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The constant clockwork vibrations of Ancheim had Edea on edge. She fidgeted, fingers splaying across the table’s surface, before curling them inwards and forming a tight fist. In and out, in and out, precisely on the pounding ticks and the groaning tocks that served as the very heartbeat of the city. Desert heat, she was certain, agreed little with a native of Eternia—
But still, she had come at her request.
Agnès smiled.
“The wind’s really blustering today, isn’t it?” Edea remarked at length, her eyes wandering toward the window. The windmills were turning at an unusually quick pace—great fans of circling cloth and steel that passed across the blue sky like strange clouds.
“Yes, it’s actually a good omen! The Wind Crystal is blessing us with an especially bountiful breeze.”
“Uh huh…if only it’d bless us with some rain clouds.”
Chuckling at Edea’s wry tone, Agnès cupped her glass of iced tea in both hands. “I am certain it’s difficult to believe, but this amounts to a fair day for Ancheim.”
“I’m sure! The ice cream’s as good as I remember it at least, so it all works out.” Edea helped herself to another mouthful of the infamously stretchy ice cream, humming low in her throat in pure bliss. She did spare a moment to crack an eye open though, regarding her friend curiously. “What did you want to talk about, Agnès? Don’t get me wrong—I’m always glad to see you—but you haven’t carved any time out of your schedule lately unless it’s something really important.”
From the corners of her eyes, Agnès spotted her new bodyguards quarreling amongst themselves as they stood watch outside. Or, more accurately, she watched Yew trying and failing to ignore the jostling Janne was giving him as Nikolai looked on in equal parts amusement and exasperation.
“I…” Agnès faltered now that she was actually faced with the moment of truth—a truth that she had somehow transformed into a struggle for words. An uncomfortable clenching seized her throat and left her speechless, as well as short of breath.
Edea put down her fork and frowned. “Agnès? What’s wrong?”
Normally she would draw strength from Edea’s fearless and unwavering gaze, but at the moment, she simply found it overwhelming. She stared at her own reflection in her tea instead, brows furrowing with a harshness unusual of her.
“I’ve been…Do you remember the tests posed to us by Sage Yulyana?”
“…Oh…Yeah, I remember them.” Edea leaned back in her seat. Cautious. “What about them?”
“D-Do you ever feel as though you made the wrong choice?” She uttered the words in a rush and instantly wished to take them back, to rephrase them in a way that made it clear that she would still have chosen this path in the end.
Edea’s fingers went still.
Agnès already had an apology ready on her lips when Edea simply shook her head.
Reaching across the table to take her hand, Edea drew in a long and slow breath that was released soon after as a quiet sigh. Agnès blinked, startled, but allowed the other girl to interlock their fingers, offering her warmth in place of cool ice floating beyond smooth glass.
“Well, I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it,” Edea admitted, head tilting as she gazed at something far away. “But…I know you, Agnès. Once you’ve got your heart set on something, you’re not going to be swayed by it, no matter what! That whole thing wasn’t enough to change your mind, and it’s still not enough, right?”
She was implying something else, but Agnès didn't address it.
“…Olivia would understand.”
Edea smiled, squeezing her hand. “Of course she would! She’s…really proud of you. I’m sure of it.”
Though Edea had misunderstood her reason for dredging up the past, the words still soothed her, dulling an old ache in her heart. Agnès returned the pressure of the other girl’s hand—so much stronger than her own, Asterisk or not—and answered her kindness with a question that was not.
“And you?”
“O-Oh, me? Well…”
And there it was. A familiar sadness in her eyes that Agnès knew oh so well. They both exchanged a glance that was mutually understood, the silence speaking more than either of them ever would.
“…I miss them both,” Agnès said at last. “They should not have been the price of our victory.”
“Ringabel didn’t even have to be a price,” Edea hissed, turning her head to the side for a moment. Agnès could see her blinking a few times more than necessary.
“He promised he would return to us,” she pointed out, gentle, and Edea sighed again.
“And Tiz isn’t lost to us either. He’ll wake up, Agnès. I know he will.”
“And Ringabel will return to us. To stay.”
Agnès held Edea’s gaze this time, putting all of her conviction and resolve into those words. It was only when she saw the tension ease in Edea’s shoulders that she realized the other girl had been every bit as distraught as she was.
The gears of Ancheim still turned, but now, Edea was still.
“…I suppose we’re just destined then to have our little ‘moment’ every anniversary,” said Edea with a tired laugh, but she didn’t release Agnès’s hand, even as she picked up her fork again.
“It’s like clockwork, isn’t it?” returned the pope, taking a long sip of her tea.
"You know what Ringabel and Tiz would say if they saw us moping like this, right?"
"Of course, so I shall not."
Edea only grinned.
“...I didn’t call you here today just to unburden myself on you," Agnès said after a pause, circling the rim of her drink with one finger. "I was hoping you could tell me of your travels! Didn’t you and Alternis go in search of a missing airship some time ago?”
“Now that’s a story worth retelling!” Edea’s gaze flickered to the window for a moment. “You, uh, might want to at least call your guards in first though. Even if it’s a fair day, they’re probably baking in that heat!”
True. They did at least deserve a drink, and she felt guilty for not thinking of them earlier. “Edea,” Agnès said as she rose from her seat, “you mustn’t let me forget to fetch a souvenir for Egil for when we pass by Caldisla.”
Edea squeezed her hand again before letting go, giving her ice cream her full attention as she hummed out an affirmative. “Mhmm!”
It’s strange, isn’t it? Agnès mused to herself as she crossed the breadth of the inn, her footsteps masked by the happy clamor that filled the establishment. The fates of Ringabel and Tiz are unknown to us, and yet we still believe we will be together again soon.
Agnès had ever been a woman of piety; and though Edea was not, she felt as though in this, at least, their faith was as one.