He waits for her at the entrance to the Burning Wall, as the sky begins to darken. Spires of aether twist and pierce the land, cradling rock formations in ways that almost seem deliberate. The structure glows gently against the sunset.
Memesu approaches as a patch of night, eyes bright under a wide-brimmed hat. A collar conceals her expression. Cenric doesn’t wave but raises a hand tentatively in greeting. Memesu mirrors this.
“Have you been waiting long?” she asks, approaching the stone Cenric sits on. He scoots over before she can ask, and the lalafell hoists herself to sit beside him.
“A while,” he admits. “I needed to think.”
Memesu snorts quietly, but doesn’t criticize. It’s the very reason she came to this corner of Eorzea herself, after all.
“If I’m honest,” Cenric goes on, “there’s something I want to ask you about.”
Thin eyebrows lift as she studies him. “And you’re in an honest mood, I trust.” It is not a question, although he imagines it ought to be. Under her gaze he feels like an insect pinned to a board for dissection. “What ails you?”
It’s a subject that’s worried him for months. He’s imagined himself hesitating, phrasing things a thousand ways, talking around the issue instead of defining it in any intelligible manner.
“Why,” he asks simply, “are you trying to save me?”
She stares at him, her mouth forming a tight, thin line. After some moments Memesu only says, “Are you asking me not to?”
“No,” answers Cenric. It occurs to him this might even be true. “But you know what I’ve done. It’s just a strange amount of effort for a… for a liar.”
This is the most delicate way he can phrase it. Whether it’s for her or himself he couldn’t say.
“Not so strange,” she replies, “for a sick beggar who could be someone better.” Memesu plants her palms behind her, leans into them. “I detest waste.”
He contemplates this for several moments. The breath he’d been holding escapes.
“Tch,” she mutters eventually, tilting her face toward the sky. “Apologies. It’s not just that.” Cenric glances back. The lalafell’s expression is almost peaceful. She continues. “I detest suffering, too. Seen enough. Something in this Twelve-forsaken world will be better because of me.” A wry smile ghosts over her mouth. “Lucky you.”
Yellow eyes glint against the light. Cenric shivers, but asks nothing more.
***
Kyokyozo, returned from a burial ceremony at the Church of Adama Landama, finds him holding a book he isn’t reading. Despite candles, the hut is darker than the new-evening sky. Cenric has his chair positioned so close to the wall that simply by leaning right he’ll find its support. He does this, eyes unfocused, trapping a page carefully between ink-black fingers.
“Are you well?” asks the priest. Rather than start, Cenric only blinks. Winces. Rubs the bridge of his nose with one knuckle.
“Aye,” he mumbles. Hesitates. Looks down at the text. “Only distracted.”
The funeral had been for an elderly goldsmith. Lalafell. He’d left behind a wife, four children, more grandchildren. They made a comfortable living without managing opulence, and had covered the expenses for all sprite cores necessary in the last rites.
Ice, to halt corruption. Lightning, to expel the sins of mortal life. Fire, to cleanse any remains for their return to the earth. Channeling each element with subtlety, in conjunction with appropriate embalming procedures, was essential to preserving the body’s integrity. A more delicate practice than most thaumaturges employed today, but linked nonetheless.
The goldsmith had been a gruff and distant man, but a good one. His family had seemed almost hesitant in their grief, unsure whether such open displays would meet his approval.
There is a seat across the table. Kyokyozo takes it.
“If I may,” he says, “you might find it helpful to exorcise the matter.”
Cenric stares at him, irises startlingly white and inscrutable in the moment. He does not speak.
Kyokyozo shakes his head, rueful. “Ah, pay me no mind. The day bleeds over. For all I know you may be busy contemplating our axebeak problem.”
A faint smile crosses the hyur’s lips. “They are rather loud,” he replies. The expression passes, replaced by something tense. Cenric’s eyes flit down. “But no, there… maybe you’re right. I’ve avoided this.”
Gently, he slides a leather marker into the book. Closes it. Folds both hands on the table in front of him, resting between perched elbows. The way he leans forward makes him seem smaller than he is.
“I was raised by a man named Immin Asher,” says Cenric. He still doesn’t look up. “Maybe I was abandoned. Maybe it was something else. Either way, he took me in. In every sense but blood, he was my father.”
A beat. Lips pressed firm then slowly, deliberately relaxing.
“Immin taught me what he could. The last time I really studied it was with him. Letters, arithmetic, histories… things of that nature. Strict man, but he made sure I understood.” Hesitation. Fingers knitting together tightly. When he continues it is quiet, cautious. “…long dead, now.”
Kyokyozo takes in the shoulders, the false scrutiny directed more to avoid sight than take anything in.
He decides, privately, that this is shame.
“You miss him.” There is no need to ask. Cenric nods anyway, the gesture stilted.
“I do.” The breath snags almost imperceptively, and now the pale eyes skirt toward the door. Back again. His head dips. “Immin owed me nothing, and still he… whatever else I doubted, it was never him. He could have settled with keeping me safe, but he wanted me to be happy too and I—look what I’ve done.”
At this, the edge of his words begin to strain.
“He would’ve been alive if not for me,” says Cenric, “and he would be so disappointed if he knew what came after. I should have
thanked him, honored him somehow. There’s no apologizing for something like this.”
“Be at peace,” says Kyokyozo softly. The younger man closes his mouth. Waits. “You said yourself that your father wanted you to be happy.
Silence. Cenric’s jaw rigid against the workings of his throat.
“I don’t want,” he says eventually, hoarsely, “to be someone he would regret.”
