Solo Log: Lady Hoya Ipswom

He didn't make a point of keeping up with the news, but even hours outside of Shale in the wilderness traveling merchants had been chattering about the Colossus in Flint and the unprecedented lack of casualties, to the point where the older gnome had borrowed the paper from a friend who had left the city in the days after the attack. And the story was remarkable, Clamdor had to give everyone that: hundreds of feet tall and seemingly with the mindset of an infant, distracted by flares and then lured to sleep by music before being banished by the King. If he wasn't familiar himself with such fantastical stories, he would've thought the entire thing was insane.

A small hand appeared at the edge of the paper and pulled. Tyra had needed reading glasses for so long, she could no longer read over his shoulder. "I'm just about done, don't--"

She didn't respond, waving a hand in his general direction instead and pulling the paper from his surprised grip. Hastily, she flips the front page over and brings the news close to her face, her grip slowly tightening until her delicate fingers are just shy of tearing the paper entirely. He watches his wife's eyes sharpen as she reads, watches as shadow falls over her brow. He's so taken by watching her that he isn't prepared for the newspaper to be shoved back into his face, the weathered blue hands of his wife pointing to a line and shaking.

"Tell me you didn't *know*, Clam," she breathes, her voice wavering.

He skims, first. Nothing too remarkable: the four constables and the hired hand working with them in Flint that were responsible for stopping the Colossus were offered knighthood, and all but one had accepted. The descriptions of the team are dull at best: names, a handful of characteristics, the skills that brought them to the constabulary. It isn't until the final line that anything strikes him as amiss, and suddenly he's forgotten how to breathe.

*The final knight is Lady Hoya Ipswom, a young gnome who joined the Flint branch of the RHC in the summer as a medium.*

They had returned to a *massacre*.

The campsite was decimated. Embers of the destroyed campfire still glowed red hot, the remnants trampled in the chaos. To his right was the corpse of the human mother, her infant daughter clutched in her arms. Just beside her was her husband, blood still trickling from the fatal wound to his head. Frozen, he thinks he's going to be sick.

So taken by shock, he doesn't initially see Fijit standing to the side of the blood bath, her tiny arms wrapped around Rena and pressing her younger sister's face into the worn lace of her cream colored pinafore. Her small fingers are digging into his younger daughter's vibrant violet hair. He doesn't hear Fijit quietly shushing his youngest, whispering that it will be all right and just to close her eyes. He doesn't react as quickly as he should have, and doesn't realize the cost of that inaction until it's too late.

Heavy footsteps approach what remains of the camp, and Clamdor Ipswom looks up to see the elder son of the human couple now deceased before him. Before he can even open his mouth, Fijit is talking.

"Mister--M-Mister Sam, I p-promise--it--it's n-not those thieves." His oldest daughter's stutter is always worse when she's frightened. *She's* scared, *you idiot. Do something!* "When--w-when I g-got back your m-mum was--she was t-talking--"

In a flash, his girls are wrenched apart by the larger human teen. Fijit's wrist cracks audibly as she's tugged forward, yelping in pain and stumbling; Rena gasps and topples backwards into the bloody mud and sits frozen in panic. When she moves again, it's to climb to her feet and run to him, sobbing Papa over and over until he wraps his arms around her and hides her face from the carnage once again.

"Don't lie to me, you crazy little *brat*." Sam is shouting, pulling Fijit close enough that he can grip the collar of her dress tightly, twisting enough to elicit a choked wheeze. He stoops to her level with a growl, openly snarling.

"M-mister S-Sam, you're--you're h-hurting me, *p-please*--" He doesn't hear her, her begging inaudible over the pounding blood in his ears, still staring in shocked silence. He flinches as she wriggles in the teen's unforgiving grasp and Samuel clutches the collar tight enough the hem tears.

"--tell me that this was just some *monsters*? Just bad *luck*?" His hearing returns late, missing a chunk of their conversation in the interim. "Not those *liars* just a few camps over? They've threatened us before! How do you expect me to believe that!?"

Fijit is still scrabbling at the hands wrapped tightly in her dress, her tiny fingers desperate to loosen his grip. Clamdor can see her heaving for air, desperate to get free. He needs to do something. Anything. All he does is hold Rena closer, so tight she can barely move and definitely can't wriggle her way to look at the carnage before him.

"She--y-you're m-mum told m-m-me. When we g-got back, she--she w-was waiting. To t-talk," Fijit wheezes. Her voice, quiet and hesitant before, is now hoarse against the fingers holding her in place. "She w-wanted me to t-tell you, so you w-wouldn't get hurt g-g-going after th-them. I *p-promise*. I--"

Sam's lifted her clear off the ground and Fijit's panicking grows wilder, the flush of red creeping up her cheeks unnatural and concerning as she struggles to breathe. *He needs to do something.* But if he were to try and step in, his defenseless youngest daughter would be in similarly dire straits, for *nothing*. He has no illusion that he's far too small to be any sort of threat to the human Samuel, easily twice his size.

"Get your hands *off* my daughter!"

Thank every deity for Tyra.

"Your *crazy daughter*," he snaps, shoving her forward by his grip around her neck, the toes of her shoes scraping in the dirt, "is saying she just had a nice chat with my *dead mum*. And you want to defend her?"

Tyra wastes no time. Not frozen with uncertainty, not forced to stillness by the events unraveling before her, she reaches for her daughter. Ready to catch her. Making sure she at least knows help is there. Fijit exhales, her eyes flicking to her mother in thinly veiled panic.

"I *want* you to let her go and have a civilized conversation. Unless you think  we ought to have another unnecessary death here, Samuel. You're several times our size. Let that temper run unchecked and we'll easily have another casualty." Tyra wraps her arms tighter around her girl's waist, frown deepening. Only he can see the hint of fear in her eyes, the panic that is rapidly worsening the longer Sam glares without loosening his grip. "Please, let her go."

Another fifteen seconds, and Sam releases the fistful of fabric; Fijit melts into her mother's grip, hiding her face. From the other side of their wrecked camp, he can see her shaking shoulders.

"Whatever. You deal with the little bitch," Sam snaps, shoving mother and daughter away from him. "Get out of my sight. Take your shit and *leave us*. I don't want to see your crazy little brat again."

They didn't address the event until much later. First came moving the wagon away from the shared campsite, to an area much farther from the group of merchants who had long been traveling together. In the river nearby, Tyra stripped her youngest's tiny dress and shoes and meticulously scrubbed dirt and blood from her pink skin and violet hair, humming a soothing melody as her youngest sniffled in the chill.

Meanwhile, Fijit was kneeling a length away, stockings and hem soaked as she scrubbed at the blood stain that crept nearly up to the waist of her dress. She doesn't turn his way when he approaches. Her gaze doesn't even flick up from her work.

Clamdor always found it difficult to interact with Fijit. They'd had three beautiful daughters and he loved them all dearly, but it was painfully difficult to connect with his eldest. She had always been... eccentric. More whimsical than her peers and far less grounded in reality, both of which have gotten exponentially worse since his middle daughter's unexpected death. The two girls, inseparable in life, had both gotten gravely ill, enough that the healer they'd sought in Flint told them to expect neither would survive.

Instead, Fijit did, but Tifapine wasn't so lucky. And in the aftermath, Fijit had never been the same. Still whimsical, still naïve and trusting, but with an otherworldly distance from them all. A day after Tifa's death, Fijit began talking of a visit she'd had from her younger sister's spirit. A final conversation. He didn't want to begrudge her a fantasy to help her cope, especially considering she was still so ill herself, but imagining a chat with her dead sister and insisting upon it being the truth was too far.

"You have to stop this nonsense," he began quietly, kneeling beside her at the river's edge and gingerly prying fabric from her fingers. He reaches to brush a loose curl from her eyes, searching her face for any indication she's actually listening this time. "Don't you understand why that made Sam so angry?"

"B-but--but I *did* talk to her," she answers, weakly.

"Fijit. Listen to me." For a moment, he hesitates, frowning. "You can't talk to the dead. It isn't possible. And the only ones who claim to are preying on the bereaved."

"But--"

"*Enough*," he snaps, angrier than he intended. More scared than he was willing to admit. He'd already lost one child; the thought of losing another too much to bear. "He was about ready to strangle you! What would you have done if your mother and I hadn't shown up?!"

"Papa, I can't *lie* to him. She *w-wanted* me to--"

"You didn't talk to her!" He's shouting. Shouting enough that she lurches back, landing with a splash in the frigid stream.. "She's *dead*, Fijit, just as dead as Tifapine, and *the dead don't talk*!"

Shivering, her eyes trail away as she wraps her arms around herself. "I w-wouldn't ever *lie*, Papa, I p-promise."

"You wouldn't *lie*? Then tell me why you swear up and down that you chatted with Tifa by that stupid fountain!"

"Because--"

"Because you're just as crazy as Samuel says you are, that's why!" Clamdor scrubs his fingers through his hair, exasperated. "And if you aren't crazy, you're just a *fool* who's going to get herself killed for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person! Herself, and maybe *us*!"

She hiccups, and shaking hands scrub over her eyes and he instantly knows he's gone too far. Despite being an emotional child, she rarely cried, so much so that he can count the instances between his fingers. Fijit tended towards shy. Timid. Openly crying in front of him--

Unexpectedly, she jumps to her feet, splashing cold water into his eyes in the process. Without question, he hears the sob she tries to swallow.

"F--Fijit, wait, I didn't--"

Always a bit more eccentric, a bit more otherworldly, and *faster*. She'd always been so, so much faster on those tiny little legs of hers. By the time he unsticks himself to give chase, she's disappeared into the trees.

Tyra wasn't too terribly concerned. Fijit ran off sometimes, overwhelmed and overstimulated, and she never went far. She always came back, always before dark, always with an apology. This was always followed by a lecture about how running around alone was dangerous, and then a promise that she'd try to do better.

But supper came and went without the usual nervous return, and it was well after dark when Rena finally piped up as he was tucking her in to sleep.

"Papa? Is Fiji coming back?" Rena was curled up against her mother, Tyra's fingers gently brushing through her hair.

"Of course she will." He tries to sound confident, but the look Tyra shoots him suggests he needs to do better.

Yawning, Rena nestles under her blankets. "I don' wanna sleep alone again...usually Fiji snuggles with me."

He's reminded of just how young his littlest is, only just six. She'd started begging her sister to sleep with her every night after Tifa had died, and to her credit, Fijit never once refused.

"Mama will stay with you, love," Tyra murmurs, pressing a kiss into freshly washed hair. "Papa is going to go see if he can't track Fiji down. What do you think? Do you think he can find her before you fall asleep?"

Tyra glances his way, her instructions unspoken as she pulls the blankets up over Rena's little shoulders. Clamdor nods just slightly, kisses his daughter's forehead, and doesn't need to be told twice.

It's gotten much colder since the sun went down, enough that the chilly wind blows right through his sweater; he tries not to dwell on how cold Fijit must be in just her day clothes. Giving Samuel's ruined camp a wide berth, he returns to the river to trace the path he supposes his daughter took. Her size makes it easy for her to pass without much trace, disturbing very little plantlife and leaving next to no trail in her wake. There's little for him to go on, and the absence of sunlight doesn't help.

So he searches. And searches. And *searches*. But it's cold, and it's dark, and he just can't find her. By the time the oil in his lantern is running low, he's yelled himself hoarse trying to get her attention. What if she's lost? *Hurt?* He isn't sure he could forgive himself.

It must be nearly midnight when he decides he needs to turn back, and it's in his care to avoid the wrecked camp that he comes across his only clue. He nearly walks right by the fabric tangled in the thorny underbrush. Torn almost beyond recognition and blood-stained are the remains of Fijit's beloved pinafore. The one she insisted on wearing daily. The one she'd scavenged from Tifa's things and claimed as her own before they'd even left Flint.

He cuts his palms retrieving it from the brush, running his own bleeding fingers over the ruined, stained fabric. The blood isn't insignificant, and his mind is reeling as he tries to think of any scenario other than the one that immediately jumps to mind.

*She'd said there were monsters. Monsters that attacked the Greens, unprovoked. Monsters that tore the little family apart. Monsters that could still be nearby, still looking for prey, still looking to kill.*

Clamdor swallows, turns, and promptly throws up.

"Clam? Clam!"

He snaps back to attention to Tyra leaning into his face, smoothing hair from his forehead with shaking hands. Her eyes are wide and concerned, and she gently cups his chin in her hands to bring his attention to her.

"I'm sorry--I know we don't talk about--"

He swallows, hard, and drops the paper into his lap to wrap his hands around her wrists. He pressed his forehead to hers, dizzy with relief and loss and shock all in one.

"I--" breathe. He has to remember to *breathe*. "I had no idea."