Crystalline Refractions

by icefallstears

Summary:

Cid, Jill, and Clive all reach Northreach only to have a secret from the distant past derail their plans for the Mother Crystal.

Notes:

Many thanks to WhatButAVillain and the rest of the FireStorm discord for their support and encouragement.

Chapter 1: Northreach

Isabelle was getting impatient. Cidolfus had assured her that both of his contacts would arrive before he did. However, midday was rapidly approaching, and only the young lady Jill had arrived. Isabelle had escorted the young woman through the gate under the guise of her being a new girl for the Veil. It had worked well and she was now back on the far side of the gate waiting for this “Clive”. Her heart clenched briefly as it did every time she heard that name mentioned. She did not let her pain reflect upon her face with the ease of long practice.

She shifted her weight on her tired feet and looked around the small market again. She nearly dropped the basket she was carrying. The person standing with their back to her looked just like him. As he turned to look somewhere else, she got a better look at what he was wearing. There was no doubt about it. That was the armor she had given her dear love years ago at their last meeting. How had this man come across it?

The man turned to face her at last and it was all she could do to not gasp out loud. Those eyes, she knew them well for all that she’d not seen them in nearly three decades. Set in a face both familiar and unknown, complete with a Bearer’s brand those eyes looked into her own with a complete lack of recognition.

Isabelle steeled her spine and strode up to the young man striving to keep her sheer shock and the burgeoning tears from her face.

“You must be Clive,” she stated, proud that her voice did not waver.
“Cid’s friend. “You are late. Follow me and keep your eyes down. Right now you are my newest guard.”

With that, she set out towards the gate. Inwardly she was cursing herself. How could she be so cold to him? She took a deep breath and then let it out again and reminded herself that time was of the essence. She needed to act like nothing was wrong and the longer she was in this man’s company the harder it would be to keep up that pretence. It was the work of some minutes to get them both through the gate and approach the Veil.

As they reached the front doors, she flagged down one of her girls Jessamine.
“Yes, Dame?”
“Please go to the gate and escort in a “friend” of mine. You know the one. Cid. He should be arriving any minute now. Do not dally”
“Yes, Dame.”

After they stepped through the front doors, Isabelle let out a shaky breath and flexed her fingers which had been clamped down on the basket handles since she first caught sight of the young man in front of her.

“Come in Clive. Your friend Jill should be in the kitchens. It’s still early enough in the day we should be able to walk there without interruptions. Follow me.”

Clive just looked at her and kept his silence though she thought she saw puzzlement start to crease his brow. He followed along quietly with that great beast of a wolf traveling in his shadow. They reached the kitchen without incident and she looked over at the young lady who she now knew to be Lady Jill Warrick and motioned her to follow herself and Clive. From there they all traveled deeper into the depths of the Veil until they reached her office.

It was well appointed with her desk and chair, a large fireplace that was bracketed on either side by a pair of plush couches and a short table already laden with her favorite refreshments and snacks. She gestured for the pair to sit down and watched carefully as the young pair chose separate sofas to sit on. Clive on one on the end nearest to the flames of the fireplace, and Jill on the opposite side at the end furthest away from the fire placing them in an odd sort of diagonal pose.

For herself, she chose to sit behind her desk in the hopes that it would help her maintain her rapidly fraying composure. Just as she finished the act of sitting, there was a short knock on the door to her office.

“Ma’am your friend is here.”
“Send him in please,” she ordered her voice just a tad hoarse.

With that Cid walked into the room with a thunderous frown.

“What in great Greagor’s shapely ass do you think you are doing Isabelle? This wasn’t the plan.”

Isabelle opened her mouth to explain only to startle herself when a great gasping sob came out. Other sobs quickly followed. She covered her face with her hands as she broke down with all the emotions she had been suppressing since she had seen Clive dressed in his father’s armor. The armor she had commissioned for Elwin all of those years ago.

Distantly she heard Cid curse again, but all she could do was keep crying, relief and grief mingling in her and coming out as great racking sobs. After a few minutes, she was able to start bringing herself back under some semblance of control. Tears were still slowly leaking from her eyes as she dropped her hands from her face only to see that Cid was in front of her desk looking at her as if he’d never seen her before. The pair by the fireplace seemed discomforted by the scene and wouldn’t meet her eyes as she looked at them.

Isabelle took in a shuddering set of breaths, before lifting her head and dropping her hands from her face. She kept her eyes averted from her guests as she searched her desk for a handkerchief. She started as one was thrust into her eyeline, drawing her eyes from the hand holding it, up the arm to the very concerned face of Cid.

“Thank you,” she murmured, as she took the offering and dabbed at her eyes,“my apologies for the outburst. I just …” It was there she trailed off uncertain of what to say next.

Cid leaned onto her desk with both hands.

“In all my years knowing you Isabelle, I’ve never known you to be easily upset. So something must be very wrong.”

“No, Cid. Something is finally right. It’s just not something I ever expected. Not after so many years, and especially not after that night.” She looked over at Clive then who looked discomforted at the scene she had made.

“After the Night of Flames. When that horrid woman declared that all of the Rosefield males had died at Phoenix Gate.”

Isabelle sniffled a little with renewed emotion, as she stood up and walked over to Clive who was still sitting nearest the flames. Isabelle vaguely heard Cid following her but paid him no mind as she knelt in front of the young former Bearer.

“I’ve never forgotten these eyes and seeing you in the armor I had commissioned for Elwin confirmed it. You are Clive Rhys Rosefield, the first-born son and only child of Elwin Rosfield and myself, named Clive after Elwin’s grandfather and Rhys for my father.”

Isabelle watched as Clive’s eyes widened in shock as she once again heard Cid curse in surprise.

Chapter 2: The Past

Summary:

Isabelle explains how she and Elwin met

Clive wasn’t sure what to think or feel. Anger, shock, and disbelief were all mingling inside him. Ifrit was also shifting around, prowling as if seeking a gap in Clive’s willpower to do… something… Clive didn’t get a feeling of destruction like he had before, it felt a bit more like Ifrit wanted to peer at Dame Isabelle with his own eyes instead of Clives.

He started and then relaxed when he felt a hand clamp down on his right shoulder with a tight and slightly stinging grip. Cid had a hold of him and the threat of Ramuh was enough to settle Ifrit back down into the depths of Clive. With that settled Clive was more easily able to focus on Isabelle who was still on her knees in front of him, hands hovering in the air as if she was trying to resist grabbing his hands as she spoke.

Clive looked at her more closely, knowing that his silence was probably being taken the wrong way but unable to stop himself from seeking out a comparison between her face and his own. She had rich dark brown hair, and deep blue-green eyes, a far cry from Anabella’s pale blonde over steely grey. But he thought he could see something in the shape of her jawline that mirrored his own.

But on the face of it, nothing she had said struck more deeply than the name Rhys. It was a name that only his father had used for him when they were alone. Not even Joshua had heard their father use it for Clive so rare and private were the times it had been used.

But still,

“Prove it.” Clive heard himself demand as if from a distance. He cleared his throat and then softened his voice, “Please if you can, show me.”

Isabelle stood up then and Clive watched as she went back to her desk. She appeared to twist a pair of drawer pulls and then a small compartment opened. She pulled out a few small items and brought them back over to the seating area and placed them on the low table in front of Clive. She lifted the first item and handed it to Clive who took it, feeling Cid lean in and look over his shoulder from behind the sofa he was on. Jill was also leaning in from her seat on the opposite sofa though so far she hadn’t made her voice known.

The item that Isabelle handed Clive was a small portrait of a young family. A woman with Isabelle’s hair and a piercing set of green eyes, a young girl that would have to be Isabelle, and most shocking of all a tall gentleman in seafaring clothes that made Clive feel as if he was looking into a mirror. The same shaggy black hair, the same nose, and most convincing of all the same bright blue eyes. Joshua had had eyes the same shade of sky blue as their father Elwin, but Clive’s royal blue eyes had always been a quirk of fate he’d thought.

Isabelle spoke up again.
“My father Rhys and my mother Ellie. Father owned a few merchant ships and we were comfortable in our home in Port Isolde. Then one day a storm hit and all of our ships, including the one he was traveling home on sank just short of the Port.”

Clive watched as she took a deep breath and then continued, the portrait still in his hands.

“Mother never recovered and when she passed a few years later when I was 16 we were destitute. I ended up working at a tavern by the docks to try and stay afloat, but it was so very dangerous. Then one night the Madam of the Siren’s Song came in and offered me a place there. I went that night and never looked back.”

Here she picked up a small diary and a slightly larger ledger.

“A couple of years later, not quite a year after Elwin and Anabella were married and just a few days after the previous Archduke had passed, Lord Murdoch and Elwin arrived at the Siren’s Song for the first time. It was Rodney’s idea. The arranged marriage had not been going well between Elwin and Anabella, and with Elwin’s father passing so suddenly things reached a breaking point, so Lord Murdoch thought that perhaps even if Elwin did not take full advantage of the possibilities of a night at the Siren’s Song at least a night away from Rosalith would do Elwin well. ”

Clive bypassed the diary not wanting to intrude on such private thoughts and so he opened the ledger to see his father’s handwriting on the lines listing out the sums he had paid. The last thing Isabelle brought over was a gorgeous jewel. A ruby and silver broach. One that Clive recognized.

“This was my grandmother’s,” he stated feeling a sense of shock. “I’ve seen it in the portraits of her and grandfather.”

Isabelle nodded and spoke again, “Elwin gave it to me the day you were born. He had been my sole patron for nearly two years at that point and your conception had been quite the surprise, especially coming so closely to the same timing as Anabella’s pregnancy.”

“Alas, she lost the child a few months before it was due to be born and I gave birth about a month after her loss. It was what made it easy to install you as Elwin and Anabella’s firstborn as she went into seclusion after the loss.”

“In the end, you were to be raised as the son of the Archduke, and I was given ownership of a “house” far from Rosaria as the former madam was retiring, this broach, and the memories of you as a newborn.”

Clive looked up over his shoulder at Cid, who nodded slightly, and then over at Jill who was still silent as she had been the entire time. Jill looked back at Clive a nodded as well. Clive then looked into the eyes of Isabelle and made a decision.

He reached out and laid his right hand over her hand that still held the broach and gripped it gently. He tried his best to smile through the tumultuous emotions boiling inside him as he said, “Thank you.”