POETRY
Written on October 4, 2021 (♎︎)
Author's Notes: Written for Whumptober 2021 for prompt No. 4: Trust Fall (Taken Hostage).
Tietra had spoken to the squire from Limberry but once—when he'd recently come home in her brother's company, wrists still red and face still scratched from what he'd suffered on the plains. She had been in the southern gardens trying to commit a poem to memory: a sonnet sequence from Mesa's era with a blazoned mistress subduing the beset poet with so many poisoned glancesKing Mesa, for those who don't remember him from game, is the protagonist of one of the Sound Novels and the ruler who saved humanity during the Cataclysm. The conceit of women casting poisoned glances is typical of real world Petrarchian sonnets and meshes well with imagery later in the fic.. She had been told the style was a mould from which many other works were cast, and she had been told it would be to her improvement to commit it to heart. She liked the thought of that, however little she liked the poems; she imagined if she could but train her thoughts to conform to verse, she would possess some aspect of ladyhood already.
It was in that mood that she'd met Algus Sadalfas, and their meeting was no doubt colored by it. He did—in fact—mistake her for a lady, and she had done her best not to betray any disbelief that he should bow to her. When he asked after what she was studying, she tried to speak of it with the confidence of a girl raised on odes and elegies. It was much to her embarrassment when she realized the boy before her had no clue as to the poet being discussed.
"My apologies, my lady," he said with a mortification that must have matched her own. "I had a tutor once who taught me poetry, but he left us some years ago."
She must have blushed, for he apologized all over again. When Alma finally discovered them, Tietra was glad to be saved from what might have amounted to further scrutiny. She knew that she was not lady enough to warrant the boy's courtesies, and even if she were, she was glad to be spared from them anyway. She wished Ser Sadalfas all the best on his journey, and smiled, unflinching as he kissed her hand.
It was only after she had seen both him and her brother off that she heard something of his ordeal, and it was only then that she found any fondness for him. To hear that he had been rescued alone from the Marquis' slaughtered company drew her pity, but to have seen him bear up with no mention of it drew her regardA lot of the characterization here is drawn from one of the few in game hints we have as to Tietra's personality: her refusal to speak to her own suffering.. As she walked the long circuit of the Beoulve mansion's halls, whispering couplets under her breath, she imagined him. She saw him resolute in the midst of bandits. She saw him calm amongst the dead. Only having met Algus Sadalfas but once, Tietra somehow managed to assign him the same strain of heroism that she accorded her brother, and she thought of him more than once in the weeks that followed.
She wondered too, in the quiet of the long winter evenings, if he ever thought of her.
Perhaps it was the poetry? Perhaps it was the kiss of her hand? Perhaps it was the sight of a new face at Igros? She knew better than to ever speak of him again, and did her best to still any foolish thoughts lest Alma or God find them outJuxtaposition very much intentional.. For a time, she nearly forgot the boy through force of will. It was only when she found herself in the midst of bandits that she let her mind linger freely on that chance meeting and strange parting. As she swallowed every sob that threatened to break through her throat, she reminded herself as to how noblemen bore their hurts. In the long ride past the GulgThe Gulg (no doubt an allusion to Final Fantasy I's Gurgu Volcano) is a location mentioned in the tavern quests at Igros., in the endless walk through Siege Wield, in the dusty air of the windmill, Tietra allowed herself every mad phantasy her mind could shape if it helped her to bear through her ordeal with some grace.
Her captor, who bore himself up very poorly, seemed to resent her for it at first. He was very obvious in his desperation and had little taste for a cipher of a girl who would not answer him. By the time they were stumbling into the snow fields, however, he nevertheless spoke to and of her as freely as a man might to the empty air.
"I'm letting you go, you know, after the pageantry's over. I'll drop you and you can turn your basilisk gazeGolagros' ability to fumble through something like a poetic conceit and engage in some wordplay (a basilisk or cockatrice is House Beoulve's heraldic animal) is inspired by the unsupported claim on the Fandom Wiki that he has an aptitude for poetry. I have—at this point—decided that potentially inaccurate wiki facts are as good a source for headcanon as any. on me as I go to ground, milady." He laughed; it came out something like a sob. "I'd turn my damned self to stone if I could."
Tietra Heiral, who had repeated Solyeuse's accounts of maidens and their basilisk gazes for some two months past, nearly said something cutting then. When she bit her lip, it bled, cracked as it had become in the winter air.
She tried, in those last dohms' march to the fortress, to walk as though the cold had no claim on her. She tried to straighten her back and hold her head as if a book or a crown were balanced atop it. When she heard the gallop of talons in the distance, she paused only a moment. When she felt the frosted metal of the blade against her throat, her breath did not fog the air.
When she saw Algus Sadalfus again, features cold as her own, she did not blush.
There was a great silence—it seemed—as everything unfolded, and she felt the burn of a freezing tear slide down her cheek as Delita's voice floated behind her. When she called out his name, it was her first break with many days' silence.
Tietra collapsed even before she fell, going limp in the poor bandit's hands before he had a head for what was to become of them. As she looked towards the far side of the fortress, eyes locked with the bowman sighting her, she thought she could still make out some symmetry between them—that they should have their fates intertwine as concerned these men and this battle.
She imagined that she saw some thread between them that the arrow must trace.
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