A FAMILIAR UNDER HIS TONGUE
Written in 2021
Author's Notes: Originally written for the Gran Grimoire Ivalice fan zine. Title taken from Henry VI: Part II
Delita had learned not to be surprised at the world’s flair for the tragic or strange. Hand wringing and lamentations were best left to pageants and players, and he now thought himself fitted to a better profession. When he finally found himself sitting on the opposite side of an oak table from Wiegraf Folles, he took it in stride. He did not call to mind speeches the man had made with a zealot’s assurance. He did not think about how he had handled the Death
Corps a year prior or how they had handled him. He certainly did not try to do the moral mathematics to determine the blame Wiegraf bore for the terrible end to it all: what he had done or not done that had resulted in a knife against Tietra’s throat and an arrow in her heart. Delita looked at him with the absolute vacancy he reserved for every other Templar and gave a little smile and nod to acknowledge another man was joining him.
It was spring, and it seemed strange to have sailed through Warjilis just as the sparrows swept back to the northern provinces. There was something supremely comical to seeing Wiegraf sitting there in the muddled light of the stained glass, quiet and upright as though he were a dog waiting for his handler. Delita had not really thought there would be another Templar about when he came to collect the princess from Vormav, and he certainly had not considered that he’d be asked to meet with them. He wondered if it was some plan on the old man’s part to rattle one or the other of them. Having just witnessed all of Ovelia’s tears at being no princess, he was newly aware of the delight the man took in painful revelations.
Delita decided then that he would neither be the one rattled nor the one
pained.
"Templar Folles," he said with a smile, "I trust the Good Lord treats you kindly."
Wiegraf nodded but did not speak.
"Has the High Priest any great designs for you in the coming months?" he continued blithely. “I’m headed east and will sadly be removed from most of your order for a time. I should be happy to know—”
"We don’t need to talk to one another, Hyral." His voice was dark. Delita noticed that he didn’t meet his gaze when he looked at him.
Delita took a deep breath and thought to himself that there was something invigorating to the slight chill in the air that had lingered into late April. His eyes fluttered shut a moment as he heard a bell toll nones.
"Is there any reason you shouldn’t wish to speak to me, Templar?" he continued, keeping his chipper tune. “Aren’t we brothers in arms now?”
He was very cognizant of the slight emphasis he placed on the word "brothers." He heard the plate of one of Wiegraf’s gauntlets creak a little, as though he were trying to ball his fist beneath it.
"Do you have business with me?" Wiegraf said very pointedly. He was obviously losing patience. "Is there any grievance we should be addressing here?"
"Do you think there is, Folles? I’d be unhappy to grieve you."
Delita did not let any trace of grief flutter through him as he stood up and walked slowly to where Wiegraf sat. Any thought that might approach remembrance or resentment he cast aside, until the substance of his life a year prior was a great absence: a void in which nobody died and no vengeances could be sworn.
Wiegraf’s shoulders fell at Delita’s approach. "You know I ordered her released." His voice dropped to a whisper. “It wasn’t as if—"
"As if what?" Delita smiled coldly.
Wiegraf leaned his head into his hand and breathed hard—convulsively almost. It was the sort of action Delita felt a slight turn could transform into a sob. He thought then of the horrid grey skies over Lenalia, and of how dismal a thing it was to send boys to fight starving soldiers where it seemed even the sun wouldn’t look at them.
"The past is the past, Wiegraf," he said after a moment. "We don’t need to dredge it up where it isn’t needed.”
"Then you—"
"I don’t need to think of the past at all right now, Wiegraf.”
He leaned close, feeling a viciousness welling in him that seemed out of proportion to the tenor of the moment.
"We’re very different people, you see," he whispered sharply into his ear, "and positions change faster than one would think."
Delita tensed a moment when he heard the door open, but he continued.
"When last we met you were the one who was going to change the world, and I the pathetic boy crying after his sister."
Wiegraf gave no reply, of course. Vormav and some handful of other men filed slowly into the room to take their seats, and Delita took his in turn. He smiled only slightly to see the man across the table from him turn ashen.
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