more penelo
“You there! Trader girl!”
It isn’t just the merchants who know who she works for, enough of the soldiers do too, Miguelo in business with them just the same as anyone else. He has a good name in town, trustworthy and careful to hew to Imperial laws, and if Penelo has noticed certain things here and there - supplies in the storeroom that never seem to get sold so much as disappear, or compartments in the ships she’s helped load up that seem an odd size, and in an odd, tucked-away location - well, she does not dwell on them.
Whatever Vaan might think, there are quiet ways to rebel, to do what they can to support those who are fighting and still survive themselves.
The soldier who’s flagged her down is mail delivery, astride a chocobo, several rough-woven sacks tied behind the saddle. “You going near the west gate?”
Penelo nods, and he passes a bundle down to her. Trustworthy enough for a tedious task, and it’s been a long time now, that they’ve even had much interest in checking what she carries. Going through the gates can still be a chore, no way to be certain they’ll let her by without trouble, and even with Miguelo’s permits the rules are always changing, sometimes the soldiers bored enough to be spiteful. Penelo has an allowance from Miguelo, for the days when nothing will make a proper argument except coin. Usually she can do good without it, some combination of being polite or friendly or making up some excuse, some emergency - it’s not easy to cry on demand, but she can come close - and there’s always the option to just try another gate, and have the trip take twice as long.
Easier, as of late. The guards don’t change out as often as in the past, have been stationed at the gate for a full six-month without being moved. Comfortable enough to even remove their helms, if their captains aren’t around, which means Penelo can recognize them, and know if she is walking into trouble. Still Archadians, neither safe nor trustworthy, but there are still some that are safer than others.
“Ah, what loveliness - a sweet breeze on a dry day.”
“Good afternoon, Sir Valde.” It’s not required to give them the titles, but Penelo finds it amuses them, and there is benefit enough in seeming small and polite and harmless. Miguleo has sent her this way often enough, that there is real affection in the guard’s greeting. He is old enough to be her father - is a father, three times over, two daughters and a son who live with their mother in the north. A place as cold and clear as Rabanastre shimmers with heat haze. Valde speaks of it often, as if to ward against the sun - deep forests of pine, clear lakes nestled between high mountain passes. If there is anything to compare them, he has said, it is the way the drifting snows in winter could almost be the deserts, washed pale under the moonlight. Valde is a good enough storyteller that Penelo’s lungs almost ache to imagine it, as if she’s been breathing in the thin, frigid air.
A beautiful place, his homeland, but little work to be had, so he had left his family for a soldier’s life and a soldier’s pay. Penelo thinks he sees his daughters, when he looks at her, and that is why he is kind. She has never quite known what to think of that, or how to feel.
“Our desert flower, blooming in the sun while the rest of us wilt away.”
“Flower? More like a desert mouse.”
Penelo doesn’t know the second soldier’s name, but even though his tone is bitter, so far he’s proved no more dangerous than Valde is. Always with a book in hand when not on duty, and she has seen him look up from it only a handful of times. The rules for serving Archadia are far more complicated than anything Penelo understood of Dalmasca’s own forces - she does not understand it completely, even with all she has seen and heard. He is seemingly of high rank, and well-schooled, but it had not kept him from being sent here from Bhujerba, the post he’d far preferred. He is always grumpy, then, and Penelo cannot help but marvel at the idea of having her country taken by, in some small part, a man who would rather not be here at all. He seems to wish for nothing from her or Rabanastre but to put his back to all of them.
“Little bird, I think.” A playful tug at her shoulder, the decorations there that stick out like wings. The first time the soldier had touched her, Penelo’s heart jumped into her throat, but that had been months ago, before she’d seen Helewys with her helm off, and realized it truly was a woman underneath all that armor. Luckily, all Penelo’s shock had only made her laugh. Female soldiers were still rare in Archadia, but it was hardly an impossible goal and - Helewys had winked at her - far better than a convent. “Off to the plains again, are you?”
“Miguelo had a late delivery. I’ve brought the post with me, too.”
Penelo sets the pack down carefully, undoing the netting, and hears Helewys curse under her breath, turns to find her staring at the delivery, specifically a long case tucked into the bottom, the lock carved into what seems to be a formal seal.
“Take it, Hele. You’ve been waiting long enough.” Valde tosses it to her, and she catches it one-handed, staring grimly, as if she’s holding a desert viper. The older solider rifles quickly through to pull out a parcel of his own, opening it carefully, only to burst into sudden, loud laughter. It is enough even to make the sour soldier look up from his book, staring blankly as the man lifts a pair of beautiful, carefully stitched mittens out of the small box.
“My daughter’s been practicing.” He says, the laughter still heavy in his voice, glancing up wryly at the burning sun. At least Penelo’s clothes breathe, her arms and legs bare, and even then the desert can be daunting - she has yet to see an Archadian not sweating puddles in their armor.
Helewys hasn’t moved, still staring at the case she’s holding. Penelo ought to go, knows it, but Archadia seems composed only of ill omens, and this seems yet another, and she cannot simply turn away.
“It’s not to do with Dalmasca. Only me.”
“What is it?” Penelo asks, before she can think the better of it.
“Acceptance letter from the Akademy. If she got in.” The grumpy solider says, not looking up from his book. “It doesn’t matter as much as you think it does.”
“You would know.” Helewys snaps back, and there’s a glare between them that has Penelo nearly taking a cautious step back. The woman sighs, and undoes the clasp, pulls out the parchment within, also sealed - everything in Archades is so complicated, always hidden layers, always locks and barriers - and Penelo’s watching again, too curious for her own good, and again Helewys has noticed.
“Once every few years, they allow soldiers like us the right to compete, for those places in the Akademy the higher Houses don’t snatch up. The chance to be a Judge. It’s still nothing for certain, this could be nothing. Even if you pass the trials and have all your marks in order… but Judge Magister Drace was my witness, and she-
“She?” It’s one thing, to imagine women beneath some of the faceless suits of armor, perhaps even as Judges, and far another to imagine one among those whispered of, as the worst of fates that Rabanastre might face. The image in Penelo’s mind is impossible, a childish, nightmare creature, but try as she might, she cannot make it seem more real.
Helewys is still staring at her scroll, her voice soft and low. “It’s nothing but a fair chance, when there are those who still think we ‘girls’ aren’t fit to enter. I’m a soldier first, as is she - Drace is no more woman than the man she inherited the position from, and he was less father than forge.”
Penelo nods, though the words paint a murky picture, and those she does understand - but the thought of her own father, ever forcing her into a fight? Demanding that she be a soldier? He had never done so, not even to her brothers. Perhaps Vaan is right, and Archadia is full of monsters.
“You going to open it, then, or just stare at it all day?” Valde calls, and it seems to make up her mind, one gloved hand slicing roughly through the wax seal, unrolling it before she can think the better of it. Penelo watches her eyes dart across the page, searching for what her destiny will be. Remembers how proud her brothers had been to get their colors, and she’d understood then, believed it true, the necessity of sacrificing for the country.
After all that has happened, Penelo cannot be sure of anything the way she was before.
Helewys pauses for a moment, the decision hanging in the air, and then she smiles, small and proud, and shuts her eyes, clutching the scroll to her heart. Valde whistles, and Penelo feels the world fall into a strange, odd focus around her, likely the last person that should be standing with the woman in this moment. Barely even an idea of what it means to be a Judge, save that they can do a lot more damage than the soldiers if they decide not to like her, and it’s twice as important to stay out of their way.
Here she is, though, and the woman is an Archadian and a soldier and - leaving. Vaan likes to think that every solider carries a grudge against Rabanastre, that they are all intent on grinding the city to dust beneath them. Penelo wishes she could still believe it, that things could be that simple - yet here is a woman, not so many years older than she is, and Dalmasca is but a place, a moment, just as like to be forgotten.
“… I am happy for you.”
A knowing smile, as if Helewys can tell all that Penelo is thinking, the good and the bad and everything that doesn’t make sense. She has never been unkind. Penelo hopes that will not change.
“You don’t have to be, but I thank you, little bird.”