#baron fiermont

[weatheredpileoftomes]

runaway bride

For FFxivWrite2022 Day 2, “bolt”. Helenne, shortly before the beginning of A Realm Reborn, ~900 words. Threat of coerced marriage, fear of spousal murder, past OC deaths, heir-related sexual politics.

There have to be better options than marrying Lord Foncacier.

Helenne certainly knows that vanity is unbecoming to a noblewoman of Ishgard, and unpleasing in the sight of the Fury withal, but she must be in possession of eyes, ears, and a working mind for a reason.

She is an attractive young woman.

She would like that to matter for her, much the way as it does for the heroines of her favorite novels, or the housemaids giggling about their suitors, or even the tavern wenches who might grant an evening’s unsanctified congress to a vocally hopeful footman or boot-boy. (Unsanctified congress has, from Helenne’s perspective, at least as much to recommend it as holy wedlock: for one thing, it would not require she spend the rest of her life with one man for the political advantage of House Fiermont.)

But, although prizing sentimentality over duty is also unbecoming to a noblewoman of Ishgard, to say nothing of the thought of prizing enjoyment—of any kind—over duty, and she had never expected to be madly in love with her affianced…

“My lord father,” she says, as demurely as she can, “are you certain that my lord de Foncacier is the husband you wish for me?”

She also wants to know why Valtemont de Foncacier is to be her husband, and not her elder sister Solelle’s, but she hardly dislikes Solelle enough to ask that. Lord Foncacier must be over sixty years of age, though Helenne doesn’t recall the exact number at the moment. His first wife died a bit less than ten years ago and was replaced with indecent haste, and although House Fiermont’s losses have kept them from mingling in society since the Calamity, they do still hear the gossip.

There have been two brides of Foncacier since then, neither has produced an heir, and they are both dead. The first perished shortly after the Calamity itself, having taken a chill: very well, it might happen; the bone-clawing cold of the new Coerthas was difficult to adjust to. But she had been Lady Foncacier for just over five years, with no child, and when the third Lady Foncacier perished of a sudden illness after four…

Helenne does not wish to become the fourth Lady Foncacier.

The first Lady Foncacier might, or might not, have died of a true accident; she was of the right age for Valtemont de Foncacier to realize that she would never give him an heir, which seems suspicious only with the benefit of hindsight. Each of the second and third Ladies Foncacier individually also might, or might not, have died naturally. That all three of them might, so quickly, beggars belief.

Helenne can not only count, she can reason. If a chocobo is set to cover another chocobo, with no hatchling to show for it, the fault might be either parent’s. If a chocobo is set to cover three different chocobos, and none of the coverings give the breeder a hatchling to show for it, the fault is almost certainly the stud’s. If Lord Foncacier is removing wives until he can find one who can give him an heir… Helenne would like to live to see her twenty-second nameday.

This consideration does not appear to have occurred to her father, who glowers down at her. “Lord Foncacier is a cousin of the Count de Dzemael,” he says coldly. “As I have no doubt you recall, House Dzemael is one of the High Houses”—Helenne bites the inside of her cheek—“and an alliance with them would be deeply beneficial to my attempts to rebuild our own family’s fortunes.”

But not mine, because I’ll be dead. “But why my lord de Foncacier? And why me?” Her parents had been much warmer toward her until a few years ago; Helenne is not out of the habit of arguing with them yet.

“He expressed a preference,” her father says. “The matter is settled, Helenne.”

There must be other lords who would be willing to marry her, and not plan to discard her like last week’s rubbish. Lord Foncacier is not the only man who has found her looks pleasing, and Helenne would be willing to try to charm lords with even higher connections than he if she were asked, if those lords might not be planning to murder her.

“His wives…” she tries; one last, desperate attempt. “Isn’t it…a little strange?”

“You read too many novels.” Her father’s frown deepens even further. “I’ll thank you not to repeat that slanderous gossip where anyone might call us to account for it.”

Helenne might read too many novels, by her father’s accounting, but right now she thinks the number is closer to just enough. If she leaves Ishgard—leaves Coerthas entirely—a man as obsessed with continuing the line of House Foncacier as Valtemont de Foncacier is would likely refuse to wed another man’s leavings, even if they did find her and bring her back—

If she could only leave, go somewhere sunny and warm, as far from the chill grey of the Highlands as possible. The pirate city of Limsa Lominsa, maybe, which would no doubt help her persuade anyone that she was far too ruined to be the next Lady Foncacier anyway.

If she can run, far enough and fast enough that she never has to persuade anyone regardless…

“My apologies, my lord father,” she says softly. “I will take care not to do it again.”

[weatheredpileoftomes]

bishops’ pawn

For FFxivWrite2022 Day 7, “pawn”. Helenne, pre-Calamity, ~750 words.

Some call it the game of kings.

Helenne loves her mother’s chess set. The pieces are finely-carved of bone and ivory, each one a tiny work of art in itself. The knights on their strange beasts wield lances that look sharp enough that she could prick a finger on them, though time has worn away whatever needlelike edge they might once have had. The keeps loom, their towers soaring toward the heavens from foundations shrouded in trees. The bishops glower, and the pawns trudge.

And yet, even a pawn, persistent enough if it is, might reach the far side of the board and become a queen.

That is, at least, how Helenne’s tutor Master Parcemel described it when he taught the de Fiermont children the game, and the baron and baroness had nodded their approval when Solelle told them of the day’s lessons. It appealed to Helenne too, at first.

The queens—one white as old bone can be, varnished though it be, the other dyed a deep brown that begins to fade around the edges—are lovely pieces. Their crowns are real silver and gold, filigreed confections carefully attached with no backing at all, and their gowns trail elegantly behind them.

They move, and they act; so too must a lady of Ishgard be prepared to do. That much makes sense; Helenne finds no fault with that lesson.

But—persistent? It takes but a single game lost for her to realize persistence is not the only virtue. Her opponent will need to overlook the threat of the pawn, or have greater threats to deal with elsewhere; she herself will need to have no greater concern than inching that one tiny piece closer and closer to…if not to safety, then certainly to a more powerful kind of danger.

All the same, she finds she likes chess. It is a suitable game for young nobles: it teaches strategy; it rewards patience and planning at least as much as it rewards risk; it permits for conversation between the players, if they seek an excuse to converse; it allows the owner to flaunt their wealth with a fine set.

More than that, though, it makes a puzzle. Helenne has learned to keep account books and pore over a factor’s report looking for signs that they are cheating their lord; now she looks at the map of the chessboard and the shapes and ranges of each piece’s movement with glee. Place a knight here, and there are eight squares it could move to next, then—oh, not sixty-four, for some of them must overlap— Take that bishop, and leave those squares undefended for the next turn. Move the king to his keep, yet leave him exposed on the flank…

“I would rather not play with Helenne anymore!” Instead of tipping his king, Ciceroix pushes the board toward the center of the table, rocking the pieces still standing on it.

Helenne picks his king up herself. “A knight of Ishgard is generous in defeat,” she says sweetly.

The kings are the finest pieces, to her mind, with their fierce and solemn faces; Ciceroix’s defeated king’s crown gleams silver, a solid wing of metal brighter than that of the queen she’d helped corner him with. His pale robes had been painted with silver leaf once, but much of that has worn off and what remains has tarnished darkly, leaving only a few inky swirls of color across what had once been brocade. The dark king’s gilding has endured better, still glittering bravely in places.

“A knight of Ishgard isn’t supposed to lose five times in a row to his little sister!”

She starts setting the board up again, restoring the fallen soldiers to their squares. Here is the true game of chess: the idea that it could ever be that simple. Even at eleven, Helenne knows it isn’t.

Ciceroix looks around. “Solelle, you play her.”

“Absolutely not,” Solelle says, not looking up from her embroidery. “Even Master Parcemel loses to her half the time now. I have more sense.”

It’s not a difficult game, if you simply consider the patterns; Helenne supposes Master Parcemel is too busy to try, and her siblings too uninterested. “We’ll do something else, then,” she says. She likes puzzles, but she doesn’t want to fight.