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"I'm forewarning you- find a way to deal without your Warrior of Light for a couple days."
The white-haired elezen lad flinched, stumbling back a step. Redway could never catch the milky-eyed miqo'te woman off-guard, but teasing the youngest of the Scions had become a habit. He startled so horribly.
"Redway! I would thank you not to-"
"I announced myself," Redway interrupted. "Is it my fault if you don't pay attention to your surroundings?" The prat drew himself to his full (inconsequential) height and drew in his breath to argue. Probably at length.
"Pray elaborate on your first statement," Y'shtola cut in, droll. "Unless I misheard, you are asking permission to kidnap Calvet'a?"
Redway crossed his arms and leaned back against the base of the Adders' little wooden watchpost. The orb over Baelsar's Wall cast shadows even this far that made his eyes ache. "No, I'm just going to do it. Figure out how to handle the world without him for once."
From behind him, a lighter voice chipped in, "You're not going to hurt him, are you?"
"Yda," Redway half-turned. She still trembled from the flight off the Wall. Whether it was weakness or she was itching for a fight, Redway was disinclined to prod further. He was more worried about the stark withdrawal of the Scions' indispensible cornerstone champion. "Only if he wants to fight me about it. Otherwise we'll stroll right over to the North Shroud and be back in Mor Dhona before the week is out."
Every one of them must have grown accustomed to Calvetoix simply disappearing time and again. Fade from sight, pull himself together, and put out again the next time they all but demanded his blades. These Sharlayans all talked around him, assumed his agreement, dragged him to this meeting and that where he stood silently aside and nodded when spoken to. They worked him like a piece of magitek. Like Gekkai had worked his shadows.
It had nearly broken him already. Redway remembered the glazed look when Calvetoix had all but asked for death at Redway's hand. Offered the blade, lifted his throat clear. He'd seen it before, and hoped to never do so again.
"When was the last time he visited his family?" Redway jerked his chin upward and pinned the only person he could under his glare- Alphinaud. "Or took any time to relax-" he held out a finger when Alphinaud gathered his breath- "that didn't involve training either himself or Basille to fight on the Scions' behalf?"
Alphinaud closed his mouth again, flushing slightly.
Redway clenched his teeth. "A good shinobi lives for his oath to his master. His cause is his life. He is his blade- and nothing more." He found himself looking up the stairway toward Yda. "Calvetoix is a very, very good shinobi."
Alphinaud made a noise as he understood. Yda snatched in a breath, then bowed her head.
"Remember that, and do not make me drag him away from any more last stands." Redway straightened. "Or it really will be his last."
"The sharpest blades are brittle, after all," Y'shtola mused. She nodded. "Calvet'a is to the northeast. I am sure I need tell a man of your skills no more."
The Sheashi homestead was built up into the trees- a holdover from a time when Keepers of the Moon poached game from under the Hearers' gaze and traveled from one treetop hide to another, or so one miqo'te huntress had explained to Redway. Now they were settled, treehouse dwellings joined by surface sheds and patios, a charcoal pit and a fishing weir, and a massive tangle of logs, ropes, and netting that the children climbed up and through as easily as they ran across the ground. Perhaps two dozen miqo'te called it home- and Calvetoix.
Behind and beneath them the household bustled, even past midnight, the flickers of lanterns and fireflies and distant stars lighting it all. But here at the peak there was calm amidst it. Like always, Calvetoix had searched it out. Another shadow in the shadows: his hands were braced against the low wooden railing, and his whole body craned to look out and up. Eyes wide, and bright, and glittering.
The well-honed part of Redway took stock mechanically. An easy target: unarmored, exposed, oblivious. A single strike, or tip him over the edge and let the fall make an accident of it…
"…The letters in my armoire," Calvetoix murmured.
Redway shrugged and abandoned his attempt at stealth. He joined Calvetoix at the railing, amused that he had to be reminded that this was the damned Warrior of Light. No matter how soft Calvetoix looked, he was far from helpless. "I didn't read the mess of family drama, if that's your accusation." Redway nudged Calvetoix's shoulder with his own. "Or hope. Make your own excuses to your parents for why you haven't replied."
Calvetoix actually laughed. A soft chuckle that faded immediately into the woodland sounds around them. "No, I can handle my mother's ire. I'm mad at myself."
"So why do it at all?" Redway scoffed. It was only a piece of paper. Or three dozen of them, still sealed and hidden away like some sordid secret. Redway had expected underhanded work, bribery, extortion, an affair- not parents and siblings living bucolic little treetop lives. An idyllic little hide for Eorzea's most-used blade. If he wasn't set on ignoring it.
Calvetoix hummed to himself and craned his head to look up through the canopy toward the stars above. "It makes no sense in hindsight. I should have known when they kept writing. No, I'm the only one who blamed myself for how my brother joined up with the Braves. And I'm the only one who thought he died for it."
There had been screaming when they arrived. Honest, blood-curdling, hair-raising whoops of joy. From the gangling youngest siblings first: a handful of scruffy-haired kits loud as a flock of colibris that circled, eyed Redway with a feral glint, then latched onto Calvetoix. But the wild war cries from the tanned, black-haired youth put them to shame. He and Calvetoix had been in each others' arms before any word could be said.
"Nearly a year since I spoke with any of them. And the whole time, he was making a new name for himself with the Boar tribe in the Sagolii! The Braves weren't looking for B'calveh Tia." His voice lilted and lifted. "Apparently Calveh-tia is close enough to Calvet'a that now he's getting mistaken for me. Serves him right for scaring me. And he comes home with a huntress of his own!"
That would be B'jinla- the one who wanted to carve Redway to bits with her bare hands. "Fiery little thing. Are you jealous?"
"Ha! No." Calvetoix's smile faded from his eyes, though it lingered, unfeeling, on his mouth. "Too much for me."
Redway tsked, skeptical. "After seeing the sort of family you grew up in, meek is the last thing I'd expect you to be drawn to."
"Try manipulative," Calvetoix said- then shook his head. "A side effect of my status. Everyone wants something. I've found once I tell them I'm ordained, their interest evaporates."
"You're a priest!?" Redway leaned out over the railing you catch Calvetoix's eye, while the shinobi turned up his chin. So he tried to avoid it- Redway swung up and onto the edge so he sat directly in Calvetoix's space, thrilling in the way this, like nothing else, set the shinobi on edge. "A bloody priest!"
"Conjurers of the Fane act as priests of the Matron," Calvetoix explained. Holding back his laughter now, bashful as a youth, though it shone in his eyes.
"The Matron." Redway snorted. "Your goddess of, hmm… fertility?"
The darkness likely spared Calvetoix's face and ears coloring, but it couldn't hide the thick note in his voice. "If they assume all priesthood comes with a vow of celibacy, then-"
"Then they don't know what they're missing!" Redway leaned in, grinning. And maybe it was the air of familiarity which the Sheashis all treated each other, or the strong apple cider, that made his breath catch at the way Calvetoix's eyes widened and glittered in the starlight. "You're allowed to live a little, you know! If they're offering-"
Sounding like someone had a hand around his throat, he replied, "they never offered before I was any sort of hero, so-"
"And? You are a bloody hero. They didn't see it before, and they do now." Redway leaned in further. Calvetoix's eyes widened, and he froze. "You do know how to let loose, don't you, shinobi-"
Calvetoix heard the creak of a step below a moment before Redway. Both reached for their knives- and eased their hands away when Briar's whitened ears and head crested the top of the stairs.
"There you are. Veda, your mama is looking for you," the older miqo'te quirked a brow at the pose he found his son and companion in. "Should I tell her you're busy?"
Redway swung down from his perch, blanking his face. "Don't let me get in the way."
So the slight, greying miqo'te fixed his attention on Redway. "Actually, I'd wanted a chance to talk with you, Redway."
Calvetoix caught the assassin's eye and raised his brows, offering an out. Redway only blinked, stoic. With a laugh that was more breath than chuckle, Calvetoix nodded, then leaned down to press his cheek against his father's crown.
Briar replied in kind, tilting his head until their cheeks pressed together. In a performer's whisper, he added, "I'll give it half a bell, then come distract her. She deserves that much time to chide."
"My thanks, Papa." With a last tilt of his head for Redway, the elezen folded himself into the hatchway without a sound- only the soft noise of the hatch itself closing, cutting off the interior light.
Redway took the measure of the man Calvetoix thought of as a father as he leaned back against against one of the support beams. Time had rounded the slight miqo'te off, slowed him down. He posed no threat to Redway, physically. But his wood-dark eyes were cunning as they took Redway's measure in turn.
Briar reached some decision about his son's companion- and he huffed and scratched at the base of one ear. "Shame on me that I barely got the chance to say hello in all the hubub. But most important- thank you for bringing him home. We hear tales of course, but only of the worst parts."
Redway only hummed and bit back his first instinct. They heard the most exciting parts. No one spoke of the worst of it- Not even Calvetoix.
"So… Corvosi?"
Redway twitched, incredulous. "No. Why even guess Locus Amoenus, of all places?"
Briar gave a warm little laugh and looked sidelong as he patted Redway's shoulder. "Ah! Dalmascan. It was that or Hannish, and neither like being called Corvosi."
After blinking, Redway settled back against the beam and closed his eyes. "Undone in one word. Yes, old man. If you have to know, I was born in Dalmasca." Too sharp by half, this Briar…
"A long way from home, then. Have you had the chance to see your own family?"
An odd weight settled into Redway's chest, half disgust and half bitterness. "That's not an issue. My line of work preferred those who didn't have that sort of entanglement." The price of loyalty from half-breeds and orphans in the wake of the Empire's conquest was cheap. It would be a lie to say he hadn't jumped at the opportunity. A shadow had the skill to survive.
No, Redway didn't miss Rabanastre, Dalmasca, or the Empire. It had never been home in the way Calvetoix spoke the word.
"Hmm." Briar hadn't moved his hand. "I'll make it clear then: you're always welcome here, with or without Calvet'a. We took him in. If he's taken to you, then you're ours too."
Familiy ties bound both ways- Redway had none to drag him down in his newfound freedom alongside the star's heroes… or so he had told himself. Nor had he ever seen a family like this one. It seemed disjointed: adults and children scrambling around and over each other, names called across the compound, shouting. Food served from the kitchen, everyone gathering with their plates at a scatter of tables. Children who peppered questions, jokes, and even insults with hugs and literally hanging from their elders' shoulders!
How could you know how to miss something you had never known? Calvetoix missed this. And now, Redway would too.
"I will keep that in mind," he responded, voice quiet.
Briar's voice shifted. "You know, Redway... If Calvet'a was the man he used to be two years ago, I would be warning you off. I was well-traveled in my younger days. Werlyt. Ala Mhigo. And I saw… some of the worst of things. Done by people," he patted Redway's back, "very much like you."
Was that a threat? Redway pulled away to face Briar fully, only to see the tired smile in the man's open face.
"That's the conversation I came up here to have. But I decided otherwise." Briar looked toward the hatch to the lower levels. "He's always been reserved, our Veda. Not one to chatter, always careful. His battles've changed him. And you two," Briar held a hand out and tipped it side to side, then level. "You balance."
"That's one thing to call it," Redway drawled, thoughtless. If they balanced, it was a perilous-thin thing, each of their lives teetering on the edge of a pair of blades. A better man might have been grateful. A smarter one, jealous. For all his assertions to Calvetoix, the Scions, and himself, Redway could not say why it was he was still here. But he'd be damned before he'd call it anything with a name.
And here Calvetoix's sharp-eyed father was watching him too closely. "You take care of him, and he of you, from what I can see. That's all I'd ask as a father." Briar waved a hand, then set to scratching the back of his head. "The rest is between you two. There's some things a father doesn't need to know about his children!"
Far from it, old man. Not that Calvetoix couldn't use a little relief- but the assassin who'd tried to kill him wasn't likely to be his first choice. And so long as Briar didn't know that tidbit, all could remain cordial.
"Well, that's all the fatherly advice for tonight. I think it's high time I rescued Veda from his Mama's scolding, don't you?" Briar pushed away from the railing with a groan, stretching his legs until the knees popped. "Don't stay up here too long. I hear whispers that the girls are making Veda's favorite apple cobbler. As a surprise," he tapped his nose, "so don't warn Veda. Or if you're a dim-eyed daywalker like me and are ready to turn in, Veda can point you toward your lodgings for the night."
In a life filled with many things, pleasant courtesies and hospitality left Redway at odds. "I'll do that."
"Thank you, Redway." Briar grabbed his shoulder, firm, and smiled up at Redway the exact same way Calvetoix did: a gesture of the eyes more than the mouth, blinking happily. Now that Redway saw it on Briar's expressive face, he realized how often Calvetoix smiled- and how often he only pretended to, a cursory lift of the lips for his companions benefit. The way Redway did now, stiff with disuse. Briar didn't question it.
Redway spend a long time looking out over the nightscape of the Shroud and rearranging what he knew of Calvetoix into a new shape called Veda Sheashi, and thought hard about the masks they both chose to wear.