrice, startling them both. The sounds of the party up front had long since faded, though there were still a few revelers wearily talking and stumbling themselves and others to bed. Tanzel stood and stretched, offering Emelia a hand up. She took it, and continued in to give him a tight hug. He returned it, and they stood like that for a long moment.

“Thank you, Tan,” she said, still leaning on him. “I wish...I wish you didn’t understand. But I’m,” she hesitated again.

“But I do. And I’m here, when you need to talk. Or just get away from others who say things, without knowing it how we do.”

She nodded against his chest, then, with a deep exhale, stepped away. “Shovanna said she’d stay with the children, and they should all three be asleep, but I ought to check on them.”

“Mine were probably up too late and getting into mischief until their grandmothers caught them,” Tanzel said. “I’ll get an earful in the morning.”

“So you’ll do as when we were children, and you and Jin used to blame me to try to keep out of trouble.”

“Ah, you’ve caught on to my dastardly plan.”

“Next time, consult someone whose plans are perfect,” she said, affecting a haughty sniff.

“If I find someone like that, I’ll let you know,” he replied, laughing as she bapped his arm.

He helped her off the roof and into the stairwell, and they made their way down in the dark, still joking. They parted at the base, he heading to his family quarters, Emelia to her family’s. He glanced back before stepping inside. She had also stopped, and waved to him.

Tanzel returned the wave before Emelia vanished behind the door. He felt better than he had in awhile. If this pain he carried, and how he was learning to live with it, could help his childhood friend...well, it was far from worth it, but it was something useful, at least. Maybe.

He wished it hadn’t taken this sort of wretched circumstance to reunite them. To make her more than Jin’s bratty little sister, but someone who understood, and needed to be understood herself.

Tanzel shook his head, disposed of the bottles, and continued on to bed. Morning would come too soon and a lot of work with it.

He dreamed of his favorite days with his wife, and then of youthful days playfully teasing his friend’s little sister.

[autumnslance]

👎 = Is there anyone in your muse’s family they dislike, why? for Aeryn

Most of the Ranaz side of the clan; Emelia's birth family.

Emelia's the youngest of five; two older brothers, two older sisters. She was a bit babied by their mother, Zahra, as a result, and while her brothers paid her little mind, her sisters had a few more Opinions on what they saw as leniency for Emelia that they did not receive.

Then Emelia left for thirteen years, and after disinterest in all her suitors in Thavnair, she married some foreigner from a heathen land where they warred with the divine, and only returned after a disaster she should have long seen coming.

You can maybe see the start of the issues there.

Emelia and her sisters did not get along, and Zaine and Aeryn's cousins were predisposed by the aunts' influence. Being part-Coerthan was an easy target for the few bullies they ran into, and Aeryn unable to speak for nearly a year due to traumatic mutism made things harder.

Zahra still isn't sure where she went wrong with her older children, but is fairly certain it's her fault, despite Emelia and the Eadirs all telling her differently. Aeryn's stepsister, Rashae, is of the opinion her step-cousins are simple brats, doted on by their own mothers and influenced by fathers who care more of their trades and profits.

There's at least one story of one of the cousins running afoul of Rashae's rare temper, as some of the Ranaz family seek now to profit off Aeryn's status as Warrior of Light and Savior of the Star, and how the satrap looks to the Cooperative to help rebuild Thavnair, though he works primarily with Rashae as their representative.

Aeryn...mostly avoids her Ranaz relations when she can. She does the bare minimum required for politeness and civility when she must, but otherwise does not interact with them. The Eadirs are her family and that's enough.

If any of the Ranaz relatives did try to push Aeryn around now, they would sorely regret it, no matter how much she holds back. Her bardic skills and witticisms have sharpened over the years, and the reticence of her youth has fallen away as she's gained confidence. She's a 30ish year old Warrior of Light now, not the little girl they used to push around.

[autumnslance]

Bearing Sins of the Past Ch 11 Friable

Emelia stared at the ruin in front of her. Almost thirteen years of her life, gone just like that. She had left for a day. In those brief hours, her heart had been torn apart, everything keeping her in this cold, colorless land gone up in smoke. Literally.

She reached a hand to what had once been the front door frame. The wood dissolved under her touch, falling with a dusty sound instead of a clatter, the wind blowing much of it away.

Emelia swayed, feeling like that frame, her heart ground to pieces, wanting to fly screaming through the sky…

A small hand tugged at hers. She looked down into Aeryn’s too-big gray eyes.

Chapter 11 Friable is now live on Ao3!

The last of the flashbacks to the past, this chapter gives us Emelia's voice and memories of the years she spent in Coerthas.

Heavily jumps around, heavily altered from the original sequential version from FFXIV Write 2021, and leaving out the last vignette.

[autumnslance]

Bearing Sins of the Past Ch 3 Passion

(The one with the Spice)

Then she cupped his face in her hands and he thought perhaps he could ascend to the Heavens after all. “This isn’t like you; are you alright? What did you drink tonight?”

“Something new. Think I’ll try it again—if you’ve no objections.” He rocked against her.

Emelia gasped and shivered, then bade him pause, swallowing hard. “Just the one,” she said.

Corran blinked, confusion warring with the fiery instincts raging within him.

She giggled, still blushing. “The kitchen hasn’t a door, let alone a lock, to keep a little boy at bay should he wake.”

He laughed now, perhaps too loudly, as she tried to hush him. He scooped his wife into his arms to carry her to their bed to love and worship her as she deserved.

Chapter 3 is now live on Ao3!

Mind this is the story's single sex scene, there's additional tags/notes in the summary at the top.

This is also the only time flashback chapters are back to back.

[autumnslance]

Commission of Emelia and Corran Striker, Aeryn's parents; artist is Barn-Swallow. Lovely to work with, will try to comm again in the future. And I do so love the details!

Carrd Twitter

I did not mention that Vrtra was a secret when I supplied the references; just that he was important to Emelia's homeland and its lore, and that his motif should be on her side. The refs for Emelia were in the Thav Wool dress, and I mentioned roughly style, fabrics, colorful. I always give creative license for artist cuz MMO clothes. So she designed that dress and when in the color checks I saw that just one little bit of green, tying Em back to the dragon on her side, I was gleeful.

Especially since Corran is pretty well dressed as his references, including an entirely red shirt, tying him much more closely to Avengret. Also he's such a handsome dork, with his lovely bride and not quite realizing how in over his head he is.

Also if you look closely, Emelia has a nose piercing. That's actually something I want for Aeryn in game someday too.

I'm loving this piece. It's so pretty.

[autumnslance]

Prompt #7: Pawn

“Well?” The portly shopkeep growled.

Emelia took a deep breath and placed the small package on the countertop.

The man grumbled and took it, unfolding the paper to look at the earrings inside. He raised a brow and looked at her. “These are custom; heirloom?”

She swallowed. “No” They were meant to be; she had imagined gifting them to Aeryn at some point in the future, or perhaps even to a granddaughter someday.

The man shrugged. “Long as they ain’t stolen. And if they are, I don’t wanna know about it.”

Emelia ground her teeth, took another breath, and asked: “What will you give me for them?”

In the end, she wasn’t sure if being on the verge of tears the entire time they haggled had helped or not. He didn’t give her nearly what the earrings were worth; as a trader herself she understood why, though it was still galling, having a good idea what Corran must have scraped together to buy them for her nameday.

It was enough for what she needed. That was what mattered.

She glanced across the hot, dusty square to where her children waited. Zaine was entertaining Aeryn with an “I spy” game, though she pointed to the answers, still not speaking. Emelia sighed and continued to the docks.

“Back again, Mistress?” The Seeker dockmaster asked, brown tail lazily swaying behind him.

“I need that passage. If it’s still available.”

He smiled. “Aye, just barely in time yet, Mistress. If ye’ve got the coin now.”

She showed him the purse of gil. He nodded. “I’ll let the bosun know ye’ll be boarding—but don’t take too long, the captain’ll wanna shove off soon.”

Emelia nodded and turned to collect her children. The price was worth it, she reminded herself, to get them home to Thavnair.

[autumnslance]

19. sea change

The day they arrived in Yedlihmad after the long sea journey, Mama led them to the edge of town, where the surf crashed onto the beach, leaving behind the crowded docks.

She removed her boots and stockings, hitched up her long wool skirt, and stuck her toes in the warm, wet sand as the waves tickled her feet. She laughed, for the first time since that awful day, a weight rising visibly from her shoulders. She seemed younger somehow, even to her small children.

The cousin who came to collect them bought clothes better suited to the tropical heat and humidity than the hand-me-downs they had worn from their pastoral mountain home. Mama seemed barely recognizable; arms and legs bare, feet wrapped in sandals, a bright ribbon holding up her dark hair.

It was as if the long journey over the sea had allowed her to shed the worst of those years in Coerthas, the horror of Papa’s loss. In some ways she was different, but in other ways, more like herself again.

—

Aeryn’s stomach was finally settled, the aetheric imbalance equaling out, helped along by the cool lassi. It was time to get to work, and already her comrades had scattered, but she found herself distracted at every turn.

A new building here, a new shop in place of an old one there, but overall Yedlihmad hadn’t changed much in the years since she had left Thavnair for Eorzea. It was far quieter than it ought to be, as she poked around and questioned locals, helped a young fisherman try to sell his wares, and stayed on task as best she could.

But before she could report back to her comrades, she found herself moving to the edge of town where the surf crashed onto the beach, leaving behind the crowded docks.

She removed her tall boots and stockings and stuck her toes in the warm, wet sand as the waves tickled over her feet. She already wore her lighter Thavnairian vest and short skirt, in bright colors and light materials to survive the heat. It had seemed strange to put them on that morning, knowing she was returning…home.

Aeryn thought of the change in her mother, how Mama had seemed younger and happier, more free in Thavnair than she ever had in Coerthas. How she knew her mother had loved her father, and yet after their long journey, standing on this shore…

“Aeryn?” Urianger’s voice called across the piers.

She smiled. “Coming!” She picked up her boots and stockings, feet still wet and sandy. She was in for a scolding from Thancred, but so be it. Aeryn spared one last glance at the beach where twenty-five years previous, she had watched her mother transform.

No experimental aetherytes then; perhaps it had been the ocean voyage, allowing Mama time to change her shape. Or perhaps it simply had something to do with the differences between their hearts, a gap Aeryn didn’t quite know how to reach across, and never would.

Some things weren’t meant to be understood.

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2021 #9: Friable

Emelia hadn’t really experienced snow and ice, until she came to Coerthas.

Corran laughed as she had stepped carefully through the crackling drifts, the stuff looking like waves of sand but sparkling in the light. Walking through, it crumbled easily around her booted feet and seeped everywhere.

“It looks pretty,” she said. “But I’m not sure I like the cold and wet.”

“Gotta live with it,” he replied. “Besides, there is an upside.”

“Oh?”

He pulled her into a close embrace. “The warming up after.”

“Corran!” She laughed, knowing her cheeks were lighting up. He just grinned and leaned in to kiss her.

As they parted, she sighed. “Perhaps sometime we will go to Thavnair. And you’ll see why I say even what you call summer here is too cold”

“I think I’d melt if I went to Thavnair,” he japed. “Besides, too much work to do here, even in the midst of winter.”

“We shall see.”

“You miss it?” He asked, more seriously.

She thought about it, and then shrugged. “Sometimes; mostly certain people, or familiar things like food or festivals. The colors most definitely--Coerthas is so drab.”

“Wait ‘til spring; the flowers’ll riot and you’ll forget how blank the land is through the winter.”

She smiled and leaned her head against his chest. A simple man, he claimed, but the imaginative ways he sometimes used words in unintentional poetry was endearing.

After her adolescence spent scorning the boys who had tried to woo her, Emelia had not expected to fall so hard, so swiftly--and certainly not for a young man in a foreign land so far from home, on what was meant to be a one time trip aiding her elder cousin’s expanding trade. But her plans had crumbled like the snowy drifts as she had gotten to know Corran, and defying all reason--not to mention the concerns of her relatives--she had stayed with him.

And while there was a beauty all its own to Coerthas in any season, she would not have given the land another thought were it not for him and his love for his home.

“Is that why you wish to wait until then to make me your wife?” She asked, only partly teasing.

“If bright colors make you happy, then I’m happy,” he replied, pressing another kiss to her forehead.

Despite the cold, she melted.

—-

“Here we go, dearie, almost ready” Michelle said, crushing the nuts with the pestle and mixing the crumbs into the berry paste.

Emelia nodded while continuing to hold and bounce her wailing infant as she paced across the small kitchen and back again, trying futilely to shush him. “I cannot thank you enough,” she said over the cries. “If I were home I would know exactly where to go, what to get, but here…”

Michelle smiled. “Teething babies do happen everywhere, dearie. But we’ll get the little fellow sorted out soon enough.” She examined the paste she had made and nodded. “There we are; give him here.”

Emelia hesitated for a moment, but finally passed her son to the elezen, who cooed and bounced him on her hip. “Here we go, my love,” Michelle said, offering her finger covered in the paste. “That’s it.”

Emelia watched, anxious, as Zaine initially fought, tears streaming from his scrunched up eyes over his chubby cheeks. It took a few tries for Michelle to get her finger into his mouth, his hand gripping hers. Soon enough his cries quieted, still sniffling as he gummed Michelle’s finger.

“Feels better already, doesn’t it? Yes it does,” Michelle crooned, kissing his forehead. “He’s such a good boy, Emelia.”

Emelia smiled wearily, leaning heavily against a cabinet. “Hasn’t felt like it while fighting this.”

“I would guess not,” Michelle said. “This isn’t something we’re meant to do alone, after all.”

“Corran’s done more than his share, despite having to spend the days in the fields…”

“Well he’s a good father, of course,” Michelle said. “But you know what I mean, dearie.”

Emelia pushed off the cabinet and made her way to the sink. The dishes from both supper last night and breakfast that morning waited still. “I never expected...well, to be honest, I never expected to marry and be a mother at all, let alone doing it...so far from my community.”

“Corran’s family ought to be helping,” Michelle sniffed. “I dislike speaking ill but that woman is being stubborn.”

Emelia continued to scrub dishes. “I try not to think too hard about it,” she said quietly. “I never thought he’d give up his family for me.”

“Perhaps he thought it fair, since you gave up Thavnair for him.”

Emelia stopped scrubbing, looking out the window over the sink. Outside the leaves were turning into a brilliant cacophony of reds, golds, and oranges, dry fallen leaves skittering and blowing across the cobble street past their small yard.

“I sometimes think of convincing him to go back with me. I think he would like it, heat and all,” she smiled fondly. “My family’s letters are all happy about what I tell them, at least.”

“His mother’s pride isn’t your fault, dearie.”

“I know.” She did, truly, but at the same time, how did she explain the guilt at watching her beloved’s face crumble as the weight of the words thrown back and forth with his mother finally settled in him, clinging to Emelia as he shook, not allowing himself to cry as the mountain winds blew away the remaining dust of his family relationships.

——

The ice beat against the roof in a random staccato, and a part of Emelia’s brain that still functioned detached from all else idly wondered if it could wear through the wood and stone to pierce and freeze them.

It would be preferable to the pain she experienced now.

“Keep holding the rope,” the conjurer urged, the warm pine sensation of her magic washing over Emelia again, though it did nothing to relieve her agony.

“Almost there, Emelia,” the chirugeon said, maddeningly calm. “One more good push.”

She screamed, her body on fire and why by all the gods was this so much harder than last time?! The world went blank for a moment, and she wasn’t certain if she had actually passed out or not, but she felt like she was blinking awake.

Her baby cried, and Emelia wept in relief.

And further pain, the fire continuing its course through her lower body.

“Give the baby to her father,” the conjurer was saying, sounding distant though she stood right by Emelia. “We’re not finished here.”

“Halone guide us,” the chirugeon responded. The baby now sounded far away, through a wall perhaps, Emelia’s sense of time and space distorted as she felt turned to ash, the ice storm’s winds about to blow her shattered form away.

“Better to pray to Nophica for this,” the conjurer said.

“To both,” the chirugeon answered. “For this is a battlefield as much as a birthing room. Emelia! Stay with us! You still need to meet your daughter!”

Her daughter. Emelia breathed through the pain, willing the broken pieces of herself to hold together just a little bit longer.

——-

Emelia wasn’t quite sure what she was doing back here.

The carriage would arrive soon to take them away. The road would be long and likely quite hard, but eventually they would make it to the Thanalan port that would see them to a ship to carry them to Thavnair.

Carry them...home.

She stared at the ruin in front of her. Twelve, almost thirteen years of her life, gone just like that. She had left for a day. In that short span of hours her heart had been torn apart, everything keeping her in this cold, colorless land up in smoke. Literally.

She reached a hand to what had once been the front door frame. The ashy wood crumbled under her touch, falling with a dusty sound instead of a wooden clatter, the wind blowing much of it away.

Emelia swayed, feeling much like that frame, her heart ground to pieces, wanting to fly screaming through the sky…

A small hand tugged at hers. She looked down into Aeryn’s too-big grey eyes.

Emelia forced a smile, the pieces of her heart pulling back together again. If not for them, she would have gone mad by now. They needed her--and gods above and below, did she need them.

“We’re going to go back to the chapel soon, sweetling. Where’s your brother?”

“I’m here!” Zaine answered, coming from around the side of the house, covered in dust and ash. “Aer, look what I found,” he said, holding something in his hand to show his little sister.

Aeryn remained at Emelia’s side, as she had since their desperate ride home to this disaster. Emelia couldn’t go more than a few paces without her daughter, the child’s usual curiosity and bravery dampened.

Aeryn waited for Zaine to come close, and then looked at what he held. One of the tin soldiers from a whole troop he once had, probably melted to slag by the flames. This battered little fellow yet survived. Aeryn smiled, but said nothing.

Emelia noticed Zaine’s own smile flicker briefly, but he quickly rebounded and continued, keeping up the brave face. Her heart ached; he was trying so very hard. He was only ten summers. He focused his worry and energy on his little sister, ever her protector, as worried about her as Emelia was.

The girl had never stopped talking before. She had barely made a sound since that day.

“I see you went inside when I asked you not to,” Emelia said dryly.

Zaine shrugged. “Not really; just my top half when I caught a glimpse through the window. My feet stayed outside.”

“Zaine,” she almost wanted to laugh. Always so audacious, her boy.

He grinned, knowing she wasn’t really willing to scold him, and gods, he looked like his father. He became serious again soon enough. “I wanted something to just...remember. That’s all.”

She leaned down and pressed her lips to the top of his head, trying not to tremble, not let the tears fall. She had to be stronger than that, for them.

“I understand,” she managed to say. “Come on. We have time enough to get you cleaned up before we have to leave.”

As they walked to the chapel, she spared one last glance back to the wreckage. More ashy pieces fell, some clattering after all, as the wind blew.

Even once they fell into her family’s relieved arms on the sweet, humid shores of Thavnair, it took more than a year--and re-meeting one of her previously scorned youthful admirers, now a widower with three children himself--for the bitter taste of Coerthan ash to leave Emelia’s mouth.

—---

“You’re ever so much stronger than I was,” Emelia said, watching her daughter write at the desk across the room.

Aeryn looked up, head tilting, her expression quizzical. Tanzel said she looked just like Emelia when she did that.

“I’ve felt brittle for so much longer than this illness,” Emelia said. “Like I could just fall apart and let the wind carry me away.”

Aeryn stood and came to Emelia’s bed, carefully sitting on the edge of the mattress, taking her hand. “Do you need anything?”

Emelia smiled. “To be whole again. But there’s only one way that’s going to happen anymore.”

Aeryn’s brow wrinkled in concern. “Should I get Papa?”

Emelia shook her head, trying to hold tight to Aeryn’s hand. She had so little strength left. “I shouldn’t have held you here; it was selfish of me.”

“I don’t mind,” Aeryn smiled.

“Yes you do. As much as I would have if my mother had held me back. Perhaps more. What pains have I spared you--but what joys have I withheld?”

“It’s all right. You need me now. I’m here.”

“You should join your brother,” Emelia said. “He’s always needed you, too.”

Aeryn’s smile faltered. “Maybe someday,” she said.

“Soon,” Emelia replied, trying to squeeze Aeryn’s hand again. “When those dragon winds finally have their way and blow me apart.”

“Mama?”

“Nothing. Sing me a story, Aer. It’s the best way to fall asleep.”

It took a moment for her daughter to compose herself, but soon Aeryn was gently singing a familiar lullaby. Emelia lost track of the words, hearing only her girl’s voice, as she drifted to sleep, wondering if she’d wake up, and if not, if there was a way she could leave some of the crumbled pieces of herself with them to shore them up, after so long relying on others to hold her together.