Chapter Text
The time had come for Rosaria’s Feast of the Solstice, and Clive felt frustratingly alone. That seemed to be his burden to carry.
Lords and vassals from the Seven High Houses of Rosaria were assembled in Rosalith, the Archduke Elwin and Duchess Anabella welcomed them in celebrating the burgeoning winter season. Vassals of the Duchy, lords and common folk alike were welcomed into the castle’s wide halls to share in the festivities as dark snow rained outside. Tables and benches were filled with mead, meat and glad tidings. The servers were bearers, but even they appeared excited by the celebrations, and frankly to be inside during snowfall.
The idea that Clive was made to participate in this feast frustrated him to no end. Just as much as this Founder-confounding outfit he was made to wear. It was a black tunic with crimson red trim that had been form fitting once but now constricted his young frame. At the age of fifteen summers, Clive Rosfield’s growth spurt was indeed sudden and frustrating. But he (and the family’s tailor) made due. He was First Shield of Rosaria after all, Recipient of the Accolade and Protector of the Phoenix.
Not that Joshua was in attendance.
At the behest of the winter season, his brother had come down with a lukewarm fever and rested with young Torgal beside him. If the Duchess had her way, Joshua would be here, the night was one of heavy prestige only rivaled by the likes of Imperial Sanbreque to the East. But their parents did not share an equal partnership, much to Anabella’s chagrin. So perhaps to spite her, Elwin pressured Clive to keep to his oath of attendance. And now the young Lord Marquess found himself standing beside a wide pillar (one of four that stood in each corner), staying mostly out of view of anyone in attendance.
Social gatherings were not his forte, and as far as Clive Rosfield believed, he hadn’t earned the right to participate in such a gathering. He had vanquished no monsters, rescued no damsels nor summoned no Eikons.
The Phoenix rejected him, after all. Joshua’s blessing notwithstanding.
He dared not gaze upon the central feasting table, where he knew he’d find the Duchess staring daggers upon him if she were even to catch a glimpse of Clive.
She was a pointed woman, with blonde hair tied up into a tight asymmetrical bun. Her dress was lavish with velvet tones, clashing with her husband’s crimson and sable garb. She confidently simmered in the orange candle light, conversing and contrasting with her ladies in waiting.
Joshua’s failure to attend no doubt angered her to no end, especially when Clive’s attendance was more a tepid joke than a consolation prize.
Duchess Anabella held no love in her heart for her firstborn, but that hatred was not strictly centralized upon Clive when it came to their household.
“You’re quite fond of this pillar, aren’t you?” A young voice asked, Clive nearly spat from being discovered at his coveted hiding place. “It’s a very nice pillar, I must admit.”
“Jill.” Was all Clive could expire from his lungs, looking upon a girl a head shorter than him with inquisitive gray eyes.
To call her simply a girl was woefully inaccurate. Jill Warrick was a ward of the duchy, the daughter of the Silvermane, Chieftain of the Northern Territories, meaning she was something of a Princess. She had lived like a member of House Rosfield for the last six years ever since her father’s raids against the duchy had been quelled.
She was also Clive’s best friend, nobody else could make him stand on edge like Jill did so effortlessly.
Perhaps by design, Lady Warrick wasn’t dressed nearly as well as a true Rosfield, she only wore a higher quality material to the dress she wore regularly. Her gown had a homely quality, something that more befitted the smallfolk in attendance rather than the lords. Yet to Clive they all knelt below Jill’s true nobility (even if she wasn’t allowed to gesticulate in it). He also didn't speak of it, knowing Jill would assume his intent was to tease her.
She wore a necklace adorned with a sky-blue crystal, one of the few keepsakes Jill had of her homeland. It was a crystal mined from Drake’s Eye. Those had gotten rather rare in the last few decades, as Clive’s uncle had once mentioned. It jangled gently as the girl swayed lightly from side to side to watch his eyes.
Under the rays of candle light, there was a tinge of orange in the northern gray hair that reached her shoulders. The same orange candle light flickered in her diffused eyes. Her smile made Clive unwell in the best of ways.
As the young lord composed himself, Jill cocked her head curiously. “Expecting someone else, my lord?”
“I thought…” Clive stammered, “Joshua managed to weasel his way out of this, I figured you’d be keeping him company, with Torgal and Lord Murdoch.” He noticed an odd look in Jill’s eyes at his assumption. It was fleeting and left swiftly.
“As wonderful as that would be… the duchess requested I attend.”
He noticed how her ashen eyes danced away in the utterance of that word.
“She said it would be an important opportunity for my education as a lady. The kind I wouldn’t have been afforded in the North.” There was pain in her voice as she spoke of the Duchess, despite never really talking about it… they both knew.
His mother saw Jill as a savage, a barbarian, representative of a people his family beat into the ground. The ashen product of mixed impure northern breeding. She was little more than a walking trophy and this castle was her container. To Clive the bearers seemed freer in Rosaria than Jill was.
All was in its right place, as far as his mother was concerned.
He watched as Jill looked out across the feasting attendants and dejectedly pulled her crystal necklace up to hide it under her dress.
“I’m sure you would have.” Clive said matter-o-factly, and Jill swallowed with a nod. “She must be mistaken.” He glanced out towards the feasting table.
Even beside this pillar, Clive could see how coldly his mother regarded her.
A northern nuisance.
And yet somehow, Clive was even lesser.
“I’m sure she just wants me prepared for when I’ve come of age.” Jill reasoned. “I’ve seen plenty of these feasts, but she’s never been so… direct, before.”
No doubt the duchess wanted Jill married and gone as soon as her luster as a conversation piece wore off (which was arriving). Clive recalled something he heard her say to one of her attendants in confidence:
“Despite my efforts, the girl still carries much of the Silvermane’s arduous odor. Sadly, true nobility cannot be instilled within such a mongrel. I fear the longer we Rosfields limp with a Warrick shackled to us, the greater the unfortunate assumptions will be made about the future of our Noble House.”
Jill’s status as a princess gave her a certain prestige with the smallfolk. The kind that peasants get excited about as if it were written in the stars and delivered by Metia. But the duchess had far greater ambitions in mind for Joshua’s eventual nuptials. As for Clive’s… what else was there to say?
As much as the Archduke tried in vain to defend his son’s honor, Clive’s place in all this was clear. And he agreed.
He was little more than a failure-first-born passed over by the Phoenix.
Clive didn’t know why he dwelled on this line of thinking so damn much, but he realized Jill had already moved on from that uncomfortable subject. She wondered why he was in attendance to the feast, in which he was currently hiding. This was indeed unusual for him.
“His Grace insisted I attend after Joshua departed.” Clive spoke with a clinical rehearsed manner that prompted Jill to raise a colorless eyebrow. She was nearly three summers his junior, but knew him better than most, including himself.
“You don’t have to call him that, you know.” Jill leaned back, pressing her slim shoulder blades into the pillar, clasping her hands to her stomach. She looked out across the hall. Clive followed her gaze, seeing his father, Archduke Elwin laughing beside his dear uncle Byron, the Warden of Port Isolde. “You can just call him father. That is what he is… for you, I mean.”
Jill respected the Archduke, he had always done right by her in the rare times Anabella’s cruelty was transparent. But she didn’t hold much true affection for him, certainly not like his sons did… and certainly not like she held for those sons.
Her place as a ward in this family was clear from the onset. Only Joshua had been momentarily confused. It took the boy time to realize Jill wasn’t his sister.
Clive remained silent, listening as the young princess continued her thought.
“In fact, he likely asked you to attend because he’d want his son sitting there with him.”
And as soon as she said that, Clive noticed the empty space beside his father and uncle.
The young lord felt a deep yearning within himself. Oh how he wanted to sit there beside them, in a place of honor.
Perhaps Clive would quote Saint and Sectary and delight Byron. Even if Jill disagreed, Clive’s Sir Crandall was quite good.
But past the pillar he saw his mother sitting beside Elwin, and Clive’s shame returned.
“I’d simply make a mockery of myself…” Clive retreated, Jill watched him with a sad gaze.
The two stood there in silence, as life happened around them.
To a random onlooker, they appeared as prisoners behind a transparent cage. But the difference between them stemmed from the source of that cage.
Jill Warrick was a prisoner, Clive Rosfield only thought himself one.
It seemed unlikely either would ever escape that cage, not without intervention.
Jill had watched Clive for what felt like hours, unsure what to say. How much she wished to free him from his burden, from his mother’s cruelty. But how could she free him when she herself was just as much a victim?
After a pause, the band relented and finally began a new song… a nice jaunty tune.
The Maid and the Sparrow’s Aim
It was a silly and frivolous song, meant for dancing. It was about a peasant woman whose lover had been transformed into a sparrow by a villainous bearer. There were more risqué elements to the song about the meaning of the sparrow’s “aim” that went over the heads of many young people unexperienced in the world, like young Lord Rosfield and Lady Warrick.
Folk in the hall stood excitedly from their seats, taking the hands of their loved ones. Clive’s Uncle Byron even stood up and offered a hand to his brother. Sadly, the Archduke graciously refused. Byron maintained his pride and joined the duchy’s vassals as laughter filled the halls. The song was a hit.
“I’m surprised the Archduke isn’t dancing.” Jill pondered. Clive shrugged.
“The Duchess doesn’t enjoy the physical parts of these events…” As he said that, Jill could see a distant detestable glare in the duchess’s face towards the merrymaking. It was almost a look of jealousy. “For her husband to participate alone would reflect poorly on her.” Jill had the cutest giggle at that insinuation, and Clive’s heart leapt.
“Your mother has two left feet?” A mischievous smirk flashed onto the young lord’s face.
“Father says she might as well be dead the way she moves.” There was an uncomfortable realization, “Uh… the Archduke, I mean.” He stammered, Jill laughed again.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone, Lord Marquess.” She beamed. “Our little secret.”
The way she looked at him… in the recent years Clive had wondered if that was how a sibling looked at you, because it felt nothing like how he regarded Joshua. Jill was different.
“I have never seen you dance at any of these.” She realized. “That’s an odd thing to have in common with the Duchess.” Clive squinted at the insinuation. “Two left feet is hereditary?”
“I’ll assure you that my footwork is impeccable, my lady.” To question his footwork would be a slight against Lord Commander Murdoch and his training. The First Shield of Rosaria refused to suffer such trite nonsense.
“But I’ve never seen you dance… at least not like when we were little.” Jill teased. Clive’s cheeks burned from the memory. He remembered years ago, taking Jill to Mann’s Hill in that rain, the way she laughed and danced upon that bed of snow lilies. “Why is that? I’ve even seen Joshua dance at these feasts.”
“I’ve just,” Clive bemused, he honestly never thought much about why he didn’t participate. He studied the crowd, seeing the loving couples, how they held each other. Words eventually did find him. “There was never someone it was right to dance with.”
“Never had the right partner?” Jill wondered out loud, her blinking increased, mulling over something in her head… doing complicated arithmetic. Her heart rate intensified as she stared at Clive… not that he made the connection.
So Jill’s hand tenderly tapped his shoulder.
“Would you… like to dance?” Her hand was outstretched, “Everyone’s doing it, so would it be so weird if we did?” Clive raised an eyebrow at his friend.
“You want to dance with me?”
“It… does seem appropriate.” Jill stammered. She couldn’t even begin to articulate why she wanted this, but her eyes were pleading with him, there was also a nervous terror behind her gaze. Her lip quivered nervously, struggling to maintain a fine line.
It was strange, the way Jill looked at him with the light in her eyes, like no one else was here.
Clive’s first instinct was to take her hand.
But of course he didn’t listen to that instinct. He heard his mother’s voice in his head, of her judgement…
“What if people see?”
“It would be inviting undeserved attention.”
“You’re making this about you, Clive. This isn’t your place.”
And Clive proceeded to put a foot in his mouth.
“What would everyone say? If they saw us?” Jill’s eyes lowered so slightly. Clive’s inner monologue begged himself to stop talking, but his stream of consciousness could not be diverted.
“Would they think I was… courting you?”
“…” Jill’s hand lowered, A coldness filled the air between them, it was comparable to standing outside in a chilling gale.
“It’s just… I don’t want to potentially hurt your prospects, and the Duchess could draw the wrong conclusions and—" Jill cut him off.
“No, no you’re right… this was stupid. All of it.” The terror in her gaze was replaced, becoming a look of regret. “I don’t know why I thought that… forgive me, Clive.” It was all so fast and sudden, he could have sworn he saw something gathering in her eyes.
“Jill, wait—“ She tried to cover her face as embarrassed tears slid down her cheek.
“I must not be feeling well. Enjoy your night, my lord.” She cried, pushing away from him, fleeing into the crowd as the dancing erupted to absorbed her.
A whirlwind of confusion had swept Clive, he wasn’t sure what just happened, only that it bothered him deeply… and he wasn’t sure why that was. He bent to give chase into the crowd, but his foot nearly slipped. Small cracked ice crystals were pressed into the underside of his boot.
What?
In Clive's defeat, he found himself finally looking to the main feast table. He saw his mother, the Duchess Anabella sitting beside his unaware father, with almost a gleeful smirk. She obviously didn’t know what just happened with him and Jill, but a look of misery was universal in their household. She'd cherish it for days to come.
In that moment, like most moments, Clive Rosfield was reminded where he stood.
And all was in its right place.