Spoiler

From their camp outside of Ul'dah, Golden Shadow knelt in front of her mother's makeshift throne.

"The refugees are on your side, mother. The know that your promises are their only hope."

"This is good. The state of Ul'dah is broken. The Mountain has come to them with peace and generosity. I pray things don't turn... violent." A smirk curls the lip of both mother and daughter.

Dalamud had fallen merely six months ago. Frost Lotus had watched the chaos from the fortifications in Abalathia's Spine. Her greatest joy, her sole surviving daughter Golden Shadow, had secured the service of every Hellsguard mercenary crew in the Spine. Sex. Coin. Blood. All had changed hands and now an army of Roegadyn warriors and thaumaturges had swept through Thanalan in the chaos after the battle of Cartenau.

They provided security to the roads, supplies to the needy. Every settlement came under their banner through force or generosity. The choice was always left to the people. A purple lotus on a black field fluttered on a pole outside the tent as Golden Shadow left her mother to greet an emissary from a power that was not nearly so broken by Cartenau as the three forces of Eorzea.

"Rhitahtyn Sas Arvina." Golden Shadow bowed respectfully in greeting. "My mother will be very pleased to meet you." She strides to his side, taking his arm and guiding him into the tent. She leaves shortly after unable to hear the discussion inside, nor the curious proposal her mother has in mind...

Spoiler
How could she possibly know? This poor woman in red. A proud roegadyn warrior, clad in the vestment of her precious Maelstrom. She was clinging helplessly to the stump where her hand had once been attached and looking up at the black shadow of fate. She couldn't possibly have known that years ago, in the immediate fallout of the battle of Carteneau Flats, that she had ordered artillery on anything approaching without Alliance colors. She couldn't have known that trading caravans led by good people had approached with intent to aid those wounded. She could have never known she had willingly rained fire and death down on those who were without homes, who had spent their entire lives trading and traveling.

She could have never known that Garlean forces were watching. Those who survived were all too willing to lend their aid. The speeches had been easy. The Alliance, the trio of nations that seemed to only care about protecting themselves, had drawn a line in bodies and fire. They were all too willing to welcome those outcasts into the fold.

"Prostrate yourself before the Fist of Solus."

The words came sternly through the filter of the specter's helmet. Glowing white eyes watched the simpering roegadyn crawl to something resembling a bow and she openly cried.

Legatus Castus looked down on the woman. His years of hard work would finally allow him vengeance. He brought his foot down on the woman's head with a sickening crunch, then turned. His personal war was over. There would always been more skulls to crush in Eorzea, and his role in its conquest was far from over.

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"Push, cousin, push!  I can see the ears, just push."

The mother bore down, ears laid flat on her head and tail lashing behind her.  There was soft singing, humming, thrumming, the gentle beat of feet against the earth.  C'rhisi knelt to receive the cub as it finally came, squalling, from it's dam.  Her brow was streaked with blood, mis-matched green eyes bright in the candle light of the small hut.

"It's a little girl, cousin, a strong young huntress."  She cut the cord and cleaned the baby, singing a soft song of protection that wrapped around the young spirit to lightly chain it to the tiny body before handing it over to the exhausted mother.  The word was sent out to the waiting Nunh, who paced before the hut, worry plastered across his features and sweat dripping from the ends of his hair.  He sent out a joyous ululation and thrust his sword into the sky and the twilight was filled with celebration.

A small, still part of the jali's heart contracted as she began to gather her things, but she smiled and sang and made all the noises she was expected to make.  And if the candles showed some other tableaux in her eyes, some distant Jewel of a city where she had once been surrounded by friends, it was just a flash, just a glimpse, then gone, buried by duty.

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The house was set high in the trees and filled with laughter.  She was teaching climbing and tumbling, and her littlest had decided to play a new game where she would climb as high as she dared then leap into the emptiness of air, spinning like a ball only to land in a gigantic pile of leaves.

Vashi's laughter filled the autumn air and summoned her mate homeward, the sound of their small brood of troublemaking children as much a part of the village life as the smell of baking bread and the sound of the butcher's knife cutting meat for the communal evening meal.