VOICES: CHAPTER 2

As it seemed to go, the world did not allow much time to ponder the puzzle that was Ifrit’s lack of voice.  Joshua, while cleared to explore the area around the infirmary, had not yet been given leave to travel further than the front lift, and so remained in Tarja’s clutches until she deemed him fit.  Dion remained as he had since their arrival; unconscious, but alive.  And with the Cursebreakers spread thin, it fell to Clive and Jill to pick up the pieces no one else could.  When one mountain was scaled, another would present itself.

If it wasn’t bandits taking advantage of Dalamil, it was Akashic trying to knock down Martha’s Rest.  If it wasn’t crippling debt threatening several of the Hideaway’s closest allies, it was calls for aid from travelers on the road that couldn’t be ignored, even if it was petty, simply because the damn Hideaway needed the gil.  Grudges, cons, favors, peacekeeping, the list went on and on, and try as he might, Clive found it nearly impossible to keep up.  He suspected he might’ve cracked weeks ago if it weren’t for Jill’s company.  

Truly it was the small moments in between errands and calls for aid when they would bed down with the chocobos and Torgal off the side of the road, talking about everything and nothing until sleep came for one of them and the other would keep watch, that kept them both sane.  

And it was on one such night, cold and clammy from the sea spray off the coast near Northreach that the topic of Ifrit happened to come up again.  They had been sent there on an errand from the Tub and Crown’s kitchens for some ridiculously obscure ingredients, and while they had found it, so had night fallen before they could make their way back across the plains to the gates of town.  As uncomfortable as it was, the only truly defensible position to be had was on the cliff sides where they were not open to wandering Akashic or thralls.  Instead they were merely beset by the cold spray of the sea.

“It’s not fair, you know,” Jill mused from the depths of Clive’s cloak that she had draped around her.  He had given it to her when she had complained that her clothes would be frozen by sunup thanks to the spray.

“What isn’t?”

Jill waved her hand in Clive’s general direction.  “Your Eikon keeps the chill away without burning anything, meanwhile mine keeps the chill away but freezes anything even slightly damp.”

Clive couldn’t help the snort of laughter at her mock accusatory glare from beneath the oversized hood.  Nor could he help the puff of embers and smoke as he laughed that announced Ifrit’s opinion on the matter.  Jill's sudden blink of surprise was evidence enough that Clive wasn't the only one who noticed.  With a sigh of annoyance, Clive gave a mental side-eye at his Eikon, who seemed absolutely unrepentant at his unannounced intrusion.

I thought we talked about this, Clive grumbled internally.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered aloud, waving away the wisps of dispersing embers.  “He does that sometimes.”

“Ifrit?”

Clive simply nodded

“I take it he still doesn’t speak to you?” Jill asked with gentle curiosity.

“Not…in the conventional sense, no,” Clive indicated where the embers had faded.  “He likes to butt in every now and then, though.  One more way we’re different from every other Dominant, I suppose.”

They were silent for a few beats before Jill spoke up again.  “Huh.”

Clive raised an eyebrow at her when she didn’t continue right away. “Huh, what?”

“Apparently Shiva says that isn’t that uncommon.  Or…wasn’t that uncommon.”

“It’s not?”

Jill paused and an embarrassed expression crossed her face as her eyes darted between Clive and off to the side as she seemed to try and figure out how to phrase what she was going to say next.  “Um…apparently not.  It was something…young…Eikons did, before their bonds with Dominants gave them words.”  She was trying very hard to hide the chuckle in her voice, which Clive, and also Ifrit, he noted, did not miss.

“She used those exact words?” 

“Not….exactly…those exact words,” Jill hedged, trying to hide the grin unsuccessfully.  She risked a glance over at Clive, who just leveled a look at her until she gave up the pretense and shrugged helplessly.  “I may have paraphrased some of the…less flattering words.”

“Shiva did not just call Ifrit a child.”

Jill smiled sheepishly, completely unable to hide the amusement even under the hood and darkness.

“Oh come on, really?!”  Clive groaned indignantly, a slight double to his voice that signified Ifrit’s added irritation at the insult. Jill didn’t even bother hiding the laugh, and while Clive couldn’t imagine a smug grin on the Ice Eikon’s normally impassive face, he could imagine her haughtily looking down at them the same way he imagined Ifrit was snarling and bristling at the mockery. 

“Don’t take it personally, Shiva rarely has anything nice to say about anyone. Really she seems quite impressed Ifrit’s managed this much given he’s only been awake for eighteen years.”

“And only unchained for a few months.”

Jill raised an eyebrow curiously at the comment. “Unchained?”

“I’ve been thinking.  Joshua may have been on to something, when he said Ultima was to blame for Ifrit’s peculiarities,” Clive said, idly conjuring a small wisp of black-red flame in his palm and staring at it thoughtfully.  “He always seemed to come and go in fits and starts, priming was unintuitive if not outright impossible. I always assumed it was my own failings that contributed to that. Until Titan.”

Jill watched Clive’s face calmly, letting him collect his thoughts without interruption.  Of course Titan was the one major fight these last five years she’d been absent from, and Clive knew she had worried about what had happened when she wasn’t there to watch his back. It was only natural she would want to know details that had been omitted from the general story that circulated the Hideaway.

“It was the first time I felt like I had any control, like I could reach for the fire without it choking me or having it snuff itself out before I could grasp it.  But ever since then, calling the flame has felt more natural, like some dam has finally broken or some leash has finally been let go.”

“You think Ultima may have been holding that leash?” Jill wondered quietly, watching as Clive rolled the little flame along his knuckles until finally dismissing it with a quick flick of his wrist.

“I don’t know.  Perhaps.  It would certainly fit with all of the other manipulations he seems so very fond of,” Clive sighed.

“What is it about you and Ifrit that has him so obsessed?” Jill huffed in irritation.  “All this chaos and destruction, all just to get at you, and for what?!”

“That is the question, isn’t it,” Clive sighed again, heavier this time.  It was the question he’d been asking himself since Drake’s Head, only amplified every time Ultima had appeared to him, spouting his cryptic musings and intentions.  His mind drifted back to right after Joshua had woken up in the infirmary, when he brought up the possibility that Clive was some augmented form of Dominant, capable of wielding all the elements without limitations, and that was what Ultima was after.  It made his skin crawl.

There was an underlying snarl of disgust from Ifrit that seemed to echo Clive’s sentiments on the matter.  They were the second Eikon of Fire, that was who they were.  Not some god’s plaything sent to gobble up all the other Eikons at his behest.

Clive chuckled at the sense of indignity rolling off of the Hellfire Eikon at the notion of being something other than what he was.

“Well, at least we seem to be in agreement on that end.”

“You and Ifrit?”

“He seems about as thrilled at being Ultima’s object of obsession as I do,” Clive clarified.  “Now if only we could figure out what to do about it.”

There was an uncharacteristic snort from Jill that broke Clive out of his inner musings.  His raised eyebrow  made Jill clear her throat a bit in embarrassment.

“Sorry, um…Shiva was giving a very…vivid description of what exactly you two should do about it.  Including where to tell Ultima to go, how to get there, and all the filthy and physically impossible things he can do to occupy himself on the way there.  She offered to help.”

“How generous of her,” Clive grinned, feeling a huff of a smirk from Ifrit as Shiva’s offer of aid.  “I thought she didn’t like anybody else.”

Jill grinned, and her mouth twitched a bit, which Clive had started noting meant Shiva was vying for her attention.  “She would like me to convey several rather rude gestures to you, but as I will NOT be doing that, she would like Ifrit to know that she thinks it’s adorable he still talks like a newborn esper.”

“A what? ” Clive barked out laughing, only to suddenly feel the ash and burning on his tongue that said Ifrit was making his own sort of reply much in the way that had started this whole train of thought.  “What the fuck is an esper?”

“I don’t know!” Jill couldn’t help but laugh as well, though Clive did note there was frost in the air as she breathed which just made him laugh harder.  Their Eikons were having a hissing fit at each other and it was quite possibly the funniest thing he had ever seen in his life.  Primal beasts of enormous, nigh limitless power, reduced to teasing each other across the aether as their Dominants laughed themselves silly while translating.

Eventually though, both Eikons settled back down into their Dominants as the necessities of sleep called to Clive and Jill.  There was a long road ahead of them the next morning, and if the pattern of the last few weeks continued, there would be a stolas or two with their names on it with another problem to solve.

Unfortunately, the pattern held in spades.

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