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Type: Text
Sender ID: tilfrosset (Jill Warrick)
To: Public
Subject: Clive's Departure
Warnings: Possible mentioning spoilers for the end of FF16? Let me know if you want to avoid them.

Good evening, all. This is Jill Warrick.

While I do not enjoy announcing bad news, I am aware he had a fair number of acquaintances who should be notified that Clive Rosfield has left. It seems his last day here was yesterday, perhaps early this morning.

[If this all sounds cold and businesslike, it's on purpose. It's far easier to pretend that she hasn't been crying her eyes out all day through text than any other method of communication.]

With that said, though we did not have plans for a grand event, I must also announce that there will be no wedding. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

[Inconvenience? Sounding like she's putting others out as if she's not the one who lost her other half. But of course, years of hardening her heart against emotional disruptions sure taught her how to fake it until she makes it. Or at least attempt to, badly. She's experienced loss before, but this? It's different.]

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Jill, where are you right now?

[Because Kaveh now has a Mission.]

[She responds in text because she doesn't trust her voice not to crack over the line.]

I'm at home.

[A short and sweet answer, but does she mean her tiny apartment or the chambers she used to share with Clive at The Roost? It's a mystery.]

[Fine, he can switch to text. Though it's marked as being him speaking to Mehrak to convert it to text for him...is he on the move?]

you know I'll hunt down and check both, would you kindly spare me some time by telling me which one?

[Kaveh putting in any kind of work to find her is something Jill does not want, but she also knows he's stubborn. Unfortunately, she too can be stubborn.]

My personal lodgings.

[Not very helpful without an address.]

I see. That doesn't make this delivery much easier.

[THAT'S IT HE'S GONNA ASK DAD--

No actually he's sending her an image.

Of several bottles of wine.

your move, Jill.]

[Asking Cid for her address goes against the rules! And what delivery?]

I'm not sure what this is.

[She knows wine when she sees it, but why is he sending her a picture of it? And so many too.]

Those would be yours, Jill, if I could only find where to take them.

How so? I made no such order for wine.

[She's playing the fool, just wanting to be left alone in her misery for however long it'll take for it to pass. But in all honestly, Clive meant too much to her for Jill to expect that to happen anytime soon. Or ever.

The idea of taking every single one of those bottle straight up is tempting though, at least in the hopes that she'll pass out and not have to think for a few hours. Maybe for the rest of the day.]

How fortunate for you, that they're on the house.

Jill, please. I know...better than you might believe how it hurts. At least indulge me this much.

[He's not going to back down is he? And the temptation is growing, even though Jill has never been one to drink much outside a glass of two of wine and maybe some ale. But today is a today where things are seemingly changing and maybe the idea of drinking the pain away isn't so much of a crime.

And so she just texts Kaveh her address, no longer having the energy to keep up the farce of keeping anybody she knows away.]

Edited 2025-02-02 05:35 (UTC)

[We'll give Kaveh credit. He moves quickly once he has a destination. He knocks gently at her door not so very long after he receives the address, and then speaks, very gently, to it.]

I'm here, Jill.

[There's not much time between her sending over the address and Kaveh arriving, but she spends the few minutes she's got trying to put herself together. Her unbrushed hair goes into a messy ponytail and some cool water is splashed on her face, though it's not nearly enough to hide the evidence of crying. Everything is puffy and reddened, more so on her pale skin, and it makes Jill sigh dejectedly in the mirror.

Kaveh arrives and she's opening the door, shoulders slumped heavily, looking nothing like the well-put together noble lady she usually does. She might as well suck it up and wait for the inevitable commentary on her appearance.]

Good evening.

...No need to lie, now.

[Kaveh does look her over, but he doesn't comment on it. He'd be surprised if she didn't look exhausted, honestly. He knows he looked like shit, when...

Well. It's not about him. Instead, he holds up a bottle, and then gestures to Mehrak, who is carrying a bag with several more bottles.] Do you want me to come in, or just leave these here?

[She doesn't like that, his immediate calling her out when she's trying to keep a cool exterior. Because of it, an unnatural grimace flashes across Jill's features, lasting less than a second. Quick enough to be missed if Kaveh isn't paying attention.

She almost tells him to leave everything and not come back, but something in her shifts and Jill steps aside in the doorway, letting him in. Maybe it's because she feels like Kaveh will just return anyway and check on her, to make sure she didn't drink herself to death. Might as well attempt to convince him now that everything is fine after a few glasses and that he's free to never worry about her again.]

Come in.

[The small apartment is spotless and neat, the look of a place that barely sees much use anymore. She did spend most of her time in her and Clive's shared Roost chambers, but that spot is just too full of painful memories for her to stand.]

[She's not wrong about his stubborn nature, but unfortunately for Jill, Kaveh's perceptive--and worse yet, he knows what she's doing, because he's done it himself.

Still, no need to bring that up yet. Kaveh steps in, doesn't comment on how unlived-in this apartment is, and gently toes off his shoes as he has Mehrak find a table to set her bottles down.

He doesn't go looking for glasses, though. he just reaches up and with a slight twist of his telekinesis, pops the cork out and then offers Jill the entire bottle.]

I'm just here to make sure you drink some water sometimes. You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but on the off chance there are some things you want to say to Mehrak, or your wall, I doubt I'll remember come morning.

[Fortunately for them, Jill only has a few mugs in the cabinets here, nothing fitting for wine. Still, she eyes the bottle warily, as if Kaveh is asking her to do something that no noble lady should do. How far gone is she to give into that earlier temptation in such an uncouth manner?

Quite a bit, actually. More than Jill expected of herself because the next thing she knows, the bottle is in her hand and she's downing half of it alone. It's set down with a solid clunk on a nearby table and she's sighing, remaining quiet for a short time before speaking.]

I don't know if there's anything to tell.

[A lie. There's so much she could say about Clive, both as a man and a lover, the one constant in her rocky life. But where would she even start?]

Would it help if I told you something first? An equal exchange.

[He doubts how equal it would feel to Jill, given the pain she's in...but it's an offer Kaveh makes in good faith, eyeing how she downs that bottle. Yes, he'll go hunting for a mug to fill with water, go uncork a second bottle, Mehrak, we're gonna need it--]

[Whenever Kaveh makes it over with the water, Jill will promptly ignore the mug; it'll just get in the way of the wine working it's best to help her obliterate the entire day away. Nothing seems more appealing that being too drunk to think about losing the person you treasured the most.

She shrugs at his offer, tipping the bottle towards her mouth again for a few swallows. The soothing warmth of the alcohol begins to bloom in her chest, but Jill is far from drunk yet. They might just need more than a second bottle.]

Go on.

I was too young to drink, when my father died. I got sick on the wine I could afford, when my mother...left.

[Kaveh says it, in a conversational tone, like he isn't revealing more about himself than he has to even Cid.

He doesn't like it. but if it helps Jill, even a little, Kaveh will even burn his own pain on the pyre.]

But with Alhaitham....I was the one who left. I think I was drunk for a solid week, and I was so angry--what right did I have to drink? I was the one who left. [He sighs, a little.] I think I spent...the next six years or so, getting drunk or getting more work. Because I didn't want to wonder if he felt so empty without me, too.

[Jill is quiet as Kaveh speaks. She's realizing she doesn't know much about the man, but then again he probably knows just as little about her. It would probably be best for them to do this without the assistance of alcohol, but it's rather too late for that.

She listens. Drinks some more, probably three quarters of the bottle is now gone as she listens and takes in the words Kaveh says, letting them rest in the air for a long while before she finally responds with something, voice cracking along the edges.]

But he was alive. You may have left, but he was still alive.

[What she says sounds strange, like Jill is already far too gone to be making any kind of sense, but it's not that. She drags a hand over her face, covering her eyes that begin to sting with the heat of tears. The words are hard to get out and her lips are moving in silence before she finally comes with her half of the equal exchange]

I don't even know if he's alive.

[And that's what hurts the most: the not knowing.]

...Yes.

[Kaveh exhales out. What more can he really say? Alhaitham's alive. His father isn't. Both these things--are facts he knows.

And Jill has been denied even that.

He taps his pinky against the neck of the wine bottle. More of that is probably warranted at this point.]

Even the finality of knowing was taken from you...and the rifts don't even have the decency to give you someone to be angry at for doing it.

[There's a twisting in her stomach that Jill can't tell if it's envy or effects of wine on an empty belly. Probably a bit of both as she sits here in her little starter apartment in the same clothes she slept in last night, looking like some vagrant who resides full-time in a chocobo coop. One glance at her and one would never would have guessed she has roots in nobility.

No, the rifts are uncivilized things that have no respect for the people it drags through. But Kaveh is wrong. There is someone she's angry at and someone she would place the blame on because there's no where else it seemingly fits.]

I'm angry at me. I can't judge them for no decency when I have none myself.

[Not quite true, but years of self-hate just doesn't go away overnight.]

Ah.

[Something twists on Kaveh's face--an expression of recognition. How awful--he hadn't wanted to to be able to empathize like this.

The expression passes quickly.]

...I can't say I know what it is you've done to be angry at yourself for. [He tries to keep his tone neutral--after all. He doesn't really know Jill, and she'd have every right to point that out, if he tells her right out she has no reason to hate herself.

To be clear, Kaveh doesn't think this situation is a reason she should, but he also knows too well it isn't so simple as it seems from the outside.]

[Maybe it's the lack of having a say in things, control over how and when these rifts do their thing. Maybe it's her trying to make sense of why any joy in her life always seems fleeting. Whatever it is, Jill begins slamming back more wine, to try wash the taste of self-loathing, only to have the alcohol fuel the flames as it takes effect.]

I've done a lot of things, Kaveh. Horrible, shameful, heinous things. Things I would not forgive anyone else for had the tables been turned. Perhaps this is what I deserve.

[She waves a hand in the air, indicating the barrenness of the apartment and by extension, her heart. Basically, nothing.]

I took so many people's happiness. How much of a fool I've been, thinking I had earned any of my own and for so long.

Do you deserve it any less than Benedikta?

[Because--well. He has a pretty good idea what she's done, and Kaveh guesses Jill probably wouldn't deny her that chance.]

Less than Cid? Less than Joshua, for the burden he carried? I'm afraid I don't know enough to understand what separates you from them.

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tilfrosset - 2025-02-24 21:33 (UTC) - Expand

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