Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He wasn’t supposed to be here.

It was late, much past his bedtime, but he couldn’t sleep, not yet. It had been almost a week since Joshua, his baby brother, had been born, and Clive still hasn’t been able to see him.

He hadn’t understood the maids when they said he wasn’t allowed in, because Joshua was weak and they didn’t want to expose him to more people than necessary. Clive thought that they just didn’t like him, because everyone else was let in. Mother rarely went to see Joshua, stuck in a state between fierce joy and crippling fear. When Clive asked her to see Joshua, she glared at him so harshly that Clive didn’t ask again.

Father, on the other hand, was much more subdued. Whenever he had time to play with Clive now he seemed weary, drained. When Clive had asked him about Joshua, about his little brother, father had told him that he had been born weak, and that being a dominant did not save him from illness. He spoke softly, as if already preparing for the worst, and Clive couldn’t bring himself to ask him either.

He had no choice, then. If his mother is so against him seeing Joshua, and if father is already expecting the worst, he’ll go see Joshua himself. 

He had memorized the schedules of the maids and guards even before Joshua’s birth, so sneaking in should not be too hard. The more concerning problem was the guards’ daemons, who would be able to see and hear him before he could ever avoid them. Luckily, Leala was on good terms with most of the daemons in the castle, which should give him just the right opportunity to slip into the nursery.

It does. It works.

The nursery is dark and quiet, a plain room with not much decoration besides a fireplace and the Rosarian banners. This used to be his nursery room, he knows. He had slept here not four years ago, unaware of his mother’s anger, his father’s pity.

He was supposed to be the Phoenix, his mother never forgot to tell him, even when he was too young to understand what that meant. He was supposed to be born with an eikon resting in his blood, filling his veins with aether. His daemon was supposed to appear already settled, a miniature copy of the eikon itself. The warden of fire’s dominant was always born with a settled phoenix daemon, so when Leala appeared unsettled and he possessed little aether, it was obvious that he had not been chosen. That the Phoenix did not want him.

That had saddened Clive, for a long time. No child wishes to feel unwanted, abandoned by a destiny set before they were even born. The moment the Phoenix declared he was unworthy was the moment his mother turned away from him. He never really remembers a moment where his mother seemed to care for him, years later and she still never introduced her daemon to them. He’s not sure Leala has ever spoken to Cain, though he knows the white stag scares her.

Either way, losing the Phoenix’s favor left him empty for a long time. He’s only just turned five and yet he feels like he owes his people so much, must atone for whatever he did to offend their warden. Now, staring down at his little brother, he no longer feels that ever present ache. 

Joshua’s face was pale, lips pursed and face scrunched up in pain, even deep asleep as he was. His little fists were balled at his side, as if he was having an unpleasant dream. Wispy blond hair sat soft atop his head - he’s taking after mother more so than father.

So small. So small and weak and helpless, barely hanging onto life even now. The Phoenix had chosen Joshua over him, had cast him aside for a baby who could barely live past a week old.

The Phoenix chose Joshua. As Clive looks at the baby, at his little brother, he’s suddenly happy he did. Happy that Joshua will always have the power to protect himself, to save himself. He’s so small, so weak, and he’ll need that power to stay safe if Clive isn’t around to help him.

Leala crawls up the cribside, currently in the form of a squirrel. She liked quick things, found it fun whenever father and his daemon had time to play. Her nose twitches as she looks down into the crib. She feels fond, feels like love, and Clive is not sure if those emotions started with her or with him.

Then her head turns, gaze going up until she’s looking at the shelves high above Clive’s head. Clive turns to look with her, wondering what could have possibly took her attention away from his little brother.

It takes him a moment to see her. She’s tucked herself into the corner of the room, almost invisible from this angle, yet Clive is still sure she can see the crib at all times. She’s smaller than a stolas, but still quite large for being newly born. Orange and red feathers burn bright like a live flame, tails of blue and green fanning out behind her. Clive was already aware that Joshua’s daemon had appeared in the form of a phoenix, already settled, but he hadn’t known how beautiful she would be.

“H-hello.” He says, suddenly feeling like he’s intruding. The phoenix daemon stares at him, eyes piercing through his soul. He knows it’s inappropriate to talk to another person’s daemon, but father had told him that it was common for siblings to talk to their siblings’ daemons. He said that he and uncle talked more to each other’s daemon than they did to their own for a time. Aldreda nipped his ear when he said that, though, so Clive’s not sure if it was true or not.

Joshua’s daemon does not respond. Clive had heard the maids gossiping throughout the week about her. Apparently, from the moment she appeared she had flown up to those shelves and hadn’t moved again. She hasn’t spoken once to anyone, not even to his parents’ daemons. The maids speculated the worst - said that it was an omen for Joshua’s health. The Phoenix had chosen poorly, and Joshua would not live long.

Clive knew that wasn’t the case. Mother’s daemon was very intimidating, so he doesn’t blame the newly born daemon for being wary. While Aldreda was kind and caring to Leala, the eagle daemon can look very scary at first glance as well.

Joshua was not going to die, his daemon was just scared. That is what Clive believed. It was what he had to believe. 

“I know you probably don’t understand me just yet.” Clive continues, smiling at the daemon. Like a newborn baby, a newborn daemon wouldn’t understand their language immediately either. Still, the phoenix daemon’s eyes were sharp, bright, intelligent. “I, um, I just wanted to say hello, introduce myself. I’m Clive, your human’s brother, and this is Leala, my daemon, your sister.”

Mother would have his head if he heard him right now, as would half the world. The daemon of a dominant was worshiped almost as much as the eikon itself, especially those dominants whose daemon’s are miniature versions of the eikon, like Joshua. Introducing Leala as her sister, while technically true, was downright blasphemous to some.

Clive didn’t want to lie to her, though, not if she’s already scared. He wants her to know that they are here, that they are family and he is just as much Joshua’s brother as Leala is her sister. 

Leala leapt onto Clive’s shoulder, facing the daemon and chirping out a hello. The phoenix looks at Clive, head tilted like she was trying to figure out a great mystery.

She lets out a single, soft, croon. 

Clive blinks, surprised. The maids had said that the phoenix had been silent ever since she appeared. She hadn’t spoken, hadn’t made a sound, just flew up to the top shelf to wait for what they thought was the inevitable. 

“I should probably wait until you can understand me.” Clive continues, wringing his hands together. In all his five years of life, he’s never been so nervous before. It’s not the fact that the daemon he’s talking to is the phoenix, no, it’s the fact that the daemon he’s talking to is his little brother’s, and something is wrong and he doesn’t know how to fix it. “But you don’t have to be scared. I’m here, and I’m going to protect both you and Joshua.” The daemon almost seemed surprised for a moment. Clive continued, voice stronger than before. “As long as I’m here, you don't have to be scared. And I'll always be here for you, so you never have to be afraid.”

“Yes!” Leala jumps into the air, an owl taking flight. She lands on the shelf a few feet from the phoenix. “You’re my baby sister, I’ll always protect you.”

Clive expects her to move away. When Aldreda had flown up there, intent on coaxing her new daughter back to Joshua, the phoenix had apparently flown to another shelf. She hadn’t let either of his parents’ daemons get close. He’s already upset that Leala flew up there so suddenly, probably startling the newborn daemon in the process.

And yet, the phoenix does not move. Instead, she studies Leala, as if searching for something Clive himself cannot see. Leala, as impulsive as ever, creeps closer to the silent daemon.

Still, even as Leala gets close enough to touch, the phoenix does not move.

Leala, thankfully, does not push any further. She stays still, letting her sister study her completely, search for whatever she saw that had caught her attention. The phoenix looks curious for a moment, intrigued with whatever she finds in Leala.

She dips her head forward, for just a moment. Touches her beak to Leala’s before pulling back just as fast. A daemon greeting, somewhere between formal and familiar. Clive feels his heart race in his chest, growing warm and wild. The feeling’s coming from Leala, he knows, and he doesn’t blame her for the near rapturous joy she feels.

She had accepted Leala. The daemon of the Phoenix had accepted Leala. They were wrong, everyone was wrong about him. The Phoenix hadn’t casted him aside, hadn’t said he wasn’t good enough. If that was true, the phoenix daemon wouldn’t have given him the time of day, wouldn’t have accepted Leala. 

Clive looks back down at Joshua, who’s sleeping more peacefully than before. His face had softened, relaxing into a less painful slumber.

Clive’s happy the Phoenix chose Joshua. If it had chosen him, he would have tried to get it to change its mind when he first laid eyes on his brother anyway.

Clive does not consider himself to be an angry person, but when mother forbids him from seeing Joshua once more he almost yells at her.

Joshua had survived infancy, as Clive knew he would. Clive snuck into the nursery whenever possible, there to see Joshua’s daemon more so than Joshua most days. The phoenix daemon still hasn’t spoken a word, even as the years go by, but she was no longer so distanced from her family. When Joshua was finally old enough to walk around the gardens outside, she enjoyed perching on the nearby statues and watching the going ons from afar. 

The first time she did so Leala tried to join her, perching on the hand of the statue as an owl. Mother’s daemon had snapped at her for it, told her not to get so close to the Phoenix. Leala had flown back to Clive, dejected, and Joshua had cried until father was finally able to join them twenty or so minutes later. He hadn’t witnessed the commotion, had only seen the aftermath. Cain stayed close to the phoenix, an unwanted guard that Joshua’s daemon seemed to be trying to ignore. The rest of the short excursion outside, before mother insisted Joshua go back in lest he get ill, was quiet and awkward.

Clive had taken note of the fact that Aldreda had disappeared during their short jaunt, appearing on the roof next to the daemon of a nearby guard. He took note of the fact that, after mother and Cain blocked Leala from the phoenix daemon, she would always walk the gardens with just Joshua and Joshua alone. Clive was never invited.

Luckily, father had noticed as well. He started taking his sons on their own personal excursions to the garden, without mother’s knowledge. They would go to the patch of grass that Clive used to play with father in, when he was younger, and Joshua would sit and watch them go through sword motions. Father knew Clive wanted to become Joshua’s shield, and he was proud of him for it.

Clive thinks that’s when Phoenix became comfortable with Aldreda. He learns belatedly that a dominant’s daemon’s name is the name of their eikon, a sign of respect and reverence to their warden. Cain calls her Phoenix proudly, like a statement of power. Aldreda does not seem as happy with the name, but calls her it anyway. 

During those secret walks, the daemons would perch on top of a dry fountain, watching their humans below. Clive knows that Phoenix does not talk then, only watches Leala and Aldreda converse, but he’s sure she enjoys it anyway. She loves when father ruffles Joshua’s hair, tells him he’s proud when he summons flames. Aldreda compliments her feathers almost daily, teaches her fun tricks to do while flying. Phoenix is warming up to her, even though it takes a while.

Then there is another outing. They’re heading outside of the castle walls this time, even though mother doesn’t seem happy about it. Joshua’s excited, because he wanted to see the lake father had described many times over as one of his favorite spots in all of Rosaria. 

Leala keeps her distance the journey there, staying curled around Clive as a viper instead of up in the air with Phoenix and Aldreda. Father notices but does not comment on it. Joshua is frowning at the sky, as if Phoenix is the one unhappy and he is only getting the aftereffects. 

She tests her luck once they’ve reached the lake. Phoenix perches on a low branch in a nearby tree, close enough to Joshua for him to not feel the pull. Clive feels a wave of anticipation from his daemon, before she’s an owl once more, flying up to land clumsily next to Phoenix. Her wings are wet, transferred over from the dolphin she was before, and steam flies between them when water lands on Phoenix.

Mother’s white stag daemon had been laying next to her, noble and composed even on the dusty dirt. Almost as if waiting, his head snapped over to Leala and Phoenix.

“Stay away from Phoenix!” Cain barked, and mother’s head snapped over to them as well. Leala immediately pulls away. “Do not tarnish her with your touch!”

A wave of shame and embarrassment floods through Clive. Leala wilts, folding in on herself at her father’s words. Next to him, Joshua starts to cry. It’s sudden, surprising, and when Joshua notices it he seems confused as to where they’re coming from.

Then, in a flurry of feathers, Aldreda is next to Leala, scowling down at Cain with a righteous fury. “Do not talk to our daughter like that!” She shouts, feathers puffing up. “She is the daemon of the first shield in training, she has more right to talk to Phoenix than any of us!”

There’s a loud argument, one that mother and father also join. Phoenix and Leala fly down to them, and Clive pulls Joshua to the side, far enough away that he hopefully can no longer hear what they’re saying.

“Clive…” Joshua is almost four now, so young and yet with such a big future ahead of him. “Is it true that a daemon shows you what their person truly feels?”

Phoenix is perched on his shoulder, head swiveled to watch the argument behind them. Clive doesn’t like where this is going. “It’s true.”

“Then…” Joshua’s eyes tear up again. “Is that how mother truly feels?”

Clive wants to comfort him, tell him that it’s not, that he doesn’t understand.

Clive doesn’t like lying to Joshua. 

They never go on a family outing again. Over a year passes, and Joshua falls ill once more. He’s completely bedridden this time, weak and small once more, and as Clive walks the halls of the castle he hears the maids again, whispering the same things that they did when Joshua was but a baby.

He’s not going to make it. He’s living on borrowed time. That’s why his daemon still hasn’t said a word.

He’s overwhelmed with studying the first two days Joshua is bedridden, so there is no time to see him. When he goes the third day to see how he’s faring, he’s not allowed inside. When asked why, he’s told that mother forbade his entrance.

It’s the closest he’s ever come to yelling at mother.

Why does she hate him so?

Father finds him when he comes to visit Joshua, sitting in the hallway outside his room. He is calm when Clive tells him that mother forbade his entrance, but Aldreda’s enraged shriek gives away his anger. Father gives him explicit permission to enter Joshua’s room, tells the guards and the maids that he overrides all of mother’s rules when it comes to Clive. 

Clive is grateful to no end, but decides to wait until late at night to visit. The maid who nurses Joshua at this time is kind, and she lets Clive in without a second thought, giving him a few instructions on what to do if something happens, before exiting the room. She’s right outside, he knows, just a panicked call away. Still, it’s nice to be allowed some privacy.

Joshua is feverish, labored breath causing him to wheeze on every inhale. His eyes are glazed over when Clive comes closer, but he still recognizes him. “Clive.” His voice is weak, scared. “It hurts-”

Clive drops to a knee next to his bed, runs a hand through his sweaty hair. “I’m sorry, Joshua, it’ll be okay.” He suddenly feels helpless, trying to soothe his brother without being able to stop the pain. Leala whimpers next to him, a half grown wolf barely able to look over the bed.

Clive grabs one of the available towels, soaks it in water and places it on Joshua’s forehead. It seems to help, a little. Joshua looks around, searching, before closing his eyes.

It’s then that Clive remembers Phoenix.

He finds her up high, like always. The Rosfields, long ago, had a custom perch created for the phoenix daemon, one passed through generations. It reaches all the way to the ceiling, several different levels and heights for Phoenix to choose from. As time passed, people started using it as a way to tell what mood she was in. If Phoenix sat on a perch low to the ground, near Joshua, she was in a good mood. If she was high up, it was better not to disturb her.

Currently, she was on top of the highest perch, staring down at them like a vulture watching dying prey. The thought of it settles heavily in Clive’s stomach.

Leala, impulsive in only the way a daemon to a ten-year-old could be, turns into an owl and flies up to the second highest perch. She can’t hear what she says, with how low she’s speaking, but he knows she’s trying to coax her down to Joshua.

“She’s scared.” Leala says a moment later, and a memory sparks in Clive’s mind. A few months ago Clive had asked Leala if Phoenix was a daemon or a part of the eikon. Many people thought that dominants don’t truly have daemons, and that the things that look like daemons are actually just a part of their eikon in physical form. It’s why a dominant’s daemon can use aether like a bearer, why their daemons can temporarily join back with their humans when they prime. This leads people to believe that a dominant’s daemon hold secrets unknown to mortals, things lost to time. 

Leala’s answer was firm. Phoenix was a daemon, and even if she did glean some secrets from the eikon, she was still just a daemon, a baby daemon at that. A baby daemon with the weight of a country’s expectations sitting on her wings. She was not some all knowing entity keeping secrets from them, she was a daemon barely five years of age, told she had to be perfect without even being told the meaning of the word.

No wonder she’s silent. If this is how she feels, how is Joshua handling it?

“I’m sorry.” He says aloud, talking to them both. “I can’t protect you from illness, Joshua, I'm sorry. I’m sorry you must deal with this so young, I’m sorry we brought such a burden on you from the moment you appeared. I’m sorry.”

Up above, Phoenix looks away, like it hurt to look at them. Joshua seems to cry out at the same time, eyes opening again to lock onto his daemon. He raises a shaky hand, calling out. “Please-”

He’s asking for her, wanting comfort from his daemon to help him through his haze of pain. He wants her close, wants her here, and yet Phoenix does not move from her spot.

Joshua turns to him then, eyes full of hurt far deeper than his physical pain. “She thinks it's her fault.” He confesses, voice a whining rasp. Tears prick at the edges of his eyes, and Clive feels his heart falling apart. “She thinks the Phoenix is killing me, and that she’s helping it.”

She’s scared, Leala had said. Scared of her duty, scared for Joshua, and scared of the idea that she’s the reason he’s in pain. Dominant or not, a daemon was still a daemon, was still a part of a person’s soul. She thought she was the cause for Joshua’s pain, Clive couldn’t imagine the torment that would bring.

They’re so young.

“It’s not your fault.” He says, tries to impress it into her mind. “Joshua was born sickly, no one had any control over that. Even so, the Phoenix is not what’s causing him pain, I promise you that.”

Joshua thrashes for a moment, too weak and yet still fighting. “I don’t care!” He snaps, coughs for a few minutes. He’s crying now, angry and upset and overflowing with it. “I don’t care if it is your fault or not! I just want you here!”

He bursts into tears, and it's the final straw. Phoenix flies down to him immediately, landing next to his shoulder and leaning in to brush her feathers against him. Joshua visibly relaxes, a tension leaving his shoulders as Phoenix leans in, crooning lowly in his ear.

To this day, Clive still has never seen her speak, not even to Joshua. Still, whatever message she wanted to convey went through well enough, as Joshua ran a shaky hand through her feathers, something close to peace in his eyes.

He turned back to Clive. “Please stay.” He sniffles, voice even more raw than before. “At least until I fall asleep.”

And Clive agrees, because it’s hard for him to say no to Joshua.

Joshua smiles and closes his eyes. As Leala flies back down to him, Phoenix stares at him once more. She’s always watching him, Clive’s noticed, something about him intrigues her in a way no one else can see. Clive lets her, because he doesn’t have it in him to ask her, to risk causing her to stop.

She turns away after several long moments, bending back down to chirp in Joshua’s ear. Joshua’s brow furrows for a moment, almost confused, before his eyes pop open. He looks shocked, caught, like someone just saw him stealing a cookie from the kitchens.

“We’d get in so much trouble.” He mumbles, eyes wide, and Phoenix trills, nibbles the tip of his nose in assurance. He worries his lip, and Clive watches the exchange, amazed by their silent communication. “Okay, but we can’t tell anyone, not even father.”

Phoenix preens, pressing the top of her head against Joshua’s cheek for a moment before backing up. Before Clive can realize what’s happening, or better yet stop her, she spins to him, tilting her head down towards where his fingers rest on the bed.

A single, soft peck against his fingers. Her beak brushing against them more than actually biting. Clive stares, wide-eyed and mouth agape as Phoenix steps back, pleased with herself.

Another daemon… another daemon…

Another daemon had just touched him.

He didn’t know what to do. This was completely unheard of, a daemon willingly touching another person. It was so insanely taboo, even just the thought of it made Clive a little sick inside. Not even slave masters could touch a bearer’s daemon without risking getting kicked out of town or stoned to death. Most people believed that, the moment you touched another’s daemon, divine retribution would follow within the next week, if not the next few hours.

Someone touching your daemon was supposed to be extremely painful, as well. No matter who does it, whether it’s a stranger or a lover, touching someone’s daemon caused their person excruciating pain and the chance of the perpetrator living through the next few days if found out was close to zero.

And yet, Clive felt nothing, when Phoenix touched him. There was a soft brush of warmth, deep inside him, but nothing more. Joshua seemed completely unaffected as well, closing his eyes and relaxing into his sheets. He’s asleep moments later, and Phoenix curls up next to him, just as unbothered as Joshua.

Clive would think he had dreamt it all up if Leala wasn’t there, if Leala wasn’t just as confused as him. She slips under his jacket, small once more, and curls up near his heart.

Once Clive is sure Joshua is completely asleep, he leaves as quickly as possible, mind and heart rushing.

The next morning, the doctors, in hurried but relieved breaths, tell them that Joshua’s fever has broken, and he’s already starting to recover.

The maid peeks her head inside his room, searching. “Have you seen the young lord?” She questions, and Clive can see the swish of his mother’s dress, just outside of view. 

Clive shakes his head. “I haven’t seen Joshua, maybe he’s with father?”

He hears mother scoff, as the maid thanks him and closes the door. It is quiet for a moment, as he hears the group shuffle away.

Moments after that, a blond head pokes out from behind his bookshelf. “Finally.” Joshua flops onto Clive’s bed with a giggle. Phoenix shoots out from behind the shelf with a gust of wind, settling on a perch near the head of his bed. Leala turns into an eagle even larger than Aldreda and joins her. “She never lets me see you.”

Clive doesn’t speak on that matter. Joshua is seven now, he’s started to see how differently mother treated him and Clive, but Clive doesn’t want to be the one that completely breaks the news to him. Clive would rather it be him, anyway, who was the disliked child. One more protection that Joshua has.

“It’s unfair, I think.” Joshua continues on, scrambling up to sit next to him on the bed. He crosses his legs, stares at nothing as he thinks. “She is unkind to Jill as well, and I don’t understand why. Cain is mean to Leala and Fionn too.”

He had noticed everything, apparently, even the way that his and Jill’s daemon cowers whenever mother’s daemon so much as looks at them. “She loves you.” Is all he can say, because he can’t defend her actions, not anymore. “She just wants you safe and healthy.”

Joshua pouts. “You keep me safe without her help.” He states, and Phoenix gives a sharp trill of agreement. “That just means you should be around me more than she is!”

Clive sighs, because this is an argument they’ve been having for the past year or so, and it was never going to end if Joshua had something to say about it. He switches topics instead, glances at Phoenix. “Phoenix looks a bit bigger today, doesn’t she?” He asks, and Joshua hasn’t yet learned what a redirect quite is, yet. “Maybe she’s finally growing.”

Daemons of dominants that are settled at birth are usually bigger than their other newborn counterparts. Phoenix had appeared already half her size, and had stayed that way for the past seven years. 

She preens at that, like it’s a compliment, but Joshua’s frown deepens, grows sad and somber. Whatever it is passes to her, and Phoenix wilts moments later. Leala chitters at her quietly.

“What is it?” Clive asks, because Joshua has a look on his face that says he won't explain the problem until someone asks about it first. It’s a new development of his, and Clive hopes it's just a phase.

“I don’t like it.” Joshua states, and Clive thinks he’s still on the conversation about mother, but then he continues. “The name Phoenix, I don’t like it. That’s not her name.”

Clive blinks at that, even though he shouldn’t be surprised. The daemons of dominants are named after their eikon as a sign of respect, that doesn’t mean they don’t have an actual name. Normally, when a daemon appears, both mother and father daemon give the child a half of a name. They don’t choose the name, really, but it comes to them like a vision, like fate almost, the meaning behind the name is the meaning behind the person themselves. It’s important, special, and Clive doesn’t even know if Phoenix has one.

Clive understands the pain. After he was born, and Leala was proven not to be the Phoenix, Cain never named her. He refused, so Aldreda did it by herself and Leala only got half a name. It’s not abnormal for a daemon to only have half a name, things happen where one parent isn’t or can’t be around, but it’s the refusal that hurts Leala and Clive the most. The fact that Cain knew the name she should have, and yet did not tell her, almost out of spite. Making it so Leala would have to live the rest of her life with a half name.

(It did not hurt much, at the beginning. He had no friends his age, did not know any other daemon. Phoenix was named Phoenix, and Aldreda had half a name as well, for a reason father has yet to tell him. Then he met Jill, and he felt that frustration. He met Andrifionn, a daemon with a full name, who had a nickname because that’s what full-named daemons did, and he felt bitter.)

He’s sure that Cain did not give Phoenix a name either, more out of the idea of keeping Phoenix’s name pure compared to anything else. Father was out when Joshua was born as well, and while Aldreda could have given her a name later, she also could have easily just forgotten, especially since the idea of using her true name was disrespectful in most cases. Has Phoenix gone her whole life without a name? Only a title? Something that wasn’t even fully hers?

“You could talk to dad.” Clive suggests softly, unable to look away from Phoenix. “I’m sure if he hasn’t already, he’d give Phoenix a name.”

“Yeah!” Leala chirps, hiding the horror Clive can feel with enthusiasm. “Mother would give you your name in a heartbeat, if you asked. She’d feel bad for forgetting!”

“Father is always so busy.” Joshua murmurs, looking down at his hands. “I don’t wish to bother him, and I don’t wish to make him feel bad for forgetting.”

He should, in Clive’s opinion. He loves his father, dearly, and it’s definitely not a normal circumstance, but Aldreda forgetting to name Phoenix for several years is not something one should be forgiven for. Joshua should not feel guilt for wanting something everyone has a birthright to have. Normally, in a situation where no parent could give a daemon a name, other daemons will do it, with difficulty, but in the end the daemon gets their name. It doesn’t just not happen.

The name Enya pops into his head, bright and powerful, but not quite right. He mentally says it, rolls it over in his mind a few times, the urge to help Joshua in any way possible too strong to ignore.

Phoenix deserves a name.

He’s disappointed in himself for not realizing it either, that she didn’t have a name. He should have been better, should have noticed sooner. Having a nameless daemon is having an unknown identity, and Clive wouldn’t wish that on anyone, much less his little brother.

“What about Ona?” Leala asks, breaks the silence. She’s standing tall on the perch, pressed against Phoenix. Joshua turns to her, eyes wide.

Phoenix seems to swell, plumage puffing as she hops in place. “Yes.” She says, and Clive’s jaw drops, because he’s never heard her speak before. “Yes.” She repeats. “Yes.”

She explodes into a ball of flames, of controlled chaos, and flies a lap around the room, dripping embers as she goes. Joshua giggles at her, holding out an arm for her to land on. She does, nipping his nose as she settles. Joshua giggles again, surprisingly giddy. Leala beams on her perch, pleased in a way Clive has never seen her. He can feel it deep inside him, coming from the neverending internal flame that is Leala, deep in his heart. 

“I love it.” Phoenix says, pecks Joshua’s nose again, like she can’t believe it’s real. Joshua’s smile is brighter than the sun, and Clive hasn’t fully realized that Leala had named her, not yet at least. He’s too busy watching his brother.

Joshua grins one more time before turning to Clive, ecstatic. “Hello!” He chirps, holds up his arm to proudly present Phoenix. “My name is Joshua Rosfield, and this is my daemon Ona!”

Ona flaps her wings once, proud, before reaching out to peck Clive’s nose this time. Clive stays still, still not used to the flood of warmth when he expects to see pain instead. Even so, Joshua doesn’t react, as if he doesn’t feel anything at all. Like all he feels is a warm brush of home.

“Hello Joshua, Ona.” Clive plays along, the contagiousness of their joy spreading to him. Leala leaps from her perch and into Clive’s lap, an armadillo. “My name is Clive Rosfield, your brother. This is my daemon Leala.”

“Your sister!” Leala says, almost shouts, and she shouldn’t, they shouldn’t have when Clive was five, and they definitely should not when he is twelve, but Leala has always been the freer part of him.

“My sister.” Ona agrees, voice soft but joyful, and Joshua does not get upset, does not call him or Leala disrespectful.

In fact, Joshua looks better than he has in a long time.

“Father is coming home in a few days.” Joshua lays on the grass, staring up into the starry sky above. “I hope everythings gone well.”

Ona chirps a quiet agreement, curled up on his stomach. Clive, fifteen and hyper aware of how they snuck out of the castle walls to look at the stars, sits and keeps watch.

“I’m sure it has.” Jill replies, lying between him and Clive. Fionn and Leala are curled up together at her feet, Torgal in between them. Daemons usually have problems interacting with animals, but Torgal has never caused them any issues. They take advantage of that at every opportunity. “Your father is too powerful to let anything get the best of him.”

In a time where the only other dominants were across the continent or overseas, Clive agrees. Nothing could harm father, not as it was now. 

“I wonder what he’ll have to say.” Joshua continues, staring up at the stars. “The nobles have been anxious, lately. There are rumors of a war.”

“Never listen to the petty gossip of nobles.” Clive tells him. “Most of it is things made up to cure their boredom, and you won't have time to sift through it all. You’ll have advisors to do it for you, anyway.”

“Rumors can be fun.” Jill disagrees. “I heard one that said that one of the elders in court is a goblin in disguise. Some of the shields have a bet on who.”

Silly, completely impossible thing. Clive snorts anyway, a grin tugging at his lips.

Joshua turns to her. “You know the court gossip?” His eyes spark in amusement. “You can be one of my advisors, then!”

Jill laughs. “That takes the fun out of it, your majesty.”

Joshua wrinkles his nose at the title, turning back towards the sky. “I think I’m scared of priming.” He confesses, a random thing. Clive wonders at his train of thought as Joshua runs a hand through Ona’s feathers. “What if I merge with Ona, and when I turn back she’s no longer there?”

Ona raises her head before either he or Jill could respond, crooning. “That’s not how that works.” She says in a way that tells Clive she had thought of that too. “Daemons are always separate from their humans.”

Joshua doesn’t seem convinced. “But that’s for normal people.” He insists. “The nobles, they say that a dominant’s daemon isn’t even a real daemon.”

It goes quiet. Both Leala and Fionn turn to look at Ona. Clive is expecting her to feel hurt. Instead, she looks angry.

“And you trust them?” She asks, snaps. “They, who know more than we, who experience it, do?”

Joshua looks away. Jill curls a hand around his wrist. “I would be scared too.” She admits, glancing down at Fionn. “But even if he didn’t come back, I know he’s still with me, in here.” She touches her chest, smiles at him.

“Ona’s never leaving you.” Fionn adds on, following his human. “You Rosfields are far too stubborn to be worrying about things like that.”

Leala snorts, and Joshua’s lips twitch, but don’t do much more. Clive stays silent, watching. As time passes, Joshua becomes more and more aware of the responsibilities carried on his shoulders. He should not be surprised that the stress manifests in unsuspecting ways.

“I wouldn’t leave Clive, would I?” Leala says, points it towards Joshua, whose eyes widen just at the thought of it. “And Fionn wouldn’t leave Jill, and so Ona would never leave you. If there’s one thing you can always trust, it is that.”

Joshua does smile this time, a small thing. Ona pecks his nose as he lays back down, stares up at the sky. “When I’m archduke.” He says, changing the topic once more. “I’m going to make sure both of you live like the highest nobles!”

Jill immediately starts giggling, like she’s unable to hold it in. Joshua smiles alongside her. “You're so kind, my lord.”

“A first shield can’t live like a noble.” Clive finally speaks, not trying to ruin the mood but unable to not remind him. “I’ll live like I do now, which I am fine with.”

Jill is still giggling, which distracts Joshua from getting upset at Clive’s words. As her giggling subsides they all go quiet again, staring up at the stars above.

He is awoken to piercing screams and the sound of battle.

It couldn't have been long since he fell asleep. Clive rubs at his eyes, waking relatively quick as the scent of blood drifted through the air. Leala sat at the edge of his bed, a pygmy falcon ready for battle. One of the first things they learned when fighting with an unsettled daemon is to keep them out of reach from their opponent. Being quick and small and able to fly helped immensely with that.

He had barely managed to fully prepare when his door was broken open, a man in armor looking to kill him.

He only hoped that Joshua was okay.

Clive's not sure how much time passed. He found his brother, eventually, shaken but unharmed with Wade and Tyler. After he was sure Joshua would be fine, would be safe with his father, he and Lord Murdoch made it their mission to hold these ambushers at bay.

It was going well, for all intents and purposes. Clive had just landed a fatal blast of magic on a dragoon warrior, when Leala shrieked above him. Clive turned just in time to see her dive towards the ground, changing into a honey badger as she landed on top of a creeping viper daemon. Clive is surprised that someone would risk trying that, even if the venom it had was able to kill a human with just one quick bite. Venomous daemons were as harmless as all other daemons, because no one wanted their daemon to touch others.

The viper daemon hissed, fangs flashing. Leala, Clive’s incredible daemon, only snarled back, prepared to fight using a mostly immune counterpart. Clive sent a rush of gratitude towards her, looking around for the daemon's human.

Something brushes past his cheek, the shaft of an arrow catches his eyes. Lord Murdoch shouts his name. There's an intense, all encompassing feeling in his gut, making it hard to breathe. When he tries, pain hotter than the Phoenix’s flames washes over him.

Leala had the viper daemon’s head in her mouth. She had crushed it thoroughly, and the viper was turning into dust from where it was wrapped around her. An arrow anchored her to the ground, piercing her chest and exiting through the other side.

Clive fell to his knees, not feeling much of anything besides shock.

Leala twitched, still alive but just barely. She whimpered low in her throat, face turned towards Clive as if she wanted to see him, one last time. Lord Murdoch is at his side now, holding his shoulders as his own daemon goes to Leala. Clive gasps, a soundless thing, and it feels like his body is the one turning to dust, not Leala’s.

The warmth, the fire in his heart, one that's been there for as long as he can remember, fierce and wild and never faltering, is going out. Dimly flickering, held together only by the Phoenix blessing, and not for long. Leala goes still, silent, too far away for Clive to reach, and Clive cries out as that internal flame withers into nothing, and his heart starts to slow with it.

There's a blast of heat, sudden and searing. Lord Murdoch shouts his surprise as an eikon shrieks its challenge. Distantly, Clive understands that Joshua has just primed, and that could only mean the worst. Distantly, he realizes that he has a duty to fulfill, and he must help him.

It means very little in the end, though. Leala is dying, will be dead in mere minutes, if not moments. Skewered through with an arrow while protecting Clive from a daemon he should have noticed earlier. Leala is dying, and when she fades into dust Clive will fade with her.

Lord Murdoch knows. He knows he won't survive, knows this is the end for Clive. He gathers the boy in his arms, takes him over to where Leala is pinned to the ground. Clive’s head brushes against her fur as he is put down. It's a little comfort, Leala's eyes are open but dull, staring at him with only vague recognition. Clive feels tears form in his eyes. There was no more pain - that had stopped the moment his fire went out. Instead, he was only empty, untethered to the world around him.

It was said that death through daemon loss was one of the worst ways to go. The emptiness people feel before it happens has them try to kill themselves, just to make the feeling go away. It's a deep, heart wrenching thing, only matched by petrification. 

Leala’s eyes start to glaze over. Lord Murdoch says something, praise maybe, but he doesn't hear. Clive’s heart slows to a crawl. Behind Leala, several feet away, a hooded figure watches him.

The Phoenix shrieks up above, a wail of anger and devastation. Lord Murdoch gasps. When Clive looks to Leala, she is no longer there.

The cold, empty place inside of Clive turns into an inferno of flames.

He is lost.

Nothing makes sense anymore. He is dead, he is alive, he is a whirlwind of fire and magma, heat and flames. When he speaks his voice thunders and crackles, when he yells the ground rumbles and breaks.

Clive Rosfield is dead. He died the moment Leala died, because no one can live without their daemon, and Clive Rosfield saw Leala die in front of him.

He is fire. He is fire and pain and agony, twisted and compressed into a beast that is too wild, too angry, too destructive. A volcano bursting long after it was due. He shrieked, and something shrieked back at him.

That something is prey.

It fights him, claws at him, heat and warmth unlike him, unlike his anger and rage and destruction. It is not like him, but it is similar, and he wants to tear it limb from limb, drain it of blood and consume what it has that he does not.

He is strong. The prey is weak.

The prey is weak. The prey is weak.

Joshua is weak.

It fights back, tough and determined. It's attacks are weak but many, flies biting at his sides. He ignores them, grabs it when it thinks it is over. When it thinks it has won.

Prey never wins, it only delays the inevitable.

‘It is not prey.’

He holds it by the neck, ready to rip out its throat and be done with it. Smoke and fire erupt from his mouth as he pauses, looking for the other competitor.

Something wants to take his kill. Consume what only he can consume.

It's going to kill his brother.

‘That is not your kill!’

He roars, angry that he cannot find where the competitor is coming from. Slamming his kill back against the ground, his tail lashes out in his fury. The ground shakes at his anger.

It's going to kill his brother. It's going to kill him and Clive-

‘Look at who you are attacking. Remember who you are.’

The blazing tornado inside of him calms, until he can feel where the warmth in his chest normally sits. It's still there, he realizes, even though he's sure it had gone. Sure it was never coming back.

He is dead. Clive Rosfield is dead. He saw Leala die, and so he died with her.

‘Don’t lose control Clive. You'll kill Joshua, you'll kill Ona.’

He was born to protect his brother, this monster, it cannot hurt him, it cannot touch him-

The beast below him lets out a low, soft croon. Its feathers are dim, covered in blood and dirt and ash. The lights in its eyes have gone dull. It has lost the fight, and it was his to kill. The weak can only ever delay the inevitable.

Don't touch him. Don't touch him!

‘Joshua is weak, Clive.’ The competitor, it's coming from within him- ‘It is our duty to protect him. Remember.’

Clive Rosfield was dead. He had died when Leala died. Yet, Leala is speaking to him now, is the warmth in his chest. Clive is dead because Leala is dead, and yet Leala has not died. Leala is with him now.

And Clive remembers.

He wakes up on charred, smoking ground. Phoenix gate is on fire, turned to broken rubble around them. Clive is alone, he thinks, no enemies or friends alike are around.

Leala is nowhere to be seen.

There's a wheezing gasp, like a dying breath, and Clive’s head snaps to the side. He lets out a broken sob.

Joshua lays behind him, covered in blood and ripped to shreds. Ona is laid out over his torso, feathers gray and flickering, dust licking the edges of her wings.

Joshua was hurt. A dominant had hurt him. Clive was that dominant.

A hoarse scream leaves his throat, somewhere between horror and disbelief. He crawls over to his brother, unsure what to do once he reached him. Neither he nor his daemon moved, unconscious and barely breathing.

They were dying. They were going to die. Clive had killed them.

He looks around, desperate to find someone to help. No one was around, everyone had run at the sight of two eikons fighting. Even so, Clive doesn't want to give their position away to anyone, unable to risk telling friend from foe with Joshua so close to death. He sobbed once more, tears streaming from his eyes. “I'm so sorry, Joshua...”

It seems like the only thing he can do is apologize to his brother. Guilt pierces his heart several times over, and the steady fire that usually warms his chest is flickering, wavering.

Clive still doesn't know where Leala is, if she even still exists.

They couldn't stay here, he knew that much. He's not sure who was the ultimate winner at Phoenix gate, but he knew they were after Joshua, and Clive could not let him down again. He stands, ignoring how his muscles scream at him. His body is still in pain, still reeling from the effects of Leala getting shot with that arrow.

It is tricky, carrying Joshua. He does his best to cover his arms and hands, keeping his skin away in case Ona accidentally brushes against him. Ona had trusted him, had given him so much faith, so much love, just to prove how much Joshua cared for him. She had pressed her beak against his fingers, had initiated contact with a human not her own.

She had put her faith in him, they both had, and now Clive had almost killed them.

Clive is not sure how long nor how far he walks. The sun rises, peaks in the sky when Clive finally stumbles, unable to go further. His vision swims as he sets Joshua down against a fallen tree. They're in a large forest, miles away from Phoenix Gate, he hopes. Neither Joshua nor Ona had shown signs of waking up any time the way here. In fact, Joshua was paler now, and Ona’s feathers had almost gone out.

Clive sways in place, exhaustion and pain blurring his vision. He almost passed out, the moment he sets Joshua down, but he cannot just yet. He takes the tails of Joshua’s coat, rips them off and into strips. If he falls asleep now, before he tends to his wounds, he's afraid of waking up to find Joshua already gone.

It is shoddy work. Clive doesn't have the strength nor supplies to do much better. Still, it will help, anything will help, and Clive is able to finish tying the last bandage tight before his body shuts down and he loses consciousness. 

He's awaken to the sound of people, nearby. His ears prick up at them, sure that there can only be one reason for someone to be in these woods. Clive looks around their little spot, hidden behind the fallen tree. Joshua is still unconscious, but he looks no worse than before. The sun had started to fall, so he was not asleep for long.

Leala was still missing. Clive needed to accept that she was gone.

As the voices got closer, Clive picked Joshua up again. His body protested, still overworked and overwhelmed. He did not listen to it, trying his best to sneak away while holding onto an unconscious person and daemon.

Clive had gotten twenty or so feet when he heard a crow caw nearby. The people jumped on the sound, rushing towards them, and Clive only realized that it was a daemon when they had already caught up to them.

It was two men, one dressed up in Rosarian colors and the other a knight. Clive held Joshua closer, unwilling to let him go. Unwilling to risk losing him again.

He had lost his sword anyway. It would be better to try and run then it would be to fight. He's not sure he would be able to in his condition anyway.

“I can't believe our luck.” The knight grinned, eyes locked on Ona, even as Clive tried to hide her. “The Phoenix did survive after all. Both sons did!”

The one wearing Rosarian colors took out a sword, inching closer. Clive took a step back, biting out, “Traitor!”

Ona twitches. The man laughs. “I was never Rosarian to begin with, Lord Rosfield.” He raised his weapon, and Clive held Joshua closer, tighter. “Just give us the boy, and we may let you live too.”

Impossible. The Phoenix was a dominant, useful to other nations. A possible heir to a throne they want empty is the opposite, a liability.

Clive considered his options. He's not sure how far he would get running, but they wouldn't want to kill him while he held Joshua, so if he was lucky, he might find somewhere to hide. More likely, though, he wouldn't make it farther than a few steps until they caught him. Not in the condition he was in now.

Still, no matter what, they would have to kill him before they got to Joshua. Before they got to Ona.

The knight seemed to realize that. “Suit yourself.”

They advance. A growl sounds behind them, low and deep. The crow and the Knight's daemon, a fox, both shudder and shy away from it, like just the tone itself filled them with horror. In his arms, Ona’s head snaps up, blue eyes blazing like burning flames.

She gets to her feet, steady besides her injuries. Her body glows a molten color, aether swirling around her. She opens her mouth, shrieks.

A ball of bluish red flames appears from her chest, scorching Clive’s arms as they fly past, slamming into the man wearing Rosarian colors.

He screams as he's burned alive.

At the same time, the ground around the knight turns to magma, melting his armor around him before turning him into ash where he stands. Clive blinks, suddenly staring at two dead bodies where two threats stood before. It smells of burnt flesh and hair, of daemon dust.

Another growl, low in warning. Clive backs up from the sound, scared of whatever could melt a man like that. Fear stabs at his heart, even as Ona settles back down, as if she can't hear the growling.

The flame inside him goes bright, steady. It shocks him, relieves him and gives him hope he doesn't deserve to have. The growling stops, and when the beast walks into his vision he knows it's Leala, knows it deep in his soul that this is his daemon.

She had settled, he can tell, even if he wasn't aware that dominant's daemons settle when they first prime. At first glance he assumes that she's a wolf, but he quickly guesses otherwise. While she has the body of one, clumps of molten rock replace large chunks of her fur, all around her body and hind legs. Aether and lava run rivelets through her skin, up to her gold eyes and around her chest. She looks as if she had just stepped out of a volcano. She looks as if she was the volcano, like she was a part of one that had grown sentience and walked away.

He's not sure what to say. While he knew that most dominants don't have a daemon that completely replicates their eikon, he wasn't expecting this. Maybe something with horns, since he can vaguely remember having some, but not a wolf made of magma and smoke.

Then it doesn't matter what he says, because it's only then that he really realizes that this is Leala, that Leala is alive, and he falls to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. “L-Leala!”

Leala runs to him, careful of Joshua as her head brushes against his. Clive presses his forehead to hers, overcome with relief. Below their reunion, Ona chirps and pecks at Leala. “I knew it.”

Clive almost doesn't hear her. “Knew what?”

Ona does not answer. Instead, her feathers burn brighter, her eyes spark, and aether floods the air as Joshua gasps in his arms. Ona flaps her wings, wary but determined, as Joshua’s face regains some of its color, his expression relaxing just slightly.

“There.” Ona sounds satisfied, even as she stumbles, collapsing back onto Joshua's chest. The dust, ever present that swirled around her, disappears. “He is still hurt, but we will survive.”

And if they weren't in a clearing with two burnt corpses, Clive would have collapsed right then and there.

Instead, Leala pushes him forward, helps him back to his feet when he's sure he wouldn't be able to move another inch. They walk for half an hour or so, following Leala's directions. As time passes the aether around her seems to calm. The veins of magma along her skin soften until they look more like marks than anything else, and the rocks smoothen out, just slightly. By the time they reach a cave dug into a cliff side, she looks, with only a sweeping glance, like a wolf.

(Not really. Maybe from afar, she could pass as a wolf, but she was much too other to ever fool anyone, even as she looked now.)

Clive leans Joshua against a wall, sweeps some hair away from his eyes. Ona makes a little noise at that, nestled in his lap. Clive sits against the opposite wall, barely able to get settled before Leala is on him. She lays in his lap, half his size now in this new form of hers. She engulfs him with warmth and love, and Clive wraps his arms around her.

Ona watches them quietly, expression unreadable. Clive looks back at her, looks at Joshua. He is still bleeding, still in pain even with the healing Ona did.

Clive is still hurting him.

“I'm sorry.” He says again, feels tears once more and curses himself for it. “I- I almost killed you. I promised to protect you and yet I almost… nothing I can do will ever atone for my actions.”

Ona seems surprised, for a moment. She makes a sad sound, low in her throat. “You lost control.” She says, voice distant. “To an eikon you did not know you hosted. We lost control too. Your father… Aldreda…”

She lets out a mournful sound, something close to a wail, and Clive knew, with startlingly clarity, that father was dead. Father had died, most likely in front of Joshua, and Joshua had primed because of it.

Ona presses against Joshua, wanting comfort from her human who is in no condition to give it. It's then Clive is reminded that, dominant or not, Ona is still the daemon of a child, still a child herself. A child who had watched her parent daemon turn to dust in front of her eyes.

Leala makes a low sound before getting up, crossing over to Joshua before carefully reaching forward, brushing her snout against Ona. Both daemons seem to flare at that - Ona’s feathers grew bright as Leala's magma veins sparked and glowed. Clive watches them, not sure he was able to truly process father's death. He's not sure he could, not in the situation they were in. He could mourn later, after Joshua was safe. Whatever happened to father, he would not let his death be in vain. Would not let this betrayal take everything from him.

Leala looks back to him, eyes sparking, a wild fire. “We must inform the capital.” She says, and she understands Clive’s desires better than Clive does, most times. “Whoever is still left, they need to know that Sanbreque is against us.”

He clenches his fists, frustrated. His thoughts turn to Jill, to mother, to what may have come of them already in the time they've been gone. “We must make haste.” He agrees, almost an afterthought. “But there is little we can do, with Joshua still unconscious.”

Leala grins at him, a wolfish thing. Smoke leaks from her mouth like saliva. She lets out a single, bellowing, bark.

Nothing.

Clive looks at her, expectant. She just goes back to Ona, resting her head on top of the phoenix's. Clive opens his mouth to ask when the foliage around them rustles, snaps, and Ambrosia comes rushing through the greenery. She sees him and squeals, bending down to brush her head against his chest in greeting. Clive lets out a startled laugh, taking her head in his hands. “Hello to you, too.”

They start making decent time, after that. Joshua awakes half a day later, when they're a little more than halfway there. They're keeping off the known path, following game trails instead to hide Ambrosia. It's taking a longer time, but if their daemons didn't give them away Ambrosia most definitely would, and they couldn't have that.

Joshua is quiet when he awakens, asking for Ona and seeing Clive before going silent. He listens to Clive’s recollection of what had happened without adding his own input, a haunted look in his eyes that Clive would give his life up to take away.

Ona and Leala disappear for half an hour, after he awakens. Clive panics at first, feeling Leala getting further and further away, before he forces himself to calm. The daemons of dominants, under the right conditions, can leave their humans for short periods of time. Only after a priming, daemons can wander away from their dominants without any pain or strain. Like an aftereffect of merging together, a lingering bit still hung on letting them seperate. Joshua is quiet while they are away, and Clive doesn't know what to say to him.

“I… understand, if you'd rather not talk to me.” But he must try. This is his fault, his burden to bear. “If you'd rather never talk to me again. That is completely within you're right, after what I've done, and once you are safe-”

“Clive.” Joshua cuts him off, eyes cold. Tears collect at the corners of them, beading together. “I failed, brother. I couldn't protect father.”

Clive’s throat closes, one of the last things he said to Joshua just now only coming back to him. Why did he tell him that, why did he put more burden on a ten year old’s shoulders? “Joshua, you didn't-”

“He protected me.” Joshua continues, the tears finally falling down his cheeks. “It's my fault. He- he pushed me out of the way, he protected me when I was supposed to protect him!”

“Joshua…” Clive’s heart aches for him, and guilt sweeps through him for putting this on Joshua in the first place. “It is not your fault.”

“I should have saved him.” He insists, wails, and he is not in the condition to be straining his body this way. They didn't have enough water to spend some shedding tears, not right now. “It was so quick, and Aldreda-”

Clive stepped over to him, pulled him close. Joshua wept into his arms, clutching at his clothes like a lifeline. He sobbed and sobbed and did not stop until their daemons finally returned, carrying commoner clothes that they had most likely stolen from a nearby village.

They were loose but relatively clean, and Clive helped Joshua put them on over the clothes he was currently wearing. Late summer brought chilly nights in Rosaria, and they couldn't risk starting a fire. While their daemons could help, he didn't want someone tracking their aether.

Joshua seemed upset at the idea of taking the clothes, but he didn't argue about it, still exhausted from the events of Phoenix gate and breaking down minutes earlier. Clive was worried that he was going to fall ill soon, like he frequently did whenever he overworked himself. 

“I don't understand why we needed to take these.” Joshua picks at the clothes, frowning. Ona is perched on his shoulder, feathers completely put out and still. They're almost gray, like this, turning Ona from a Phoenix to a molting bird of prey. He looks like a normal boy, now, like a random child from a small town in the countryside. “Could we not have gone in like we were?”

“We don't know who controls Rosaria currently, Joshua.” Clive tried to explain, instructing Ambrosia to stay in the woods. Leala sat next to him, obviously other but hopefully not enough to attract too much unwanted attention. “I don't want to go into town and immediately be found out just by the clothes on our backs.”

Joshua looks unhappy, but doesn't mention it further. Ona ruffles her feathers, irate but silent as well. 

They march into the town built on the outskirts of the capital. Joshua holds his hand, uncertain but wary to let him go on his own. Clive expects at least some recognition, this close to the capital, but everything seems subdued, hushed in a way he wasn't used to.

He leads them to a tavern for food, increasingly aware of the fact that Joshua primed and almost died without getting any food to fill his stomach afterwards. Ona’s feathers weren't just dull to hide herself, she was also running out of energy. Same with Leala.

The tavern he chooses is almost empty at that time of day, the few bargoers paying them no mind as he makes his way to the woman behind the counter. “What food do you have here?”

The woman studies them, for a moment. She has a possum daemon, curled up on one of the lower shelves, almost invisible from the tavern’s patrons. She can't see Leala from this angle, thankfully, but she does take a second glance at Ona, curious. “I can whip up a soup real quick, but kids usually like our shepard’s pie the best.”

“That, then.” Clive takes out the limited money he has, setting it on the counter. The woman sweeps it up and yells into the back. “If I may ask, what's going on that has the people so agitated? Walking through the streets feels like a danger now.”

The woman's eyes softened, for a moment, as she glanced between Clive and Joshua. Joshua held on tightly to his hand, still afraid to let him go. “The Archduke and his kin went missing after an ambush outside the capital.” She turns around, lays out a glass and fills it with water, nudging it towards Joshua. Clive goes to pay her for it, but she waves him away. “The throne is empty, and the archduchess, that rat, has fled.”

Clive freezes at that. “The archduchess? She fled? For what reason?”

“No one knows.” The lady shrugged, tapping the drink once more. Joshua looked at him, hesitant, but gingerly took the water once Clive approved. “Word got to us that they had disappeared right as we learned of a carriage with the archduke's crest was seen fleeing the capital, towards Sanbreque. Can imagine how that looks to everyone from the outside.”

Clive gaped, not sure if he could believe it. Dealing with the idea that father was gone was already a lot, but mother too? And they saw her heading to Sanbreque? Lord Murdoch, pray the Founder he still be alive, said that there was a traitor in their midst. Was it possible… could it be?

Leala was fidgeting next to him, trying her best to stay calm even as his emotions started to rush. Clive forced in a deep breath, turning back to her. “What's going on in the capital, then?  Who's leading?”

“No one, far as I know.” Joshua quietly thanked her, handing back the empty glass. She refilled it, pushing it forward. “I know a thirsty child when I see one, drink up. The capital is waiting for news on the archduke and the Phoenix.”

Joshua, who had, obviously very thirsty, started drinking the second cup. When he heard about the Phoenix though, he seemed to wilt, putting the cup down. Clive ran a hand through his hair, soothing. “We had a long journey here, you need to drink to restore your energy.”

“Don't worry about capital news and gossip, lad.” The bartender agreed, peaking into the back for a moment. “He's just curious, but it's got nothin’ to do with you and it's all speculation anyways.”

Ona looked unhappy, cornered almost, but Joshua took the glass again, draining it once more. Clive smiled at him, at the bartender, and directed them towards a table in the corner.

Joshua picked at the worn wood the moment they sat down. Leala squeezes under the table, hidden, and Ona sits on the bench next to Joshua. “They're waiting for me.” He mumbles, despondent. “What do they want me to do? Lead?”

Clive wants to say no, but that is what they would want him to do. Even at this age, if there's no one else to do it, they'll turn to him. Clive is also too young, could not be a regent either. Uncle Byron could take the seat until Joshua was old enough, but after what happened, would they even want anyone else besides the Phoenix in that seat? Joshua had primed, had shown his strength, Rosaria’s nobles would want him on the throne anyway. An easy child to control. And, if the rumors were right, mother had-

“We'll figure this out.” Clive says, the only comfort he can promise at the moment. “Whatever happens, I'll be here, with you.”

The rest of their time spent in the tavern is quiet. Clive makes sure Joshua finishes his Shepard pie, knowing he needed the nutrients. Clive himself felt starved the moment he saw it, wasn't even full when it was completely gone and eaten. Priming seemed to take a lot out of him, or maybe it was the days of walking and carrying Joshua afterwards, with nothing more than a few rations that he mostly gave to his brother?

By the time they leave it's well into evening, and the sky is starting to darken. The capital of Rosaria itself has an open gate, meaning that it was easy to slip through unnoticed, even with the shields manning it. The castle, on the other hand, would be much harder. Luckily, Clive and Joshua had lived in this castle their entire lives. Clive knew of dozens of holes in the walls, small enough for children to fit through and not much else. While Clive was no longer a child, he still was skinny and flexible enough to squeeze through after Joshua.

Leala got stuck halfway through. For a moment Clive was worried, his bulky daemon stuck how she was, but then her aether flared and the edges of the wall melted around her. She stepped out moments later, melted stone and lava cooling on her fur.

The castle was quiet, almost empty. The guards usually watching the place were missing from their posts, and most of the maids had disappeared. Clive grits his teeth, thinking of Jill. Everyone had gone, had they left Jill here alone? Where were they, searching for them?

They make it to the main section of the castle when a hoarse scream pierces the air. It's completely dark now, night has fully fallen, and Clive instinctively pulls Joshua closer as the sounds of fighting echo from a far off place.

Someone was attacking the castle.

Ona almost immediately bursts into flames, plumage turning its vibrant red and orange at the sound. Joshua takes a confident step forward. “Someone's attacking our home!” His eyes spark in determination. “We must help defend it.”

In any other situation, Clive would agree. In any other situation, Clive would tell Joshua that he was going to join the battle, fend off the intruders. He was ready to protect the castle, his home.

His empty home, abandoned and cold. Food or not, neither were in a condition to fight, much less use magic or prime. Ona's feathers were flickering, even though she still seemed determined to help. Joshua’s hands were shaking, regardless of the force behind his words. 

Clive made a decision, one he will feel guilty over for the rest of his life. “Let's find Jill first.” He redirected, grabbed Joshua’s hand and tugged. “I'm currently weaponless and neither of us have the energy for aether.”

At Jill's name Joshua perked up. Leala sniffed at the air, a silent command urging her, and started making her way to their rooms.

She was in Joshua’s room, which was only slightly surprising. She sits cross legged on the floor, unknowing of the battle that's just started outside. In her hands is a blanket that she seems to be making. Clive can't see much of it, from this angle, but he catches a glimpse of the shining wings of a phoenix. Fionn lays next to her as a white bunny, silent and still.

Her head swings towards the sound of Joshua’s door opening. Her eyes widen at the sight of them. “You-”

She cuts herself off, speechless. Joshua barely manages not to burst into tears, running to her and wrapping her in a hug. Jill makes a noise of surprise, unexpecting. Ona drops to the ground, chittering excitedly. Fionn copies her, a hawk hopping around her. Both daemons expressed their human's joy, their human's relief.

Clive didn't want to intervene, didn't want to ruin the moment. He wanted to join it instead, enjoy what little he still has before it's all taken away once more. Yet he couldn't, because there were unknown intruders outside and Clive needed to keep them safe.

“There are intruders, storming the castle.” He says, and Jill looks to him, looks to Leala. Her eyes widened further. “I need to get you two somewhere safe.”

“Clive.” Jill seems to have barely heard. She’s still looking at Leala. “She- they said that-”

Joshua holds one of her hands with both of his, grim. “Brother is right, it's dangerous for you to stay.”

Dangerous for both of them to stay. Leala perks her ears, listening, and Clive can hear the faint echo of fighting, getting nearer. “We must go, now.”

Jill balls up her blanket, stuffing it into her bag of tools. Clive starts leading them away, towards father’s main office. While he's never seen it in action, father had shown him a hidden crystal that would open up a tunnel underneath the office. He said it was a last resort kind of thing, if the castle was being overrun. Clive thinks this situation absolutely counts as a last resort.

They run into trouble right outside father’s office. There's a man there, obviously hostile. An ironblood.

Why were they here?!

He's not sure who moves first, but he knows Joshua is done with letting others protect him. Clive raises his hand at the same time Joshua does, and two plumes of flames rush at the man. One is bright orange and green and blue, the other dark red and brown and gold. Clive looks at his hand, feels the aether curling around his soul. It's a searing heat, different from the Phoenix's warmth. Wild, harsh, destructive at its core.

The man dies with a scream. Joshua staggers, coughs, and Clive forces his own body to stay standing, exhausted even from using just a tiny bit of magic. Clive takes the sword from the corpse, pushing Jill and Joshua into the office and closing the doors behind him. He rushes to the back bookshelves, pushes clutter out of the way until he catches sight of a blue crystal, buried in the mess. Hidden.

It hums when he grabs it, activates it, and the bookshelf shutters, cracks down the middle. Jill squeaks as it falls apart, revealing a tunnel digging into the ground behind it.

Clive hears the fighting once more, closer this time. He hears terrified screaming, agonized shouts. People, his people, dying.

“Come on.” He gets both Jill and Joshua into the tunnel. Pauses at the entrance. “Keep going, I'll be right behind you.”

“No!” Joshua immediately turns around, going to run back to him. “I'm not leaving you! If we fight, we fight together!”

Clive debates telling him that someone needs to protect Jill, but he remembers father, remembers what happened just a few hours ago, and he can't bring himself to do that to Joshua again. “Joshua-”

The door to the office breaks open, several ironblood running through. Leala snarls, Ona shrieks. Fionn shifts into something big and hulking, covering Jill with his own armored body. Clive pushes Joshua back into the tunnel, jumps in after him to avoid getting sliced in half. “Go!”

He stands his ground, barely able to parry the next man’s attack. He’s weak, exhausted, and he’s not sure if Leala can help him, not without pulling some aether from him. Clive stumbles back, manages to slice one of their arms before getting pushed back, blocking another man’s sword and getting locked in a standstill.

Joshua shouts something, but soon falls into a coughing fit. Aether flutters past him, weak and aimless. Leala growls at the ironbloods’ daemons, who all seem to know better than to attack a creature they’ve never seen before.

His muscles ache, scream at him. He’s lucky enough to see an opening, fast enough even now to stab at the ironblood, make him fall to the ground. Another man takes his place right after, though, and Clive is being overrun, he can tell. There’s screaming behind him, screaming for him, he just hopes that they get away, that they run.

He’s going to die here, most likely. He just hopes it isn’t in vain.

One of the ironblood used brute strength, and he’s thrown to the floor. Another charges forward, takes that moment to end him. Leala growls, but the man’s daemon attacks, takes her attention. Clive watches the sword swing towards him, and he rolls, a last ditch effort to avoid it. 

It doesn’t work.

Pain sears across his back, and he screams as he’s slashed from shoulder to hip. Leala snarls, throws the daemon to the side. The veins of magma on her skin glows, aether starts collecting around her, but it’s not enough. It wouldn’t be enough to save him, and he couldn’t bring himself to stand. Not with the white around the edges of his vision, not with how his heart screams and pounds in his ears.

Someone screams his name as the ironblood comes to finish the job.

There’s a blast of aether, from where Joshua is. Icy cold wind blows past him, slams into the ironbloods and knocks them far back. The tunnel shakes around them as ice erupts from the ground, blocking the path between them and the ironbloods. The tunnel shakes again as the ice settles, a cold barrier, before it caves in around the barrier. The tunnel goes dark around them, the sounds of the intruders muffled almost to the point of silent.

Clive tries to look around. It’s pitch black, save for Leala, with her veins of fire. After a moment light explodes in the tunnel, Ona’s plumage turning bright orange and yellow even has her eyes flicker and Joshua sways in place, looking ill.

But, for the first time, Clive can’t bring himself to focus on them.

Jill stands next to Joshua, hands outstretched towards Clive. Aether swirls around her, vicious and captivating even as it fades. A silverish-blue wyvern sits on the ground next to her, the same size as Ona, only slightly bigger than a crow. 

Jill stares at the ice still protruding from the tunnel walls, turns to look at her outstretched hands. She looks unsure, for a moment. “Did I…?”

It takes all of his strength to get off the floor. Leala supports him as he stands, helps him to the tunnel wall. “I think you did.”

Jill doesn’t seem to believe it. She looks down at the ground, sees Fionn there. She gingerly picks him up, expression dreamlike, full of disbelief. “This isn’t real.” She murmurs, to Fionn more than anyone else, and Fionn murmurs something back to her, just as soft.

Joshua falls to the floor, thoroughly exhausted. Ona does not look much better, but she hops over to Clive anyway, navigating the field of ice to perch on top of Leala. Before Clive can stop her, she uses the rest of her magic to heal what she can of his back. “Ona-”

“You would not have survived.” Ona says sharply, quieter than Joshua or Jill could hear. Clive stills. “How would you protect us then, hmm? Remember that next time you tell us to run.”

She flies back to Joshua, lands unsteadily next to him. Joshua picks her up, holds her to his chest. Clives stares at her, unsure what to say. Unsure what to do. Unsure what to think.

Father was dead.

Clive is a dominant.

Mother might have betrayed them.

The Iron Kingdom is attacking the capital.

Jill is a dominant.

He rubs his head, the stress of it all giving him a migraine. The Ironblood are, or already have, taken over the capital. They couldn’t go to Sanbreque for assistance because Sanbreque is the reason father is dead, probably told the Iron Kingdom to attack now, wanted Rosaria completely and utterly destroyed. They needed somewhere safe, somewhere they could go where they’d be protected, or where no one would know who they really were. They needed somewhere that they could rest in peace, regain their strength. Before the sickness Clive knew was coming would begin for Joshua.

Uncle Byron was his first thought, but it’d be hard to reach him, and he’s not even sure Byron would still be there when they arrived, not sure Sanbreque didn’t dispose of him too. If they didn’t, they would expect Clive and Joshua to head there at some point either way, that was a trap in the making.

Besides Byron, could he think of anyone else? Anyone else that he could trust, that wasn’t at Phoenix Gate that night, that wouldn’t have betrayed them? He still believes that his mother could be innocent, that something else might have happened to her (because she would risk him, but not Joshua, never Joshua), but he can’t risk Joshua’s life just for his belief. Can’t put him in such obvious danger.

He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t know what to do.

He did know that they couldn’t stay here much longer.

“Come on.” He says, cuts through the silence. Jill is still staring at Fionn, as if she still can’t believe it. Joshua looks half unconscious, but rouses awake at his voice. “We can rest once we’re somewhere safer, okay?”

Joshua nods, eyes cloudy with sleep. Still, he gets up, holding Ona close to him like a stuffed animal. Ona keeps her feathers just bright enough to see, but nothing more than that. Jill nods as well, a distant, detached sort of thing. She’s in shock, Clive thinks, and can’t blame her for it, anyway. Fionn crawls up onto her shoulders, curls around there like a scarf. Clive stares at him for a moment, studying what can only be the daemon for Shiva’s dominant. It had to be Shiva, if it was ice, and while he’s never seen one in real life he’s seen drawings of wyverns before. Fionn is smaller than he would have imagined, but Ona is also not the size of a normal phoenix, so it makes sense. 

Leala stands next to him, waiting for him to take the first step. He tries to hide his pain -Ona had healed him, but not really, not enough to dull the pain. Clive wonders if this is how Joshua has been feeling, after what he did. New guilt and regret strikes deep within him.

He takes a deep breath, rids his face of pain. When he walks forward, Leala follows. Jill and Joshua are right behind her.

They walk through the tunnel, away from the castle that had been their home.

Chapter Text

Vala had disappeared, after their last priming.

She did that sometimes, he didn't blame her. This time, though, she had been gone long enough that the effect of priming had started to wear off, and his chest was starting to ache, yearn due to the distance.

So he did what he normally did. He left his duties behind to go find his daemon.

It didn't take long, of course. Vala had felt the pull too, was working her way towards him like he was her. It did not take him long, once they found each other, to realize what had been holding his daemon up.

Vala appeared through the woods first, hopping from branch to branch, feathers sparking where they brushed against the leaves. Below her followed a baby elephant, trunk wrapped around the handle of a basket, pulling it behind them.

He addressed Vala before he dared look into the basket. “What is this?”

“I found them in the forest.” Vala says simply, like nothing else mattered, like they weren't already in a precarious situation, like the world wasn't already trying to close in on them. “I would not just leave them.”

And a them they were, when he peeked into the basket and saw a baby, barely a few weeks old, staring back at him. He picked the baby up gently, looked her over for signs of harm or anything else. The baby just giggled at him, before scrunching up their face.

Hungry, probably.

Vala settled on his shoulder in a gust of wind. She bends down to chirp at the baby, to chirp at the baby daemon. He sighs. “I'm not really the fatherin’ type.”

Vala nibbles his ear, ignores him. “The little babe has no name.” She continues, like he hadn't said a thing. “The baby daemon is Theodore.”

He pauses, glances away from the baby to Vala. There is no possible way that a daemon this young could speak to Vala, could tell Vala his name. Besides that, if the baby didn't have a name, why would the daemon have one? Especially only half a name, like only one daemon was there to do it-

He stares at his daemon. “You named him.” He accused.

Vala preens. “Theodore.” She calls, and the baby daemon looks up instantly, recognizes his name in a way that shows that it was indeed his identity, not just something made up and slapped onto him. He would have swayed in place, if he wasn't holding a baby.

He'd like to glare, but the baby was definitely hungry and he didn't want it to be scared. “This doesn't mean we're keeping them.” He warned.

Vala just laughed at him.

It was a cold night, one that heralds the telling of snow. Clara shivers in front of the fire, eyes tracking her husband as he moves to and fro, from the unleashed chocobos to their caravan and back again.

“We just can't get away from it!” Al is muttering again, stressed and irritated. “It's like the blight is followin’ us!”

Clara does not respond. Her daemon is pressed up close to her heart, underneath heavy furs meant to warm her. 

Al finally sits down after warming up some water for the chocobos, his own daemon hidden within his coat as well. He sighs, stares up at the stars above. “Is there no place left to go?”

Their home had been taken by the blight, years ago. They've been traveling the continent since, unable to find a place that feels like home.

“There must be.” Clara responds, though her voice betrays her. “I know you don't like Sanbreque-”

“I've heard how they treat their citizens.” Al says, before his head shoots up. “Someone is nearby.”

Clara stills. They've come across many monsters over the years, but that didn't mean a human threat wasn't equally dangerous. 

They're resting in a small valley, surrounded by grassy hills and meadows. Clara thinks they should've seen the intruders before they got so close, but that doesn't matter too much right now.

“We mean you no harm.” A voice sounds, soft but firm, young. A boy no older than seventeen appears from the darkness, movement fluid and graceful and silent. “We're just a little lost, and hoping you could give us some directions?”

Us. Clara wanted to help the boy, of course, but this would not be the first time she's heard of bandits using children to lure in unsuspecting travelers. This would not be the first time she experienced it, either. “Who are you traveling with?”

The boy hesitates, for a moment. Clara cannot see his daemon, the light from the fire making everything beyond its range dark and invisible. Al is tense where he stands, weapon ready to draw.

There's a bark, movement, and a young wolf pads into the light. He positions himself next to the boy, wary and protective, and Clara's heart aches. On further expectation, the wolf is underfed, as is the boy.

The boy places a hand in the wolf's fur, steadying himself, before turning behind him and nodding. Two more figures step out of the shadows, even smaller than the boy.

“Oh.” Is all Clara can say.

The oldest boy’s smile is strained. “We are in dire need of directions.”

The fire flickers and crackles, lashing out into the air. Clara had given the children some of their food, ever a bleeding heart, as Al gave them directions to the nearest town. They were quiet as they ate, as if too scared to make a sound. Too wary to. They hadn't immediately eaten when Clara had given them the food, hinting at something Clara couldn't figure out.

“Where are you traveling to?” Al asks, curious and concerned. 

The eldest shrugs. “Wherever feels safest.”

Clara's brows pinch, heart aching. “And what of home?”

“Blight.” He says, much too quickly, hiding the full truth. The younger boy shivers, curls up close to him. The girl stares at the fire, lost in thought. They're all worn, ragged from a journey that's lasted much too long.

She studies them. The eldest, even underfed, holds himself in a way that suggests power and confidence, control of himself. She's seen no movement of a daemon, but she heard a chocobo in the dark, responding to another creature hidden in the night. He held his back towards the sound, like his hidden daemon was watching his flank, protecting him from an hidden enemy.

The two younger children looked better, well fed in a way that told her that the oldest was skipping meals for them. The girl was the next oldest, she could guess, a young teen with a look in her eyes that made Clara shiver. It wasn't haunted, not quite, nor was it an icy cold. Instead, it felt like an angry uncertainty, something Clara didn't know frustrating her. Her daemon was also hidden, but Clara knew where it was. The girl wore a cloak, which it seemed to be clinging onto the inside of. Clara could see the lump of what was probably a reptile poking through, caught a flash of a white and blue tail whenever she shifted.

The youngest boy confused her the most. He, like the girl, seemed frustrated about something, eating his food angrily as he glares at the flames. His daemon was the only one visible, and gave Clara pause. She seemed settled, which was odd, since she's sure the boy is yet at the age where a normal daemon would settle. The daemon itself was a hunting bird of some type, which Clara could not tell. She had cloth draped across her body, leaving only her head visible. Clara found it strange, thinking it would impede her flying, but the lifeless gray of her head feathers made Clara wonder if the bird even could fly. She seemed off, not right in a way Clara didn't understand.

She must ask, “How long have you been traveling?”

“Months.” The boy says, shrugs. There's suspicion in his eyes, in all of their eyes. “Years, maybe.”

Clara shares a look with Al. She turns back to the boy. “That's a long time to be on your own.”

The boy twitched. “I guess so.”

“If you'd like…” She keeps her voice warm, welcoming. “You could join us for a while, since we're searching for the same thing. My name is Clara, Clara Deckard. This is my husband Alfred, but everyone just calls him Al.”

The boy seems hesitant, untrusting. Clara wonders what they could be hiding, what could have happened to them, for them to be this way. 

Then the bird daemon chirps, a quiet and quick thing. It's echoed by a low, harsh bark coming from the dark.

The boy sighs. “I'm Clive.” He finally says, does not give a last name. “This is Joshua and Jill. If… if you are certain-”

Al speaks up before she can, proving one of the reasons why she loves this man. “You can join us for as long as you'd like.”

For the time the three children travel with them (it is short, Clara knows, but can't remember the exact time. A month maybe, half a year, maybe-) she does not once see Clive’s daemon. 

Not once in their travels, though, do bandits ambush them. When Clara falls asleep with a sickening feeling and wakes up to mounds of ash twenty yards away from where they were sleeping, she keeps it to herself.

Joshua cannot sleep.

They are in a small town, halfway between the Dhalmekian Republic and the Crystalline Dominion. They had been here for over a month - Clive had been taking care of nearby monsters in return for coin and a room to stay. He was asleep now, resting off a strenuous day.

He couldn’t use aether while dealing with the monsters, not when they were trying to hide who they were. Joshua had to wait until they had gotten inside, until Leala had given the all clear to heal his wounds.

That, though, has become the normal for him. That is not why Joshua could not sleep.

He sits up, glances to the side. He and Jill are still small enough to share a bed with little trouble - they’re staying in the estate of the man who first hired Clive, the only place with a free bed to spare in such an isolated place. Luckily, that meant that the bed was bigger than a single, and they fit easily.

Jill stirs when he moves, a light sleeper in the past few years. Always aware that if she lets go of control, her aether might take advantage of it. They’ve been trying to teach her control, trying to help her tame her ice, but she fights it as much as it fights her.

“Joshua.” She is awake now, quiet not to disturb Clive. He sleeps on a makeshift bed of cushions, unaware of the world around him. “What is the matter?”

Much. Much is the matter, and yet Joshua has kept it all to himself, has kept it to his chest for two years now, ever since he was eleven and they appeared from the shadows. Has kept it to himself ever since he woke up, half dead and confused and staring at a daemon he no longer recognized. 

Jill stared at him, studied his expression with a look Joshua could not decipher. She grabbed his hand, slid out of bed and dragged him with her.

They leave the estate, walk until they’re situated somewhere quiet, somewhere hidden. “Joshua.” Jill says again, voice firm but soft. “What is it?”

Joshua sighs, looks away, Ona sits quietly on his shoulder, Fionn curled around Jill’s neck. They’ve both grown, a bit. Father once told him that Ona would never grow big enough that she couldn’t perch on his shoulder, and he seemed to be right. Even now, Ona still fits there, like she’s growing in tandem with him. Fionn is much the same, never growing bigger than what Jill can balance. “It’s fine, Jill. I just couldn’t sleep.”

Jill frowns, unamused. Fionn does a half growl, ice leaking from his maw. “We are not blind.” She says, crosses her arms. “You have been hiding something from us.”

Joshua feels a bolt of shame flutter through him. They had been running for so long, always on the move ever since Phoenix Gate went up in flames. With no plan and nowhere to go, all they could really do was wander. Wander, and survive. 

“I am worried.” He admits, confesses, his concerns finally out in the open. “Clive and Leala never speak of it, but I can’t stop wondering…”

Jill’s eyes spark with understanding. “A second eikon of fire.” She murmurs, looks towards the estate. “I admit I am curious.”

“It makes no sense.” Ona speaks, puts into words what Joshua cannot say. “They awoken, and immediately lost control. They awoken and primed.”

Joshua hadn’t thought anything of it, at the beginning. He was in too much shock, too much turmoil, to really give it thought. Then he had time, then they were running for weeks, months, and Joshua finally had a thought.

Why is there a second eikon of fire? Why was it Clive? Why did he awaken then?

Leala had told him, when he asked Clive, that Clive had awoken when Leala had been on the brink of death. Clive had later told him, in his delirous near death state, that he had seen a robed figure, when none was there.

And Joshua… Joshua has never been able to forget it.

“This is what was on your mind?” Jill asks, voice soft. “All this time?”

His hands clench and unclench. “I’ve been searching.” He looks up at her, stares into her eyes. “There are rarely any libraries, where we go, but I have a feeling, something tells me that there is much we don’t know. Much we need to know.”

Jill worries her lip. “It could be nothing.” She sounds unsure. “Leviathan disappeared, long ago. Maybe there needed to be another to take it’s place.”

Joshua had considered that, too. “What I’ve found tells me otherwise.”

She frowns again. “What you’ve found? How?”

How, she asks, because Joshua rarely ever leaves their sight, worried that if he loses track of them they’ll be gone forever. Not while they’re awake, at least. Still, Jill looks confused, concerned, and Joshua has always felt bad, hiding this big of a secret from her and Clive.

“A few months after Phoenix Gate…” He looks out into the dark night, wonders if he really should tell her. “There’s a group of people, sworn to protect the Phoenix from harm. They’ve been…”

Jill’s eyes narrow, suspicion and hurt and betrayal sparking across her gaze in a way that makes Joshua cringe in shame. “They’ve been following us?” Jill’s voice is sharp. “And you didn’t tell us?”

There was nothing Joshua could say that would fix this. “They had been searching for me, after I disappeared. I told them to leave me alone, but they insist that someone stay nearby. They wanted me to go with them, at first. I refused. I… I don’t want them here either, Jill, please believe me, but-”

“But what?” Jill was cold now. She never got angry, only ever went cold. Fionn is silent on her shoulders, he won't look his way. “What if they didn’t take your refusal kindly? What if they took you anyway? We’d have no way of knowing where you went!”

Her voice got louder, sharper, before cutting off into a hiss. Ona flinched for him, even while Joshua stayed still, steady. “They’ve been finding me information.” Joshua continues, because he has no retort to her worries. “Old books and journals. There’s something here, Jill, something about this second eikon of fire. I’m close to figuring it all out!”

“Do you think Clive would want you to figure it out, if it meant putting yourself in danger?” Jill asks, eerily quiet. “He’s sworn to protect you-”

“I don’t want him to protect me!” Joshua’s voice was too loud, in the silent night. Jill paused, shocked. “Not when it hurts him. You know as well as I that he’s been giving himself smaller portions of food compared to us. I’d rather be in constant danger, I’d rather be dead, then for him to continue to sacrifice himself for me!”

It's quiet. For a long time after that, it is quiet.

Jill sucks in a deep breath, exhales slowly. “You really believe there is something more to this?”

Joshua stares at her, tries to communicate his conviction through his eyes. “I know there is.”

Another moment of silence. Jill sighs. “What have you found so far?”

Father clasped a hand on his shoulder, firm but gentle, as he led Joshua over to their seats. Joshua stayed quiet, tried to ignore those who couldn't stop staring.

The table was massive, filled to the brim with more food than the people at the table could possibly ever eat. Joshua sat down at his seat, father sitting to his right, and looked up, looked around.

He didn't want to go to this meeting, this day of remembrance or whatever father called it. He'd rather stay with Clive and Jill, but father said it was important to go and so here he is. Representing Rosaria as the Phoenix's dominant.

Not like Ona wanted to go either…

She has her own perch, right next to him, but she's currently on the perch set up for father, chittering quietly with Aldreda. No one mentioned it, even though it was quite improper. Even father seemed to find it funny, her little show of rebellion. It didn't last long, though, as Aldreda nibbled at the feathers on the side of her head, pushing Ona slightly, before Ona gave up on whatever she was doing and finally decided to join Joshua on her special perch.

The meeting begins. Joshua barely listens, eating whatever he wants and avoiding everything else at the table. He hasn't really checked anyone else out, this entire time, too busy avoiding eye contact.

He doesn't want to be here.

But then there's a soft noise, a shuffling, and Joshua looks up, looks across the table. There's a boy there, a young boy around his age, with blond hair almost the same shade as mother's. There's a place for his daemon to sit as well, but it's being ignored. Instead, stretched out against the back of his chair, is a dragon.

It's small, the same size as Ona, but it is a beautiful thing, proud and vicious looking. Joshua knows that Bahamut’s dominants also have daemons that are identical to their eikons, like the Phoenix, and Joshua shivers just imagining what a larger version of this daemon could possibly look like.

He hopes he never has to fight it. Fight Dion, if he remembers the introductions correctly.

Dion catches him staring. He smiles, waves just slightly, while the adults are too busy to notice. Joshua doesn't respond, but Ona does, flapping a single wing in greeting.

The rest of the meal continues. Joshua’s playing with the food still left on his plate. Dion seems to have completely finished.

The other boy sets down his silverware, clears his throat. The table goes quiet. “Father, may we be excused? I'd like to show Joshua around the area.”

Dion’s father takes a moment to answer. Father, who has noticed Joshua’s boredom several times over, smiles and laughs. “I think Joshua would enjoy that, wouldn't you?”

Joshua nods because he would, and because the longer he stayed here the more likely father would make him eat something he didn't want to eat. Dion's father approves after father does, and they both quietly exit the room.

They did, but their daemons decided to roar and shriek and fly out after them, and Joshua is still pretending not to notice. He won't bring attention to how much Ona does not want to be here, how much she rather be with Leala and Fionn.

The moment they're out of sight Dion grabs his wrist, smiles at him. “Come on.” He seems excited. “I know a good spot.”

A secluded spot, he means, and Joshua feels a bit better, actually, being away from the staring, the reverence. Now it was just the two of them, and Dion is probably the only other boy in the world that understands the feeling.

“Thank you.” He says, genuinely. “I don't know how much longer I would have lasted in there.” 

Dion laughs, high and mirthful. “Meetings with father are always so boring!” He holds a hand out. His daemon, who had been flying through the air, lands on it with enough force that his arm bends with it, before it then crawls up to wrap around his shoulders. “I was starting to fall asleep!”

Joshua giggles, and with a gust of wind Ona settles on his shoulder, nibbles his ear. Dion stares at her, almost assessing.

“Phoenix is beautiful.” Is what he says, a true compliment. Ona preens. “I wouldn't have thought there could be so many colors in a fire.”

“Thank you.” Joshua speaks for her. “And please, call her Ona in private, she doesn't like the title.”

Dion blinks, surprised, before something like relief crosses his face. “Oh thank the Founder- neither does Halys! Her full name is Bláthalyssa, but that's just a mouthful, isn't it?”

Joshua runs it over in his mind a few times, inwardly agrees. Then, he asks, “Both of her parents named her, even though they knew she was Bahamut?”

Dion frowns at that, studies Ona as if he just now realized that that wasn't a nickname for her. “Father did not name her.” He concedes. “But mother's daemon did, and she had heard a few names father's daemon would have named Halys, and her daemon chose the one that fit the best for a full name.”

Joshua is jealous, very jealous, for a single all encompassing moment. Then, it drains out of him. “My brother's daemon named Ona!” He states, proud of it. “Neither of my parents would, they'd much rather call her Phoenix.”

“It's so irritating.” Dion agrees, hand coming up to run along Halys’ scales. “I can never get anyone besides Terrance to call her by her true name!”

Joshua smiled, for once feeling like someone else truly understood how he felt, sympathized on a personal level. “It's like-”

“-they believe there's nothing more to us.” Dion finishes for him, a sad smile forming on his lips. “Besides being a dominant.”

Ona blows a plume of fire into the air in front of them. Halys adds in her own little bolt of light, fanning out like a dying star.

She sits on a throne next to her husband, cold eyes staring down at her stepson. Cain stands rigid next to her, stoic and noble. “Still, you've found nothing?”

Dion does not look at her, cannot bare to look at her. Her new husband had explained where he had come from, how his blood was a mix of dirt and gold. He seemed to believe that Dion was unaware of the truth behind his parentage, that Dion did not know about his true mother.

She knew better, knew the face of a boy who was reliving a past occurrence, over and over again. Knew what it looked like to act like everything was okay when it wasn't, how it looked to hide a secret.

Knew, because she saw it on Joshua’s face, nearly every day. She hasn't realized that's what it was, until it was too late, but she knew now. Hindsight hurt.

How Dion knew was a mystery to her. She guesses it's Bahamut, that his daemon had remembered her true parentage and had informed him when she could. Either way, it doesn't matter. Dirty halfblood or not, he was a dominant. “It's been years, if the Phoenix dominant is still alive-”

“They found no bodies.” She cuts in, voice harsh. Cain stomps the ground next to her. Her husband stays silent. “The two eikons of fire fought, but no killing blow was landed. They fought, they vanished, and no one has seen either of my sons since.”

Anabella is not stupid. She managed to destroy an entire kingdom in a single night. She gained reputation, married an Archduke and then a king. She gave birth to the dominant of the Phoenix. She, who had no right to any throne, managed to control two at once. She is not stupid, she is not oblivious.

Ever since her sons disappeared, that second eikon of fire vanished as well, along with the Phoenix. No matter what she thought of Clive, he was still noble blood, should still have been blessed with something, and this made sense, the more she thought about it, the more she realized-

Maybe the Phoenix hadn't rejected him. Maybe he had already been called for. They had all been wrong, the rumors had all been for naught. She had produced not just one, but two dominants-

Cain huffs slightly, tilts his head towards her. She lays a gentle hand on his head, settles herself.

It was just a possibility. Her mind concocting stories for what could have happened to her sons. What could have happened after the insurrection she caused. 

No bodies were found. They were not dead, they were not dead, Joshua was not-

If Clive had been the Phoenix, this would never had happened.

Dion keeps his eyes on the floor. Next to him, Bahamut stands proud and tall, uncaring of either his stepmother nor his father. Bahamut was a proud daemon, she knew her importance, her role, and never let any other daemon nor human speak down to her. She was better than Phoenix, in that way.

It made Anabella seethe.

“It's costing manpower, continuing this search.” Dion continues. “They could be anywhere by now, and sending men into other kingdoms to look would not do us any good.”

“And just leaving them out there would?” She snaps, because they were alive, they had to be. “Dion, you have met Joshua before. He is as young as you and sickly, would leaving him out there-”

“Mother.” Dion never called her mother. “If he is as frail as you say, he most likely died a long time ago.”

She is speechless in her anger.

Dion continues. “Sending men looking for them in enemy territory only paints a target upon their backs. And, as I've said many times before, you are the cause of their father's death. Why would they come willingly? They are hiding for a reason.”

It doesn't matter, Joshua is her son too, he'll listen to his mother. As for Clive, if what she believes is true-

And nevertheless, they cannot stay hidden forever. At some point they will appear, will try to take Rosaria back from her. “Find them, Dion.”

Bahamut growls, a warning. Phoenix never did that to her, never forced them to watch themselves. Cain bows his head, obliged to, and she hates it, having to submit to this halfblood when she has given rise to the Phoenix, when she has possibly created a new dominant-

Dion watches her, wary as always. Bahamut snarls and clicks her teeth, but takes Cain’s show of respect and leaves it at that. Anabella wonders if he also realizes what she has, if he wonders about Clive like she does.

At the beginning, she only wanted Joshua found. Then, she started thinking. Suddenly, he turned into they.

Her husband stayed silent the entire time. She knew what he thought. Most had assumed they had died that night, at Phoenix gate. Most just thought she was delusional, thought she was mourning.

Anabella had seen the fight, from where she was waiting. There was no killing blow, there was no fatal hit. Not when Joshua could heal, not when the second eikon had stopped, had looked at its clawed hands like it couldn't believe what it had just done.

She knows she was not as close to her children as she could have been. Such is the life of nobility. Still, she knows that, deep in her bones, they are not dead.

Because Cain had given them names, even if he never said them aloud. He had given them names, and that creates a connection. A small, thread of a connection, tiny but there, a link and-

It's a tall tale, it's not real.

That connection was still there. Cain still felt it.

It's still there. They are not dead.

Clive is near the coast when they first feel it.

He had just finished a job escorting a group of people across a monster infested plain. Jill and Joshua had joined him, since they'd be ending up in a place with a cheaper market to buy foods and goods. They had been walking along, looking for an inn to rest for the night, when they felt it.

A rush of aether. A big one, too. One that only a select few could create.

In the far, far, distance, Clive thinks he sees something. The source of the aether.

Find it, something inside of him says.

He starts walking, blindly going towards whatever made that aether explosion. They feel another, shortly after, and his footsteps quicken. Find it.

“Brother.” Joshua does not stop him, but does sound worried. “Where are you going?”

Clive pauses, considers himself. “Towards whatever made that wave of aether.” Though he's not sure why. “I want to check it out.”

Jill is much more wary. “I've felt that before.” She murmured. “The night at Phoenix Gate- that's a prime surge.”

Someone had primed. Two dominants had primed.

They should stay away.

Find them.

Clive keeps walking. Jill bites her lip, concerned. Joshua shakes his head, follows after Clive. The daemons are silent.

It takes hours, to reach the origin point. The air is charged with ozone, a harsh breeze ripping currents through the air. Clive buzzes at the feeling of it, soaks in the lingering aether.

Very, very distantly, farther away then Clive should be able to hear, a griffin lets out a shrieking roar. Leala's ears perk up at the sound.

There's a slight groan, coming a little ways away. Clive goes towards the sound, makes a gesture to Joshua and Jill, stays silent. A man leans against a barely standing tree. One that looks like it was cracked through with lightning. He looks unharmed, but also unbelievably tired, worn.

The man barely glances at them. “Not in the mood to talk to kids.” His voice is unbelievably deep. “Didn't your mothers ever tell you to stay away from aether surges?”

The man kept his eyes closed, like there was nothing to be scared of. He was drenched in aether, almost visible to the naked eye, and Clive’s hair stood up just by being near him. It felt like the air was charged around him, ready to snap the moment he got to close.

Powerful, this man was. Could he be…?

Leala stays hidden nearby. The man's daemon is nowhere to be seen. Clive suddenly feels on edge.

The man tenses, out of nowhere. Clive doesn't know why.

Ona shrieks, a sudden sound that shocks all of them. The man's eyes pop open as she shakes off her cloak, wings bursting into flames as she jumps off of Joshua’s shoulders and soars into the sky. Fionn rushes from Jill’s cloak, gets ready to join Ona.

High above, almost too far to see, a piercing shriek echoes Ona’s. The man curses as something dives out from the high sky, aimed straight at Ona. It's a dark purple, almost black, crackling with aether and electricity. Silver tail feathers and wing tips shine in Clive’s eyes.

A thunderbird.

The two birds clash harshly, and both Joshua and the man flinch. Clive has his sword out immediately, ready to kill the man, a dominant, before he can even stand.

Before he can use his magic. Clive knows of the thunder warden. Was taught about their speed. He must be quick, he must catch him by surprise.

But than Leala appears, growls and barks and it vibrates across the field, into the sky, could be heard for miles and miles, and the birds up above stop, look down to her.

She barks again, closer to a howl. Ona, obedient like Aldreda was the one who called her, swoops back down to Joshua’s shoulder, ruffles her feathers. The thunderbird stays in the skies for a moment longer, perches in a branch high above them. Thunder crackles along her wings.

They're left in a stalemate.

Miles away, a griffin shrieks its response.

Chapter Text

Leala was on edge.

It wasn't the new dominant’s fault, Clive knew. While he didn't understand why the two bird daemons immediately clashed, he can tell the man was not in the mood to fight. No, Leala was tense for another reason. One Clive could not figure out.

“Sorry about her.” The man was still sitting, stretched out on the ground. He whistles, and the thunderbird, Ramuh, flies to rest on his leg. “She gets antsy after priming, especially around unknown dominants…”

His eyes trailed from Ona, to Fionn, before ending on Leala. His brows furrowed, curious.

Clive didn't let his guard down. “You're the warden of thunder.” He says, because he knows a bit about Waloed, about their command. Why was he fighting his own ally? Was it another betrayal?

“And that is Joshua Rosfield, Phoenix.” The man gestured to Joshua, showing that he also knew about them. It was almost a shock, after so long hiding who they were. “You must be Clive Rosfield, and Shiva’s dominant… were you the ward I've heard mention of? Imagine if they knew, all three of you…” he pauses again, stares at Clive. “Was it you? They said there was a second eikon of fire-”

Clive levels his sword at the guy's throat. He just laughs. “Why were you fighting Garuda?” He ignores how nonchalant the man seems, how much it aggravates him. “Aren't you on the same side?”

The man scoffs. “I left Ash a few months ago, you're behind on the time. Can't blame you, everyone's thought you lot were dead for years now.”

“Left?” Jill’s voice was soft, yet no less on edge. “Why?”

The man looked at her, really looked at her, and it was the story hidden in the worn lines of his face, the stress in his brow, the pain in his eyes, that told them everything they needed to know. “Our beliefs didn't add up.”

The thunderbird chirps, ruffles their feathers. Ona chirps back. Leala takes the first step forward, towards the thunderbird. “Ramuh.”

Clive’s not sure who she surprised the most, by speaking, especially by calling the other daemon by their eikon. Leala never does that, stopped after learning how much Ona hated it.

And yet, the other daemon didn't seem upset. Instead, they studied each other. The man's head tilted, as if hearing something, seeing something they could not. Clive wondered if, with enough time and effort, a dominant could hear their eikon. “Ifrit.”

The name had no meaning, not really, but something about it clicked in his head, just made sense, and Clive should wonder how Ramuh, this daemon, whoever it was could possibly know that name, but he was just too in shock to really think about anything besides the fact that Ifrit was his, Ifrit was the second warden of fire.

Leala takes a step closer, as if unsurprised, as if she always knew that name. Just like with Ona, long ago, just like with Fionn when they first met, she stretches out her nose, just a hair width away from the other daemon, and waits. The thunderbird studies her for a moment, before pressing its beak to her snout. A storm seems to rumble within his chest, thunder crackling in his bones.

“Alright then.” The man brings himself to his feet. Ramuh flies to his shoulder. “Introductions are in order, it seems. The name's Cid, this here is Vala. I'd be pleased to learn the name of the young lass and all your daemons, if you'd let me.”

They went with him, because Jill still needed control and Cid was oozing it, filled with it. Everything he did, no matter how smooth, how relaxed, seemed like it took a great amount of control. Like if he didn't, he'd fry them all to charred bits where they stood.

Leala was still on edge.

They had their introductions, which went well. Leala's calm demeanor (besides whatever was bugging her) made Clive trust the new dominant faster than normal, even after Vala had attacked Ona. That was probably because the moment Ona was introduced she chirped an apology and Ona seemed too fascinated by another mythical bird daemon to hold a grudge. It's times like that where Clive remembers that Joshua, and by extension Ona, are still young.

Cid had a hideout, apparently, somewhere in the dead lands. It sounded impossible to Clive, but Cid had little reason to lie, especially not when Leala could sniff one out if he tried it. Leala barely paid attention to Cid, though, when they set up a camp for the night. She seemed too busy staring out into the dark, magma veins bright red and blistering with heat.

No one mentioned it, yet everyone had noticed. Leala was on edge, and that left a tension over the group, silent but present. Impossible to ignore.

They did not tell Cid much about themselves. There was no reason to, no need. He already knew everything he needed to, already knew of their pasts and their birthrights. He barely even seems to care about that, really, besides the fact that they're child dominants out on their own. 

To Cid, at least. Clive could not be called a child anymore. He hasn't been a child for a very long time, even before Phoenix Gate. Before that night.

“Second eikon, huh?” Cid was still mulling that over, as if something did not quite sit right with him. Of course it would not- a misplaced gear stops the whole system from running. And yet here they are, and no one knows what to make of it. “I wonder what for.”

“Does it truly matter?” Jill murmurs, staring at her feet. She seemed off balanced, out of place, here. A single rose in a field of peonies. A weeping willow in a forest of oaks, dark and somber. “Knowing the how or why doesn't change anything.”

Clive frowns, glancing at her before looking away. He wishes for Torgal to appear, if just to cheer Jill up some, but both he and Ambrosia had wandered off when they first entered town and hadn't deemed it necessary to return yet. It was bad timing, and yet it felt more similar to an omen.

“With knowledge comes power, lass.” Cid rebukes her somber words well enough. In the sky, Vala swoops around Fionn, who can barely stay steady in his new form. Wyverns are better fliers the bigger they get, their wings built to efficiently carry heavy weight. At this size, each flap is too powerful, takes him off kilter. “At least, that's what a friend of mine always harps on about. Either way, there's always a lesson that can be learned from the unknown.”

Jill looks away, sullen. Clive stops from reaching for her, unable to help. Her irritation came from her lack of control, and Clive cannot teach her what he himself doesn't fully understand.

“My uncle once told me to never stop learning.” Joshua says, voice surprisingly light, almost wondrous. “Because if I didn't, I would make a dreadful ruler.”

“Founder knows Rosaria needs one.” Cid mutters, glances towards Clive before looking towards Ona. His gaze shoots to the sky, as if gathering strength. “I doubt you've kept up with Rosaria's proceedings, traveling as you have. Your mother is not half the ruler your father was.”

A sick, twisted feeling curls within his gut. Clive feels his heart pinch, mourn everything he's lost. Ona’s eyes seem to burn, a searing blaze. It felt accusing, somehow.

We had a people to rule, to protect, and you made us run, took us away. They are suffering now, without us, because of us.

Clive looks away, blocks out the rest of the conversation. He cannot continue, not without feeling his long silenced guilt.

“What I do will look different from what you do.” Cid was saying to Jill, when Clive finally stopped searching for whatever Leala could sense in the dark. “But they both have the same end goal. Losing control means killing the people around you. Keeping control keeps those around you safe.”

Jill stares at the fire, something dark flickering in her eyes. Fionn is curled in her lap, tail tucked beneath his wings. She looks unsure. “Neither Joshua nor Clive had trouble controlling their aether.”

“Joshua was born with it, if I remember correctly.” Cid informed her softly, deep voice full of sympathy. Clive squirms, tries not to think about how much Cid, and by extension Waloed, knew about them. About Joshua. “And Clive had the Phoenix blessing, right? Neither of them had it suddenly thrust upon them with no preparation, not like you.”

Jill's hands clenched, ice forming around her knuckles. Aether swirled in the air, soft and cold.  “I feel like I'm bursting at the seams.” She confesses. “Like a pot teetering at the edge. The moment I get too happy or sad or angry it's going to all spill out.”

Cid nodded, like he understood that feeling all too well. Leala's ears pricked up. Clive only half noticed, unsure how to feel about the other dominant, about how helpful he's been. Was there a catch? “I feel this is important to ask - are you trying to dam up this magic, or are you redirecting the flow?”

Jill looks at him, startled. Leala growls, low and deep, into the dark night.

Cid turns towards the sound, sees something they don't. Vala makes a sharp sound, crackles with energy. “Oh, shit.”

There's a wave of aether, similar to before. Magic rushed at them, at Clive, and he raises his arms for cover, too surprised to do much else. There's a flash of purple, levin striking in front of him. Cid is there, blocking a young woman, no older than twenty, from reaching him. She's semi-primed, they both are, and how Cid had semi-primed so quickly, how he had moved so quickly-

“Back here so soon, Benna-?” Cid, even with the rush of fire and lightning in his veins, still sounds as carefree as always.

“Not for you, Cidolfus.” This dominant, Benna, seemed angry, rageful, a special kind of hate filling her veins, pumping her blood. She jumps back, away from them. Her eyes land on Clive. She points at him. “My king wants that one.”

It shocks him, at first, just the idea of being wanted, but then his shock turns to confusion, to fear, and his eyes find Joshua, makes sure he's behind him-

But Joshua is storming to him, in front of him, and Ona shrieks as he shouts, “You can't have him!”

And Clive, while he feels his love, his attachment, promised he would protect him. “Joshua-”

“Oh Cidolfus.” Benna speaks up again, looks to Joshua, to Jill. “How hadn't I noticed, you're just collecting dominants, aren't you? Do you really hate our liege so much? First you flee like a coward, and now you actively try to stop his plans. After everything he's done for you.”

Cid scoffs, but doesn't refute her. Clive grabs at Joshua, pulls him behind. Leala snarls and snaps at the air, body made of magma and cooling obsidian. Her eyes bubble and pop.

Benna snaps her fingers. A griffin caws in the dark. Men in armor appear from the shadows of the night.

“Kids.” Cid growls out, voice like a thunder crack. “Run.”

And then Clive blinks, and Cid is no longer there. Instead, Benna has been thrown back, far into the dark, through the soldiers, and Clive can see them now, can see the flashes of purple and green. A bolt of lightning cracks down nearby. Vala shrieks.

The soldiers still standing come at them, swords ready. Fionn snarls. Joshua seems close to semi-priming himself, eyes filled with determination and fear.

“Jill.” He calls, hoping to the Founder that she understands. She seems to, thank everything, and he sees her grab Joshua’s hand, sees her start to pull him away. He protests for a moment, only stopping when Clive takes a step back, backing up as he follows. The men inch closer anyway, ignorant of the flashes of purple and green behind them. 

There's a rush of air, harsh and biting. Ozone fills his nose. Take it, something within him whispers, like it was something he could have, could get, could eat.  

Take it. It's yours.

Leala snarls, and Clive blinks, the feeling forgotten. Ona swoops down, lands on Leala, and as one they let loose a plume of flames, orange and gold and green and blue. The men yell and take a step back as the plains catch aflame, spreading in the grass like a wildfire. Clive takes the distraction, looks towards Cid and the other dominant one more time, before turning tail and running, grabbing Joshua and Jill as he went.

Ramuh’s dominant seemed nice, seemed like a good person. Seemed like he tried. Still, Clive barely knew him, and he didn't need Cid’s past affiliations coming to get him. At the end of the day, his duty was to protect Joshua, to protect Jill. Nothing more, nothing less.

A shriek of pain from Vala, clear even from their distance. Joshua stumbles at the sound, almost falls. He coughs as he gets back up, and he had been getting healthier, really he had, and yet his frail body still didn't do well with physical exertion, did not enjoy when Ona used aether.

(They've been working on it. The results have not been good.)

Clive helped him up, looked back to see the soldiers moving around the fire, towards them once more. His hair stands on end. There's a crack of lightning, slamming into the ground far off.  Another unearthly roar, full of rage and bitterness, shattering the air like the sky was just panes of glass.

Clive keeps running.

Shouting, coming towards them. A blast of air, and Jill gasps. Clive turns around to see Cid fly off into the shadowy night, purple blazing behind him before disappearing into nothingness. Trees groan and crack in the distance. Clive remembers that, just a few hours ago, he had fully primed, as had Benna. Was Benna stronger, or was it just because she was younger, had more stamina?

A rush of wind, a hand closing around his shoulder. He's thrown away from the others, and Jill screams his name. He looks up to see Benna, can barely register her face before ice batters at her side, throwing her away from him. Jill looks shocked, as if she hadn't expected anything to happen. Magic and aether lashes around her, quick and fierce.

Clive pulls himself to his feet, raises his sword. Benna looks at him like he's nothing more than a weak child, unable to do anything to stop her. The soldiers she brought formed rank around her.

Clive took in a deep breath, steadying himself. Flames start to lick up and down his arms. He's not sure who they belonged to. A few yards away, near Joshua, Leala howls.

“Stay away!”

A few soldiers turn to ash and dust with little more than a scream. Joshua’s burning, bright as a star, and he's almost semi-primed, he is semi-primed, the Phoenix’s tail feathers fluttering around him. Ona bursts into flames with him, bright and shining, flying into the air before raining fire down on all of them.

Benna smiles. There's a flash of movement, and the griffon he's been hearing finally shows itself. Benna’s daemon rushes after Ona, collides head on with her in a clash of talons and claws. Neither dominant seems to notice. Clive screams Joshua’s name.

Everyone here knew he would not win against a trained dominant. Why had he even primed in the first place?

Joshua pays him no heed. He seems stuck in his head, unhearing. Clive feels his own internal fire lash about, incessant and burning, but nothing changes for him, nothing happens. His eikon, his Ifrit, it does not answer his call, does not help him save his brother.

Why would it, when it almost killed him before?

He slashes at the soldiers, suddenly desperate to reach Joshua. Leala keeps herself firmly between Benna and his brother, but she cannot do much, not without risking touching either of them. Jill cannot get close, at risk of burning unless she lets loose and semi-primes herself. Something she hasn't learned how to do without freezing everyone around her yet.

The tails around Joshua rise into the air. Teardrops of fire form at the ends, fly towards Benna with a fury. Up above, Ona claws at Garuda’s eyes, shrieks her anger and desperation. Just as Benna slides out of the way, the griffon dives under her talons.

She's playing with him. Clive, stuck behind rows of soldiers, cannot reach him. Clive cannot reach him.

What is this power good for, if it can't protect those he loves?

Jill is only moments away from letting go of her control, he can tell. Fionn is glowing, overflowing with aether which only swells with each step Benna takes closer. She grabs at her skirts, screams at herself and the world, and ice spikes up from the ground, trailing along the dirt until exploding like a miniature mother crystal in the group of soldiers. Dozens are thrown into chaos, but it is still not enough for Clive to get through.

Garuda grabs Ona’s wing in its claws, reaches down to tear at it.

Thunder crackles in the sky.

A streak of blue and purple and white shoots through the air, a bolt of energy slamming into the griffon. Vala is an unstoppable force, ramming into Garuda and throwing it away from Ona, rushing through the air and dragging Benna’s daemon with her as she goes. Ona flutters a little bit, regains her balance. At the same time, Cid appears in a crack of thunder, electricity bouncing across his skin. Much like Vala, he runs into Benna, throws her far, far, far away, into the darkness, the shadows swallowing her just like they did Cid. Clive does not hear her land. Cid runs after her, gone as quick as he appeared.

Joshua follows. Ona chases their daemons.

“Joshua!”

His brother does not listen, tunnel visioned into whatever he believes he must do, whatever he thinks he has to accomplish. Jill looks like she might follow, but she turns to Clive, to the soldiers still fighting him.

“Go after him!” He shouts, to help clear her indecision. She looks at him, looks back to where Joshua had disappeared.

She does not listen to him.

Instead, she hugs herself, cries out in frustration, in anger and exertion. Icy air blasts from her form, aether swirling in vicious swirls. The men collectively stumble as the ground turns frosty, as the fire is blown out.

Everything goes dark.

Leala growls, deep and low in her throat. Her magma veins, the only source of light, go dull. The world is thrown into complete darkness.

Clive snaps his fingers. A ball of fire forms from his palm, flies up until it rests above the heads of the guards. It flickers quietly, barely large enough to reach the men at the edge of the group. Past them is complete and utter darkness.

It is silent, besides the far off sound of thunder and wind. A flash of lightning. It's very far, too far for Clive’s liking. 

Joshua was too far for Clive’s liking.

One of the men die with a cut off gasp, ice protruding from his heart. Another screams as he's melted in his armor. They start to panic, searching for something to start another fire, give them back their sight. He hears Fionn croon, an icy hand grabs at his, almost reassuring.

Fire blooms in his stomach, crawls up his throat until it's almost choking him. He releases it, a blast of anger and desperation that forces it's way through him before slamming into them. Half of them scream as they are suddenly lit on fire, swallowed by the flames. Light explodes into existence, giving away their position to those still left.

Jill lets go of his hand, grabs his sword instead. “One moment.”

Clive gives it to her, trusting. She's only practiced with it a few times, but that does not deter her. She brings the blade up, settles into a stance, before slicing through the air. A wave of ice follows her slash, cutting through everything that stood in its path.

(At her age, Clive would think that Jill should still feel regret and remorse for killing, for ending a life. Instead, her eyes are cold, her face expressionless as she cuts them down. They are enemies, men who want to harm her and Clive. In her eyes, they're nothing more than monsters that need to be put down.)

The men have a single moment to shriek before they are frozen where they stand, the force and pressure of it shattering them like broken glass.

It is suddenly over. All the men are no longer a threat. It is quiet.

It is quiet.

Clive no longer hears the sound of a far off battle.

Joshua.

Jill hands him back his sword, which he sheaths before running, barely making sure that Jill was following before going. He has no real direction, but he can follow the trail of aether, find them like that. The problem was they had semi-primed, they could travel faster than he could ever hope to imagine that way. Especially the wardens of thunder and wind, who are known for their speed. The Phoenix was no slouch either.

Joshua.

It takes much too long to reach the end of the aether trail. A battle had happened here, no doubt. The trees show scars, are painted with marks and gouges. It is silent, though, still in a way that makes him desperate, makes him panic.

“Where is he?” He's speaking to everyone and no one, to Leala and Jill, to the Founder who can never give him a break- “Where did he go?!”

Jill does not answer him. Clive cannot bring himself to look at her.

“Joshua!” He calls, even though he knows he shouldn't, knows that Benna, that warden of wind, could be around here, could ambush them. He couldn't bring himself to care. “JOSHUA!”

There is no answer. Nothing from Benna, nothing from Cid, and nothing from Joshua.

Nothing. Nothing.

“Child.” Leala says to Jill, tone urgent. “Run.”

There's a shuffling, the sound of footsteps moving away. Clive barely notices it, barely notices anything at all.

Joshua. Joshua. Where are you? Why didn't you respond? Come back. COME BACK!

And for the second time, Clive loses control.

Chapter Text

It's raining. Joshua hates rain.

That's not true, not really. Mother hated the rain, hated it for him. He was sickly, so no rain, and he was the Phoenix, so no rain. She told him that he should try to stay out of it, should always try and wait for it to pass.

So Joshua did. He'd sit at a window and watch it go by for hours, see the other kids playing games in the rain, jumping into puddles, enjoying themselves, while he was stuck inside. Watching.

He thinks, if mother had actually given him a chance, that he would have liked the rain.

(Ona laughs at him for that. Says she should've been Leviathan instead. Joshua is not against that either. Water is dangerous, but it does not burn the way fire does. Does not heal the way a Phoenix does, either.)

He sighs, watching the rain fall. They are camped out in an outcropping, barely overhanged enough to fit under. Joshua, as small as he is, only feels a stray drop every minute or so. Cid, on the other hand, is soaked from the knees down and definitely is not happy about it.

“You should've stayed with your family.” This is not the first time the man has bemoaned this, in the hour they've been waiting out the storm. “They're gonna think I've kidnapped you.”

Joshua smothers a grin, because that would just rile him up more. He had felt a blast of magic earlier, knew it was Clive’s even though there was no way to reach it. Their clash had distorted the terrain, and even though Joshua didn't really get involved he was thrown around enough that by the time Benna had retreated they no longer could go back to Clive and Jill.

He was separated from them. For the first time in years he could not get to them. Could not make sure they were okay.

His stress and worries fall onto Cid instead. Benna, since Joshua still hasn't learned her full name, was a tough opponent, and Cid came out of it with a myriad of bruises and gashes that should be healed sooner rather than later. The older dominant was Joshua’s best chance at finding Clive and Jill again, Joshua should keep him on his good side.

(As if that would be a problem, Vala seems to have taken a liking to Ona. If Vala is docile and supportive with Ona, Joshua knows that Cid will be the same with him.)

“I'll make sure Clive knows you kept me safe.” Joshua assures, keeping the corner of his lips from tugging up. Ona croons in agreement. “As for reconnecting with them…”

Cid frowns into the darkness. Daybreak would be coming soon, they've been up all night, it seems. “That daemon of your brother's should be able to track us down, no problem.”

Joshua tilts his head, because it sounds like there is a problem. There's a gust of wind, a breeze that makes him shiver. Phoenix dominant or not, he can't forget how much his body loves to work against him. Trading in his pride for warmth, he leans against Cid, trusting him to not mention it. Joshua is still young enough that most look at him with pity rather than suspicion. Hopefully Cid will be the same, will allow him to leech off some warmth. “You sound troubled.”

“Besides the fact that rain is notorious for sweeping away scent trails?” His voice is gruff, low, and Joshua doesn't bother telling him that Leala could follow Ona’s aether trail anywhere, no matter how faint it is. He probably already recognizes that. “Benna's daemon can do the same, albeit not as well as a wolf hybrid could. I don't need her finding my hideout so soon.”

Joshua doesn't believe that a griffon daemon could sense a magic trail after a rain like this one, but there's still much he doesn't know. “Why does the king of Waloed want Clive?”

“That's what I'd like to know.” Cid says, looking out into the rain. He won't meet Joshua's eyes. “Why is there a second eikon of fire?”

Joshua is good at keeping secrets. He understands the importance behind them, knows that telling near strangers something this important is downright mad. At the same time, Joshua is young. Joshua is young, stressed, lost his father to a plot his mother concocted, was just separated from his brother and sister. Someone new seems to understand that Clive is special, and with that comes new stresses and concerns, new worries.

And Cid… well, Cid is not his first choice as a confidant, but he's currently the only one he has. 

Ona and Vala do not fit in the overhang they are under. They sit perched just a foot or two outside, still shielded from the worst of it. Ona is pressed close, making herself as small as possible, trying her best to avoid the rain. Water droplets sizzle and steam when they touch her, even though her feathers are only slightly alight, glow very dimly. Next to her, almost a polar opposite, Vala almost shines with light. Her feathers are bright, the plumage sparking with every drop that lands on her. She has one wing raised, completely extended to its full, wide length. Rain patters against it, effectively blocking it from touching Ona, who shelters underneath it.

It is an endearing sight, if a passerby just happened to see it. A daemon who loves the rain sheltering a daemon who hates it. Yet they are so close, and Ona is so trusting, Joshua can feel it, even if the trust is for something so small like a makeshift rain shelter. 

Joshua is young. His daemon is looking for comfort, looking for an older daemon to mimic and learn and grow from, to cling on to and connect to. At first she had Aldreda, but Aldreda was the archduke's daemon and was thus very busy, all the time. Then Aldreda died, turned to dust in front of her eyes, and all she had was Leala. Her name giver, and yet not much older than her, a protector more than anything. Young daemons when scared will attach to whoever they think is safest, whoever will protect them.

Young humans are much of the same. Joshua sees Ona and Vala, imagines Aldreda in Vala’s place. His heart aches - he is too young to hold this burden by himself.

“That's what I've been wondering, myself.” Joshua says, pulls his legs as far under the overhang as he can. His shoes are soaked by now, he's most definitely going to get sick. “I… I have a few theories.”

He tells Cid everything he's learned, everything he suspects, and feels the weight on his shoulders get lighter with every word he says.

(Joshua doesn't understand, then, why telling Cid was different than telling Jill. The answer is simple enough - Cid was an adult. Whether that really affects things or not, Joshua still has internal biases. Joshua is still young. All he really wants is… guidance.)

They head towards Cid’s hideout, because there's not much else they can do. Joshua only makes it half way (4 hours, his body only lasts 4 hours-) before Cid has to carry him the rest. As he predicted the rain got the better of him, and he was wheezing and coughing too much to continue. Now he was settled on Cid’s back, trying his best not to fall asleep in case they came upon someone else, or his family.

Because that wouldn't look good, a random man dragging an unconscious child with him.

The thought almost makes him laugh. He doesn't, of course, and instead focuses on the man carrying him. He's close enough now to feel the aether emanating from him, in bolts and swirls and plumes. He radiates it, and Joshua can almost feel his core, almost feel the crackling hum of thunder, the sharp energy of lightning.

He frowns. “Why are you leaking aether?”

Cid huffs as he walks, probably irritated at the breaking of their silence. “I always have.” Is his answer. “It enhances the senses - let's me put out feelers, so to say.”

“You'll petrify quicker, doing that.” Joshua says, doesn't know why he says. Maybe it's the Phoenix in him, the healer, trying to warn someone off of their current detrimental path. “You should stop.”

“I'll take your consideration as a good thing, lad, but I'm fine.” Cid obviously doesn't take his warning seriously, almost seeming to scoff as he speaks. Joshua’s brows furrow.

“And when you petrify to the point that you can't take care of Mid anymore?”

He had told him about Mid, the girl he takes care of, his daughter. Joshua says this to him now because it's the same thing his father had told him about their grandfather. How he had started to petrify, how he could no longer handle either of his sons. How that made father so very careful about the amount of aether Joshua used, so that that wouldn't happen to him. So that, when he had children, he could be around to see them grow up.

Cid almost stumbles in his steps. It's a reactive thing, it feels like, when the aether around them snaps closed. Like he didn't even mean to, but the moment he felt like it could be a detriment to Mid Cid immediately stopped. The man sighs, almost seeming to fight himself. “You make a good point.”

He knows. Still, the idea behind it was worrisome, even to Joshua’s young mind. “Who taught you to do that? Doesn't seem, um, sustainable.”

Cid doesn't answer, which makes Joshua think it's probably the same person who Benna works for. And if that person, who would have someone practically express themselves to petrification, wanted his brother…

Ona makes a sound high above, one of anger and disgust. It roars in his own stomach, angry and cutting. 

But then Cid makes a happy noise in the back of his throat and falls into a crouch. “Alright, off you get. We're here.”

He gets off gingerly, holds out an arm. Ona is careful when she perches on it, plumage a molten orange-yellow, eyes bright and breathtaking. Joshua runs a hand through her feathers, soaks in her warmth, her own aether.

(He doesn't like the deadlands. They feel empty, void of anything. He is the Phoenix, he is rebirth, he is life. He is not meant to be here.)

But then Cid is turning a corner, opening a hidden door, and Joshua can no longer focus on Ona or the deadlands.

It is a small settlement, holding maybe three dozen. They're all bustling around to and fro, most excavating the side of the ravine they find themselves in, the other half seemingly constructing homes. The first thing he notices is that almost all of them are bearers, each with that brand etched onto their faces. Still, they seem worn and exhausted, but not unhappy. Most were talking as they worked, in fact, which Joshua rarely saw during their travels.

Cid had said they were in the habit of rescuing bearers. He just hadn't realized how many. This place was only a few months old, how in the world-

Well, most things were possible when the leader was a dominant, he guesses.

Many turn to look at them when Cid opens the door, alert and prepared for an intruder most likely. They relax when they see Cid, perk up when they notice Joshua, notice Ona. There's a ripple of whispers, all of which abruptly cut off when a woman comes marching up to them, eyes a spitfire. “Cidolfus, you were supposed to be back five days ago!”

“Tarja.” Cid greets with a smile, as if this was a normal occurrence for him. “Pleasure seeing you as well. As you can see, I had some delays.”

Tarja turns to Joshua then, looks him over head to toe with just her eyes. Then she turns to glare at Cid once more. “He's on the verge of collapse and is obviously ill, Cid I cannot believe - the Phoenix dominant was said to be dead.”

“Um, ma’am?” Joshua takes Ona in his arms, just so he has something warm to hold. “I get sick easily, that's not Cid’s fault.”

Cid gestures at Joshua in a see? fashion. “Joshua, this is Tarja, our resident medic. Tarja, Joshua’s been recently separated from his family, so maybe tone it-”

Tarja glares, which shuts him right up, and Joshua suppresses a giggle. “They'll catch up soon enough!” He tries to hide a cough with his laughter. It does not work. “And I'll be okay. Clive always said I was born sickly, and I've made it this far.”

Tarja’s features twitch a little at that, something close to a frown deepening on her face. Vala takes that moment to swoop in through the still cracked open door, a gust of air blowing past them as she disappears further into the Hideaway.

“I'd still like to take a look at you, if that's okay.” Tarja’s voice was softer, when she spoke directly to him. Then her brows pinched. “And what do you mean, they'll catch up?”

And Cid just laughs, clapping her shoulder. “Prepare yourself, Tarja. You're going from one dominant to four.”

He's given some herbs, too big clothes, a nice bed, and told to rest up. Joshua thanks her, closes his eyes for five minutes, and then gets up and leaves.

(It's not like he isn't exhausted, but he's too curious not to look around.)

Something is always in motion here, and those working only take a moment to admire Ona before continuing on with their work. Ona takes the stares gracefully, preens a little and lets green and blue snake across her feathers. Daemons of all shapes and sizes inch closer, as if wanting to get a better look. They're showcasing their humans’ curiosity. Joshua pretends not to notice.

But then one daemon flies right up to them, a hummingbird fluttering in the air before them. Joshua blinks and the bird is suddenly a baby chocobo, chirping and trilling at him and Ona.

“Oh wow!” 

A little girl comes running up to him, grinning widely, a front tooth missing. Her hair is long and a dirty blond, braided away from her face and to her side in twin braids down her front. She grabs the chocobo daemon around the neck and squeezes it in a half hug. “Are you the Phoenix?”

Joshua smiles at her. She can't be older than half a decade, if that. Easily the youngest one here. “I am. My name is Joshua.”

“I'm Mid!” The girl chirps, confirming Joshua’s stray feeling. She points at Ona. “She's so pretty! Like a… like a fire!” Then she blinks and looks sheepish, embarrassed. “Oh, um, sorry, I shouldn't talk to your daemon… um, you're pretty too!”

Joshua takes a moment to digest, has to try his best not to snort and laugh. At least Mid was being considerate, but calling Ona pretty didn't just mean that Joshua was ugly, they weren't connected - children. She'll realize that some day. “Thank you, and it's no problem. Ona’s a little shy, but she loves making friends!”

Not true, but she wasn't going to hurt Mid’s feelings. He wasn't cold hearted, not when the chocobo daemon was looking at him with wide, sparkly eyes.

Mid’s eyes widen almost as much as the chocobo’s. “Really?!” She squeezed her daemon a little tighter. “We can be friends?!” She's almost shaking in excitement. “Yay! Then can you help me? I have a book I want to read but there's a lot of big words.”

Joshua accepted, because of course he did, and then spent the rest of the day and a good portion of that night helping explain a thick tome’s contents to a toddler, one who was absorbed in his each and every word. Cid found them curled up in a pile of pillows, Mid drooling all over her daemon (Theodore was his name, Joshua learned-) and Joshua tucking the book away.

“Otto said I'd find you here.” He's gentle, considerate, as he carefully picks up Mid, allows Vala to work on handling Theodore. “Thanks for keeping an eye on her.”

“She's really smart.” Joshua says, because he's not even sure he was literate at Mid’s age, and he had the best education one could have. “And she's happy.”

Cid’s lips quirk up. “At least it isn't all for nothing.”

Joshua crosses his legs, hands grabbing at his ankles almost anxiously. “I mean it.” His voice is soft. “There's a difference between surviving and living. Me, brother, Jill, we were surviving. Mid… she's happy.”

Cid is quiet for a long moment. Mid sighs in her sleep, drools onto his clothes. Cid doesn't even seem to notice. “Tarja will have my head if you don't get any sleep, since you were supposed to be resting all day anyway. She has a cot waiting for you in the clinic, but Mid has a full comfortable bed if you don't mind sharing.”

A full bed given to a small child, Cid really was spoiling her. Joshua didn't care either way, that sounded a little like heaven right now. “As long as she doesn't kick.”

“Theodore does.” It's said like a joke, so he ignores it. It doesn't matter in the end, of course, because the bed is massive compared to two small children and Joshua’s asleep the moment his head touches the mattress.

He sleeps through the next day. He should've expected that. He had semi-primed, after all. What he doesn't expect, though, is what Ona does while he's asleep.

Day is breaking across the sky when Ona finally reaches her destination. She had been flying all night, from the moment her human had passed out to now. 

It is an uncomfortable feeling, being so far from Joshua. If she was a normal daemon it would be impossible, she would have severed their bond several times over. She is not a normal daemon, though. She is the daemon of a dominant, made of aether and fire, sparking life and burning death.

Joshua had semi-primed. She had, for several minutes, retreated back inside the rest of his soul, prepared to fully prime if need be. That gave her an opening, one that waned with each passing hour. She has no time to rest, else she risked permanent consequences.

(Joshua would be so upset with her, if he learns. She isn't quite sure why she's doing this herself, yet. Just that she is, that she must, though she is unsure why.)

She ignores how her internal flame quivers and wavers, flickering back towards where she came from, where Joshua was. Something urged her forward, and so she went.

The city is quiet, in the early morning. She uses the breaking dawn’s orange and yellow sky as a cover, diving towards the ancient castle and landing neatly on a windowsill. Why this one in particular, she did not know. She was pulled to it, something within her whispering here, go, now.

“By the founder- Ona?”

She chirps a greeting as Bahamut’s dominant appears before her, still in night clothes. He had obviously snuck out for some reason, only just now returning. The timing was perfect. “Dion. Bláthalyssa. It has been a long time.”

Lyssa appears from behind Dion’s back, climbing up his shoulders before taking off, landing only a few inches from Ona on the sill. “You are here, in Sanbreque? Where is your human?”

“Far away.” She replies, glancing between human and daemon. He has grown the same way Joshua has, though there is a different wariness that lines his shoulders, something that seems to frustrate him. “I cannot stay for long.”

“How are you even-” Dion stops himself, fighting with the idea of talking to another's daemon. “Is Joshua okay? Why did he prime?”

“That is unimportant.” Ona says, searching for what to say, for why she was called here, what was the reason behind it. What could possibly- “What do you know of the second dominant of fire?”

Dion blinks. Lyssa looks at her, questioningly, because she knows, even if her human doesn't. Lyssa can sense Leala on her, can smell magma and smoke and ash. “It attacked you and Joshua, the night Archduke Elwin was killed. It disappeared, and no ones seen it or you since - Ona, is it Joshua's brother?”

Ona does not respond, which is answer enough. “We don't have access to any archives, I am not sure when we will.” This might be her calling, what's urging her here, but that does not make sense either. This is a selfish thing, her call is innate, powerful, as if the Phoenix itself is guiding her. The Phoenix would not care about its dominant’s brother, even if it was Ifrit. Wouldn't it feel the opposite, since it now has to fight for its own position? “I ask you to look into this, to find out more about the second fire eikon, Ifrit. I will be in your debt if you do.”

Lyssa gawks at that, aghast, and Dion almost squawks. “Never!” Because that was all kinds of levels of taboo, having a daemon be in your debt, having a dominant be in your debt, having a Phoenix daemon be in your debt. “I'll help, but no, this is not a favor. I need no reward.”

Ona trills, takes a moment to press her feathery head against Lyssa's. “Thank you. Take care of yourself.”

And before either can respond, she has flown off again, a streak of fire rushing through the sky, flying back to her human.

That pushing feeling dissipates into nothing. Ona wonders what could possibly have been the true reason behind her journey.

He is moved back to Tarja’s medical room while he sleeps, mostly because Mid was a loud child and Cid wanted him to actually be able to rest. Luckily, so very luckily, no fever awaits him as he climbs back into consciousness. Luck is a strange thing.

He sneaks out the moment he sees that Tarja isn't around, stretching his senses to search for levin and thunder. Joshua barely even starts before he turns to Ona, thoughtful. Her aether is… mixed, somehow. Its normal fiery flare is brighter than usual, only just slightly. It throws Joshua off. Then again, he has been asleep for a full day.

Tossing his confusion to the side, he once again searches for the storm and lets his feet carry him through this tiny yet warm hideout. He finds himself at an open door, leading into what looks like sleeping quarters.

“The little one’s awake!” A voice chirps, and Joshua looks up to see Vala perched on the rafters up ahead. She ruffles shimmering feathers, white bolts of levin jumping from feather to feather. “You were starting to worry us.”

Ona hops from his shoulder and flies up to the rafters as well. Joshua doesn't look for Cid, instead responding. “Sorry for causing you undue stress - that normally happens whenever I prime.”

“Hm.” That would be Cid. He's leaned back at a wide desk, most likely procrastinating on something, or planning something else. “You've primed more than once?”

Joshua frowns. “No.” Because of course Cid knows that Joshua's only prime was a spectacular failure. He probably pays attention to every dominant, knows when each one is out for blood. Ramuh is as wise as he is lethal. “But I've semi-primed before, and I slept a three-day afterwards.”

Cid hums, does not respond. Vala and Ona tweet at each other up above.

“Well, it's good that you're up.” Cid finally says, stands from his seat. “I'm off to find the rest of your posse, and it's best if you come along to defuse the fire cracker ‘fore he tries to kill me.”

Joshua thinks that's unfair to Clive. Yet, at the same time, he knows what he is capable of, if Clive loses control. If Ifrit takes over.

(He tells Clive that he can't remember what happened, the first time he primed. That was true, at first. Now he just says it to soothe his brother. There is no way Joshua can tell him the truth.)

He squares his shoulders, tries to look alert instead of exhausted, weak. “When do we leave?”

Exiting the dead lands is similar to a harsh slap to the face.

Joshua nearly staggers as a wave of aether rolls over him. He had not realized how use to the emptiness he had become, and yet it felt silly now that he recognizes it.

Cid doesn't have the same problem. Instead, he whistles, and Vala nearly bursts into plasma as she shoots into the air. An ear piercing shriek calls from the sky. Cid rolls his eyes. “I don't know where she gets her theatrics from.”

Ona trills, but does not join. Instead, she hunkers closer to Joshua, as if seeking his warmth, their connection. Joshua wonders if it's a side effect from semi-priming. Bird daemons normally have a farther range than others. Maybe Ona just wasn't feeling it today.

“Not a clue.” Joshua teases, marches forward. Slowly but surely, they start tracing their steps back. He tries to hide his own apprehension as they go - Clive and Leala should have found them by now. Had something stopped them? Far above, Vala shrieks again. “Has she found something?”

Cid cocks his head to the side, huffs. “Traces of aether, seems like. Too strong to be from normal bearers.”

They start towards their target, moving slower than Joshua would like. It's mostly his fault, given his infliction. Several hours have passed before he starts to sense what Vala had. Sometimes he wished he was the daemon, and Ona was the dominant. Then he could see aether the way they do, instead of having to sense it.

They're close to the center of it when Vala and Ona both still, heads cocking to the side simultaneously. Aware and alert, Joshua feels Ona’s worry and panic before his daemon flies off his shoulder and to the side, away from where the traces of aether are strongest. “Ona? Ona!”

Joshua, of course, follows.

Cid curses behind him as Joshua runs, trying to keep up with Ona. They've been traveling through a wooded forest for the past hour or so, and Ona seems to be taking him even deeper. Ancient thick trees, untouched by civilization loom around him. Aether is heavy in the air, wild and untamed. It gets stuck in his throat, clogs his airways. His lungs hurt.

Ona screeches, outraged and horrified. Joshua vaults into view, head snapping to where Ona has perched.

Jill.

She's sitting against a gnarled tree, held solely by its large upturned roots. She is worse for wear, covered in jagged, bleeding cuts and bruises. Her eyes are closed, she's unconscious.

One of her hands is burned.

His heart jumps into his throat even as he stumbles forward, kneels at her side. Ona perches on his shoulder as he summons his own aether, sets about healing her wounds. Who could have, where was- no. It couldn't be him. Clive wouldn't have done this, not again-

Cid barrels into view and curses again at the sight of Jill. Joshua ignores him, ignores his own body, even as his head starts to ache, his heart starts to stutter. Jill looks better, so much better.

He won't stop until the burn mark has faded into nothing. Clive would never forgive himself, if he knew.

Where was he?

“Lad, that's enough.” Cid’s voice is gentle. He's kneeled next to him, at some point. Joshua doesn't let up, because there's still some discoloration, and he can't-

Jill groans, slowly making her way back into consciousness. There's a flash of blinding light, and Fionn appears in her lap. Joshua jerks away, afraid of touching him. He also frowns, because that means Jill had only just primed. As in, within the last day. Why would she have done so? Was it to fight Clive? “Jill?”

Jill’s eyes blink open. They're dazed, unfocused. Joshua hates it, forces himself to put more energy into his spell. At the same time, his own vision goes blurry, and he barely stops himself from collapsing. His aether disappears entirely. Joshua hates being so weak. “Joshua…?”

Her eyes flutter close, and Joshua thinks that's it when they snap back open again. Jill jerks up, eyes wide. “Clive!”

Fionn hisses and snarls as Ona screeches. Something ugly curls in his stomach. “Clive? What about Clive? Where is he?”

Jill looks terrified. “There was… not a dominant, but something like one, and he was strong…” Jill squeezes her eyes shut, as if trying to remember. “He wanted Clive to come with him. He didn't want to. There was a fight and…”

She looks around, as if just realizing she's somewhere she didn't mean to be. Cid scowls. “That explains the aether traces.” He tilts his head up, and Vala, who had been perched near Ona, takes off into the skies once more. “Everything's still fresh, if who I think you're talking about nabbed Clive, he can't have gotten far. I'll go get him.”

“Wait!” Joshua says, because it sounds like he's about to leave them here. “You aren't leaving us. I'm saving my brother.”

“You'd only slow me down.” Cid says, the truth, and Joshua bites the inside of his mouth. “Take care of Jill, get back to the Hideaway, and tell Tarja what's going on. Founder knows she'll beat my ass even if I give her a heads up.”

That last part is more low mumbling than anything else. Joshua goes to stand, to protest some more, but the ground moves beneath him and he barely stays on his feet. “What's going on? Who wants Clive, if not Benna?”

Cid opens his mouth, about to answer. Vala’s piercing cry sounds from overhead. “I'll explain once I've rescued our damsel, alright?”

He leans back, places his weight all on his back leg. That foot digs into the dirt, shifts to the side an inch, before Cid takes off into the woods, running at a speed Joshua would never be able to keep up with, even if he wasn't sickly. He's not sure if anyone would. Even without priming, or semi-priming, he can use his own aether to speed his step. Joshua isn't sure if any other dominant could keep up. He vanishes seconds after he started running.

Cid’s right. He would only slow him down.

Joshua clenches his fists, turns back to Jill. She's still reorienting herself, only now trying to stand. She's having a bit of difficulty.

Joshua helps her. “Jill, the burn on your hand…” he asks, because he cannot help himself. “What happened?”

Jill looks at her hand, perplexed. After Joshua's tending, there was only a small mark left, barely even noticeable. “He lost control.” She admits. “I was able to calm him, but even semi-primed he was still molten to me.”

Ifrit’s fire melts even Shiva's ice. Maybe that was only true because Jill was untrained. Joshua hopes so.

Jill hugs him, the moment she's able to stand. Joshua hugs her back, lets his relief bury his fear and worry, if only for just a moment. Then he lets go, backs up half a foot. “We're following Cid, right?”

Jill cracks a smile. “Oh, of course.”

She looks around, cocks her head to the side, and whistles, loud and long.

Several minutes pass.

Torgal barrels out of the foliage and into Joshua, Ambrosia not far behind. Joshua's never been so happy to see them before. “Hi boy!”

Torgal gives him several wolf kisses as Ambrosia chirps a greeting. Jill uses the chocobo as a support. Fionn stays latched around her waist like a belt. “Nothing can keep up with the dominant of lightning.” Jill pats Ambrosia’s side, proud. “But we have the next best thing.”

Ambrosia trills and kneels. It takes a moment, to get them both on, as tired as they are. Still, they stubbornly push through, and Ambrosia takes off, following the scent of ozone and rain.

If Clive has to rank the past few days on a scale of awfulness, he'd say this probably came in third, maybe second. Nothing compares to the night at Phoenix Gate, but the day after is nearly as terrible. This was a close third solely because he didn't know what became of Jill, because he's still unsure of Joshua's whereabouts.

Wherever he was, whatever these people wanted, Clive cared nothing about. Founder curse them all, he just wants his family back.

He's chained up, thick metal encircling his wrists and neck. He thinks that, maybe, he could melt his bindings, but the chains around his heart and flame makes it difficult to try. Several feet away, his daemon has also been chained, a thick collar keeping her against the ground. The metal digs into her neck in such a way that Clive feels her every move, her every shift, and his chest aches with it. He's unsure what they did, but it's working as well as crystal fetters, maybe even better. He's too disoriented to escape, unable to focus on anything but the feeling of Leala trapped.

Damn it. Damn all of this. He wasn't even aware of what these people wanted. The man who took him was cocky yet experienced, skilled. He and Jill stood no chance, even when semi-primed. 

Jill. Oh Jill, Clive prays to whatever might be listening that she's okay. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if she wasn't.

Leala shifts, something she had been keeping herself from doing previously. He can feel the metal around her like someone had stuck it in his own chest, cold and hard. Even blazing as she is, the metal does not heat. He forces down his own cough, his heart beating rapidly. “Leala-”

“Sorry.” She murmurs, still moving. Clive starts to cough in earnest, chokes for a moment when she raises her head towards him, straining the chain. “Still yourself.”

Hard to do when ones soul was making itself purposefully uncomfortable. It's hard to breathe, much less stay still.

Clive tries, squeezes his eyes shut and goes rigid. He feels heat, aether brushes against his face. When he opens his eyes, he finds Leala trying to melt the chain holding the cuff on his left wrist. “Human of mine, help would be appreciated.”

Clive, for some reason, barely understands. He stares at the chains, unable to think beyond the pounding in his chest, the cold clamping around his internal flame.

“Clive.” Leala says again, lowers her head back to the floor. The cold lessens, slightly. “Grab the chain, the warmth.”

Clive listens instinctively, his hand twisting around to grab the chain above his cuff. It's warm, as Leala said it would be. Meaning it can be warmed. Meaning-

Leala breathes a sigh of relief as Clive’s hand starts to heat. Her own magma veins flare and suddenly the chain is molten, dripping liquid metal to the ground beneath him. His arm drops, free.

“Good.” Leala says, aware that Clive still can't focus beyond what's happening to her. Even now he reaches towards her, still unable to get close. “Two more, Clive. Your neck and your other wrist.”

It's another few minutes before he's free, Leala having to direct him fully the entire time. He almost drops to the floor once he's no longer supported. The collar chained around Leala is tight, so tight, and it feels as if it's restricting his lungs the same way it would restrict Leala’s airways, if she were a normal animal. It was painful, he finally realized. He's unable to focus because his daemon was in pain.

He stumbles over, placing his hands against Leala’s collar. He's careful, choosing a spot where any liquid metal would fall to the floor and not on her. This collar was thicker than his chains, meant to hold both of them hostage, but it is still just metal. It cannot handle his flames.

He gasps when the collar breaks and falls off, when Leala stands fully and pressed into his side. As if he can finally breathe again, everything snaps back into focus once more. Everything comes into sharp clarity, and he cannot help but press his face into Leala’s side, inhale smoke and ash and breathe out fire in return.

Then, once his heart had settled, Clive stands, stalks towards the door. It's locked, predictably, so he sets his hand to the metal latch and feels it warm, burn, turn molten and soften before dripping through his fingers.

He pushes the door open softly, quietly. There are two guards, at the end of a dark quiet hallway. He curses at the sight of them, unsure what to do.

Leala blazes next to him, burning hot and bright, embers flying off her veins. There's a sizzling sound as she whispers something, and the two guards grunt, cut off in their screams as they turn into ash and dust, their armor clattering to the ground.

He can't bring himself to care, at their deaths, even as the smell of burning flesh and hair assaults his nose. Instead he pushes the door fully open and lets Leala guide him out. She puts her nose to the floor and starts sniffing around, hopefully searching for nature and a way outside. Clive grabs one of the dead guard’s swords and follows her.

He's unsure how long he was locked up - time sways in and out when one’s daemon is trapped the way Leala was. Still, as they start moving Clive tastes electricity, on the tip of his tongue. The whiff of static that fortold a coming storm. Hopefully it could help mask his escape.

Leala does her best to keep them out of the guard rotation. They take narrow back hallways and tight servant passages, something that would be impossible once Clive was fully grown. Already it was difficult, but his level of comfort didn't matter currently.

He didn't even know if Jill was still alive. If Joshua was safe.

Leala’s veins flare, in tune with his emotions. His daemon turns to nip his fingers, scolding. He needed to stay calm, stay in control, before his emotions gave him away.

There's a loud, long rumbling of thunder. Clive hears the crack of lightning following. Another sounded right after.

Then another. Then another. Each louder than the previous.

A piercing shriek cut through the air. Rain starts to pour, battering against the stone and bricks surrounding them. Leala perks up, starts rushing him.

They emerge on top of some battlement. They're in an abandoned fortress, left to be absorbed by nature and the blight. Rain pelts his skin, and Clive can hear it sizzle and spark against Leala’s body. There's a crack of thunder, followed by blinding lightning, slamming into the ground nearby.

Clive, the smart teenager he is, goes towards where it landed.

He is thoroughly soaked by the time he arrives. Flashes of green and purple light up the sky as two dominants clash once again. This time, though, it seems that Cid is winning.

Oh, Clive thinks as he gets close enough to see them, watches as Cid cuts clean through one of Benna’s wings. He's not holding back.

Leala howls, water sizzling in the air and vaporizing around her. She's a burning flame, and Clive feels that energy flow into him. Suddenly, the two dominants in front of him are moving slower than before. Clive can keep up, Clive can see them clearly.

Benna screams in pain, a rushing wind slapping at his face. Up above, there is a victory cry from Vala. Garuda yells in frustration. Clive readies his sword, charges forward.

Cid, at the same time, grabs a hold of Benna’s rapidly healing wing and throws her into  a nearby tree. Towards Clive. Clive isn't sure if Cid knows he's there, but he knows that Cid, even though he's no longer holding back, isn't aiming to kill. There's a reason he's going for her wings.

Clive, on the other hand, cares more about what will happen if they let her live.

So when Benna comes slamming through the treeline from Cid’s throw, digging her heels into the ground to stop herself and ending up only a few feet from Clive, he doesn't hesitate.

His sword rips clean through her side.

Benna gasps, chokes on air. She spins around, eyes widening at the sight of him. Up above, Garuda screeches.

Cid calls her name as she stumbles. The wound would be fatal, give it time. She had expended most of her energy on Cid, Clive doesn't think she'll be able to continue fighting. She won't be able to prime, that's for sure.

Lightning strikes. The air flashes with light. Clive sees a shape fall from the sky, another diving after it.

Benna falls to the ground. Another strike of lightning, and Cid is there catching her. “Great Gregor, Clive-”

He's scolding him. Clive can't bring himself to care. Benna was a danger to his family, was a danger to Cid too even if he can't overlook his apparent soft spot. Something had to be done, and he did it.

There's a crash, Vala’s panicked cry as a griffon thumps heavily against the ground. Benna gasps and spasms, head jerking towards the griffon. One of her arms reaches out for her daemon.

“Fuck.” Cid is looking at the wound, can see it'll be fatal too if it's not looked over soon. “Glad to see you, Clive, but I had that handled.”

The rain slows as Vala stops sparking and Cid slowly fades back to normal. Benna wrestles herself out of his grip, pulling away. “Stop pretending like you care, Cidolfus!”

“He obviously does.” Clive doesn't know why he now speaks up. “Why are you and your friends tracking us?”

Benna tries to drag herself even closer to Garuda. Blood starts to spill from her lips. “It is our Lord's will.” She says, though there is fear in her eyes now. She knows she's dying too. “His great plan, which you abandoned, Cidolfus.”

Cid frowns, somber and solemn. He looks like he's about to say something, when someone else speaks up first. “It is no matter, Benedikta. He has aided us still.”

Cid freezes, and Clive sees some fear flash across his expression as he turns towards the near voice, weapon once again drawn. Clive takes his cue and faces the woods, watches as an unknown man walks into view. “Speak of the devil.”

“My lord!” Benna, Benedikta? tries to stand, though she is too injured. The new man walks up to her and makes a gesture that makes her still. “My lord, it's him! That boy is the one you're looking for.”

Leala growls. Clive shifts, uneasy. The newcomer radiates aether in a way Clive has never seen before. He would die if he tried to fight him, he knows without a doubt that it's true.

His daemon is nowhere to be seen.

“Barnabas.” Cid greets, does a mocking bow. “If I never had to see your ugly mug again, it would be too soon.” And he makes his way to Clive, puts himself in front of him. So Cid knows it too.

Barnabas ignores both of them, turning to Clive as if he was the only one who mattered. “We finally meet.” He says, as if he had been waiting for years for this. Deep inside of Clive, Ifrit stirs. His eikon is not happy. “And what an epic showing it was, though not very noble of you. I did not expect the vessel to backstab, though I imagine you felt drawn to her power. Well, here it is.”

Clive blinks, not understanding. Even Cid and Benna look confused. “What?”

Barnabas gestures to Benna's dying form. “Garuda is right here, her power waiting for you. It is your birthright, to claim her as your own.”

“Bullshit.” Cid snaps, and Clive still doesn't understand, but if he looks at Benna he does feel the urge to move closer, to peer into her soul and see what it's hiding. There's an urge, an ever growing desire to take, to consume.

Without meaning to, his head turns to Garuda, to Benna's griffon daemon. And, for a single second, he feels greed.

Startled, he takes a step back. “No.” He says, repeats it as his voice grows steady. “Whatever you're saying, I won't do it.”

Barnabas looks disappointed. He sighs, like he's dealing with a rather difficult child. Cid tenses again, preparing for an attack.

There is a shriek. Clive blinks and Barnabas is gone. Cid, who had been standing in front of him, jerks and goes rigid like a normal man struck by lightning.

Then he lists to the side and falls to the floor, seizing and groaning like he's holding in his screams.

“Cid!” Clive is at his side immediately, though he's unsure what to do. His head darts around, looking for where Barnabas went. “Cid, what-”

Then he sees him, and everything makes sense.

Barnabas had reappeared nearby Garuda, where the griffon lay limply on the ground. He had one arm raised, his grip tight around Vala’s feathered neck, ignoring the sparks and tendrils of electricity that shot off of her. It would be all too easy for him to snap the thunderbird's neck.

“I suggest you reconsider.” Barnabas’ voice is a mere whisper, eerily casual. “At some point, Cidolfus’ eikon will be yours as well, as will mine be. You can protest that and I force you to take both of them now, or you can keep my Lord Commander around for a little while longer.”

Barnabas squeezes his hand. Vala screeches and screams. Cid cries out, thrashing against the floor. Leala snarls but doesn't try to attack. The ground around her is starting to bubble, liquify. 

Clive doesn't know Cid too well, but Cid was last with Joshua, had obviously come to save him. The chances that Joshua is safe because of Cid are high, and Clive will never be able to explain how grateful that makes him. 

But what is Barnabas asking him to do? Take their eikons? His mind is pulled back to that night at Phoenix Gate, when he almost killed Joshua. The feeling he felt, wanting to take and consume. Is that what he was trying to do? Take the Phoenix from Joshua? That would be, that should-

That should be impossible. That would undoubtedly kill him. And if the eikon affects the daemon…

Would taking the Phoenix from Joshua destroy Ona? 

Is that what Ifrit truly is? The great consumer? What would happen to a dominant’s daemon if he took their eikon?

He looks back towards Garuda, feels that greed once more. He thinks of Ona, of Fionn. Even if the person managed to survive, would their daemon? “What about Garuda? Benna’s daemon?”

Barnabas sighs, as if he was stupid for even considering a daemon's wellbeing. It made his blood boil, made Leala snarl. “Garuda belongs to their eikon, and their eikon belongs to you.”

Is he saying that, if Clive does this, he'll be stealing Benna’s daemon? If he ever consumed, he'd take the daemon of the dominant he consumed? He could take Vala, or Fionn, or Ona?

But the daemon doesn't belong to the eikon, they belong to the dominant. And yet, Ona appeared as the Phoenix, they are obviously connected. Leala would not look like this if not for Ifrit.

Benna looks horrified. She tries to scream, yells something incoherent. Barnabas looks down at her, one of his feet coming to settle on the griffon daemon’s neck. Benna immediately freezes, despair and desperation and anger battling in her expression.

Clive couldn't do this. He couldn't take another person's daemon. But if he didn't, Barnabas said he would force him, and Clive doesn't know how he could live with Vala following him around, Cid gone forever. How could he ever look Joshua or Jill in the eyes again, after that? How could-

Something leaps through the air, latches around Barnabas' neck, and swings around it like a spinner. Barnabas yells in pain and lets go of Vala, hands grabbing for whatever attacked him.

Torgal.

“Clive!” There's a rush of fire and ice, a combined torrent that slams into Barnabas' chest. Fionn and Ona appear from the treeline moments before Jill and Joshua do, riding atop Ambrosia. Their daemon's are surrounded by aether, the magic near visible in the way it moves around them. They were the ones who fired that attack.

“Clive, go!” Cid hacks from where he is on the ground. Vala bursts into a sparkling mass of purple and blue electricity, near liquid as she soars into the air above Barnabas.

The sky darkens, clouds appearing overhead. Ozone swells around them, so thick that it clogs Clive’s lungs. High, so very high, only a pinprick in the sky, Vala glows like a supernova.

Barnabas looks up. There's a look of irritation on his face.

Vala shrieks. Clive’s vision goes white, a boom so loud filling his ears that he goes deaf for a moment. It shakes the ground, cracking the dirt and rock below him. He feels the static race across his body.

A hand, on his shoulder. Clive blinks, and his vision comes back in bits and pieces. Barnabas had taken the brunt of the biggest lightning strike Clive’s ever witnessed, now kneeling on the ground and looking rather pissed about something that would have killed anyone else. Cid is the one next to him. He's holding Benedikta in his arms, who doesn't look too happy about it but isn't actively trying to get away. “We need to go.” He says, voice grave. “Before he recovers. I need Ifrit to get Garuda.”

The name sends a spike of irritation through Clive, but Cid is probably using it for a reason. He might even know the name of Benna's daemon too, but it's also taboo to share the name of a daemon that's not your own.

Leala answers for him, darting to Garuda’s side without hesitation. She's a little far, Clive feels the pain of it in his chest. Then Cid is shoving him towards Ambrosia, towards Jill and his brother with a muttered sentence of blasted kids can't listen to instructions and Clive forgets everything else. He runs towards them. “Joshua!”

“Clive!” Joshua immediately offers him a hand. Putting three people on Ambrosia is not the best idea, but Clive is the only one mostly full grown here, and it would not be for long. Clive scrambles up behind them, and Joshua whistles for Ona before turning Ambrosia around. “What did you get yourself into?”

Clive shivers as Leala comes into contact with Garuda. Slivers of emotions pass through them, pain and fear and desperation. Leala cools her veins and pulls the griffon up by the scruff. She's bigger, thankfully, and the griffon isn't so gone that they can't push their way up and onto Leala well enough to run. Cid waits nearby, overly aware of both keeping Benna close to Garuda and where Barnabas was getting to his knees. Vala shrieks up above.

“Story for a later time!” Clive says, and Joshua snaps the reins. Ambrosia trills and bolts.

It is not the most comfortable ride, for multiple reasons. Three to a single bird was one of them, and Leala could not keep at a comfortable distance carrying Garuda was another one. They ride like this for over an hour, before Cid stumbles and they recognize that powerful trained dominant or not, he's exhausted.

They pull Ambrosia to a stop as Cid wheezes and tries not to fall, still holding Benna. Joshua slips out of the saddle and rushes over. Benna had lost consciousness at this point, but as Joshua starts to heal her she starts to come to again. Garuda, who had started to turn to dust, croons and chirps. 

“Right scare, you gave me.” Cid moves back as Benedikta opens her eyes, though he stays close enough to pull Joshua away if she suddenly attacks. “Welcome to the world of the living, Benna. Your so-called loving Lord just tried to betray you.”

Clive grimaces at the reminder, still keeping his distance. That feeling of greed hadn't completely disappeared - he had been feeling it this entire time, in fact.

Benna makes a disgusted face, struggles to sit up. “So in the end, I am to be betrayed by everyone I cared about.” There's a pain in her expression that Clive’s not sure he could ever truly understand. Garuda croons again, is able to move to Benna’s side, tuck its head under hers. “It'll only ever be me and you - unless you're taken by him.”

The look she gives Clive should send him to an early grave. The air around Jill drops to freezing. She takes a step towards him, worried.

Cid sighs. “I don't see why Clive would do that, unless you try to kill one of them again.” He holds out an arm, and Vala appears immediately, perched near his shoulder and pressing her entire body against him. Cid nearly shudders, a rigid line in his form fading away. Vala had been grabbed by Barnabas over an hour ago. Someone else grabbing your daemon (with, of course, a familial exception), especially someone with bad intentions… it was torturous in its level of pain. The only solution was self soothing, letting the person and their daemon reunite immediately. Cid hasn't been able to do that yet, it's been over an hour.

Clive should've recognized that. They should've stopped sooner, let Cid rest. Until the reunion, the self soothing, it's still painful. They made him run semi-primed all this way-

“I'm fine.” He mutters, seeing Clive’s obvious horror. “Well, Benna, for the first time in your life I think you're completely free. You can do whatever you want, no one controls you.”

Benedikta laughs. It sounds broken. “Freedom is just an illusion. Where can I go?” Cid gives her a hopeful look, and her laugh turns harsh. “Barnabas will be after you soon, Cid. I want to be nowhere near it.”

Cid sighs. Vala trills. With his free hand, he digs into his pocket and pulls out a hefty pouch of coins, handing it to her. “Whatever you decide to do, that'll be enough to allow you to live comfortably for quite a while.”

Benna looks confused for a moment. “You aren't going to try and convince me to join you?”

Cid’s smile as sad, pained. “It's your life, Benna. You are in control.”

Benedikta blinks. She smirks. “I am, aren't I?” She looks at the four of them, glances at their daemons. Leala leaves Garuda's side, comes to press up against Clive. “Be warned about the boy, Cid. Barnabas is rarely ever wrong. If he says he can steal our eikons, our… our daemons, then I believe him.”

She glances at Clive one more time, just long enough that Clive realizes he's the reason why she wouldn't take Cid up on his offer, her fear of him, before backing up into the woods. Garuda flaps their wings, wind and aether swirling around like a gentle caress. Then, they are both gone.

It is quiet, for a long moment. Clive’s mind races with unanswered questions.

Joshua hums, holds out his hands and waits until Ona is there to hug her. “Let's go back.” He says, directed at Cid. “It's safe there.”

Cid considers it for a moment. He looks behind him, as if wondering if Barnabas is following. Then he looks at him, Joshua, and Jill. “Aye.” He murmurs, Vala chirping her agreement. And then he coughs and coughs and coughs and gets violently sick, and they can only watch because they all know that this is what normally happens when one’s daemon makes contact with a different human. Cid’s adrenaline and title as a dominant is the only reason he was able to push it off for so long.

They wait in silence for it to be over, and when it is they continue their journey in more silence.

Clive doesn't like the dead lands.

It feels like he's in a vacuum, all alone with no aether to sense, something he did almost as easy as breathing. It's like the white noise in his head is gone, replaced by an eerie silence.

Then that silence is replaced by a loud shriek as a child barrels into Cid and a woman looks aghast and groans, there's more of them!

Clive and Jill are given a checkup and are put on bed rest for a day for various different reasons. Cid almost gets away without one when the medic’s (Tarja, they learn) daemon sniffs out pain and he's given two days of rest for both daemon abuse and aether exertion. Joshua laughs at them all as they lay on their cots, unwilling to be brave and go against Tarja.

(Secretly, Clive thinks it's the best sleep he's had in years. The stillness of the aetherless air, Jill and Joshua nearby, Leala draped next to him - he sleeps soundlessly.)

Waking up is a hazy affair. He slept so deeply that he is unaware of where he is at first. In the quiet stillness around him, the peace of the late morning and the warmth of Leala next to him, for a single moment he thinks he's back in Rosaria.

Then his brain remembers. His eyes flicker up, always searching for his brother's daemon, finds her nestled in a little nook in the ceiling, leaned fully against Vala and asleep. His eyes go to Jill, finds her sleeping peacefully with Fionn draped across her, a scaly blanket. With each deep breath he exhales, frost leaks from his nose. Next to Clive, Leala is a crackling warmth, veins bright and sparking.

For once, their daemons do not feel the need to hide. They are known, they are free to express their true forms.

“Imagine the other kingdoms seein’ this now.” A raspy voice - Cid is laying still in his cot, eyes staring at the ceiling. “We'd give their rulers a heart attack - four rogue dominants all together.”

That was true enough. Even with their age and wildly differing skill level, four primed dominants could decimate a city with little trouble. While he still doesn't understand what exactly Barnabas wants, he can understand why he would want dominants.

“Thank you.” He says, near suddenly. “For helping me, and for keeping Joshua safe.”

A dry chuckle that sounds a bit painful echoes around the room. “I barely did anything, Clive. You saved yourself.”

He did, though he'd have trouble finding Joshua if not for finding Cid, Leala or not. Cid put himself in danger to help him, Vala was almost killed because he was trying to rescue Clive. Whatever was happening…

“What do you know?” His voice is quiet. “About what Barnabas was trying to do? I can… consume eikons?”

It's quiet, for a long moment. Cid sighs. “I don't know much, but I know he's been looking for something for a long time, and that something is apparently you. The power of your eikon, it's sudden appearance and the fact that it's a second eikon of fire… the idea that you can take other eikons is not too farfetched now.”

Clive stares at his hands, clenched in his lap. Next to him, Leala fidgets in her sleep. “Taking an eikon… would I actually steal the daemon too?”

He wants Cid to say no, because he can't bare to think of what it truly means, the idea of stealing a daemon. How close he had been to taking Garuda today.

“Our daemons can use aether.” Cid says, nonchalant. “Aether taken from our eikons’ powers. They are our souls, but they are the part of our souls connected to our eikons. Without them, we would not be dominants. If we were to die but our eikons are not properly released, I'd imagine our daemons would stay leashed and restrained.”

Clive can't help the pained sound he makes at that, the idea of leashing Ona and Fionn to him, forcing them to live long after Joshua and Jill have… gone. And what if taking their eikon doesn't kill them? What if they still live afterwards, daemonless for the rest of their days?

“I will never do that.” Clive says suddenly, determined. “Cid, please believe me, I would never-”

“Of course, kid.” Cid cuts him off, waves a lazy hand. “You're too good hearted, I have no doubt you'd fight tooth and nail to stop something like that from happening.”

It's quiet, for a little while. Clive runs his hand along Leala’s side, staring at where Ona and Vala sleep. There's so much to do - training Jill, helping Rosaria, staying alive, and now this has happened… will they ever truly be safe? Can Clive protect them, or is he the reason they're in danger?

“It's too early in the morning for me to be able to hear your thoughts.” Cid says, breaking the silence. “Rest, Clive. Everything else can wait. This place is safer than you think.”

It soothes him, more than he thought it would - Cid’s words. They have survived this long, and now they are together again, and they have new allies, new… friends. And not just anyone, but a dominant, one who knows his powers well and can control them even better. If they want to stand any chance against Barnabas, if they want to avenge their father and kingdom, being here is the first step to doing it.

And that calms Clive, relaxes him. Against his side, Leala's veins soften into rivers of warmth, gentle and peaceful.

Clive closes his eyes.