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The Last Measure
He forced his eyes open against the heavy, hot wind that blew across the weaving hillside meadows of the open land to the north. Deep lines creased his face, the wear and tear of years of struggle. His young daughter watched from a beaten cart just feet away, tow-headed and precocious she watched with a smile that belied her father's tension.
The tall slender soldiers were among the first Elezen she had ever seen, their full body armor glinting in the sun in a manner that made the Yellow Jackets look like disheveled amateurs. The sneering contempt in their expression was something different, but also something familiar--they had all come to know it in the course of their travel as refugees.  Their dashing figures, tall, elegant, and graceful were something altogether new - as was the flowery lilt of their speech.Â
She canted her head a little, narrowing her eyes against the gust, listening intently to the conversation between her father and the guards as they approached him.
"Refugees?" said the junior guardsman to his superior, "Don't they know Ishgard isn't accepting any?"
The senior guard replied only with a nod as he approached the Hyur man, casting a discerning look his way. Thule had always been a proud man. Eldest son of a storied warrior heritage, he had been unflinching in battle as a youth, determined in judgement as the head of his family, and an unwavering rampart for his family in exile. Trials had stripped him of his trappings, left him clad in only worn linen and hemp. Gone were the robes, the velvet, jewelry, and weapons. Unadorned he cut the figure of a peasant, while stress has worn his visage, and roughened his complexion, beard grown grey, long and unkempt, hair chopped short and rugged with a bare blade. His pride had been slowly flitted out, and now left gone from all but his piercing blue eyes, which turned upon the Elezen.
"We have our passport." he said, gruffly but quietly.
The senior guardsman gestured for the papers, while his second examined the cart the man had lead to their border.
"These can't possible be ours, can they?" he said in common, peering uncertainty at the aged, bedraggled pair of Chocobo that had pulled the four-wheeled cart over such a distance. "Just... look at them! What a disgrace!" he laughed derisively.
From the cart four pairs of children's eyes turned upon him, watching with a curiosity that matched his own.  "But they're gooood Chocos!" came the light little voice of the tow-headed Aya. "They brought us all this way, and never stopped!" The guardsman looked up with a start, noticing the smiling little girl, before retreating from the cart.
His senior nodded toward them as well, "Your family? How many children?"
The father nodded, hesitating for just a moment, "Four children. Two boys, two girls."
The guardsman seemed to mentally check the list off, glancing back to the paper in his hands, "All yours?"Â
Thule nodded, it was a lie, the fourth, Enna, was the daughter of the childrens' nurse, and had served the family for her entire life. To Thule, she was worth the risk.
"Your name?" asked the guardsman.
"Thule", he replied with a pause, "of House Tharin, Clan..."
The junior guardsman, returning from the cart, laughed again, "I would not bother with that here, its not among the Houses we care about."
Thule's eyes turned upon the guardsman, fists tensed as his words igniting the firmness of his gravelly voice, "They have taken our Land. Our Lives. Our Pride. They shall not take our name." The Elezen stopped, bearing up an awkward smile, "Almost cute, aren't they."
Thule turned his eyes back to the senior, watching the Elezen as he offered a simple nod in reply. Resistance burnt within his breast for a moment longer, sputtering, hissing, and then gone. The father nodded, his hands relaxed.
"Hmmm..." the guardsman tapped his finger against his chin for a moment, eyes focused on the papers, "these do seem to be in order. But, this is most unusual. I'll need to talk to the captain."
Thule nodded, tiredly. Just one more in a long chain of never ending obstacles.
"You don't mind if we inspect your carriage, do you?" the Elezen's tone was such that it was clear the inspection would occur regardless of the answer. Thule closed his eyes, giving his assent with the shake of his head. What, at this point, did he have to hide?
"It seems like the only opportunity you have left."
Thule nodded tiredly to his old friend. His hand gripped the ceramic cup in his hand tighter, before pulling it to his lips, trying to draw the last of the mead from it.
"So what are you waiting for?"
The once great man shook his head, slamming the cup back onto the table with enough force it threatened to break in his grasp. "Its the last thing I've wanted."
"I know," said his friend, with tone shifting to one of support, "You've put it off as long as you can. You're not going to let the children grow up without a place to live, are you?"
Thule grimaced, knitting his brow in frustration. "No." he said cooly.
His friend nodded, "Then... to Ishgard. Can you pay your way?"
Thule looked at his friend once more. A fire behind those eyes that he had not seen for some time. The tired warrior nodded his head toward the sword and sheath hanging against the wall of the tent.
"But... you can't..."
"It is all I have left, save the children. It will have to serve the house, " he hesitated having to force the words out against every inclination of his spirit, "one, last time."
His friend looked taken aback, eyes widened in disbelief. He swallowed hard, contemplating what it meant, taken in the full depth of the fall in one fell swoop. "So... this is what it has come to..."
Thule sat silent, motionless. The words stewing, his heart resisting with every beat in his chest. Moments passed in awkward silence.
"Why...? Why didn't you do what so many others did? You could have died with glory against the Empire--why...?" The question was asked with the earnestness only a fellow warrior could understand. The two had grown old together in battle, a friendship forged in the flames of war, and quenched in a shared understanding of honor and glory.
The words lashed upon Thule as a weary assault, one that he had turned upon himself over, and over again. Words that attacked the very meaning of his existence, and threatened to undermine the firmness of his resolve. He stewed, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, the fire of anger burning with a smoldering intensity beneath his resigned exterior.
"The children were too young," he sputtered out at last in a tone that sounded almost angry, almost beaten. It was an undeniable truth, without him it seemed doubtful that any of his children would have survived the flight from the city, his eldest son as of yet too young to bear the burden of father to a desperate family.
"They," he said, turning his eyes back to his friend, "Are the true future of Ala Mhigo. The fate of our people, our clan, our house, is in their hands. I could have died with honor, and extinguished forever who we are. An empty glory, for who... would be left to hear of it?"
His friend turned his gaze back toward the proud weapon hanging heavily from the flimsy structure of the tent. Time tested steel, resting within an unadorned scabbard. Like the family it served, a proud implement of a mighty city--now a vestige of a tradition threatened with extinction.
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