Charlette Bellamy

“Bugger off!” echoed down one of the many dirty, empty allies of Limsa Lominsa. The heavy thud of feet pounding down the wet gutter of a path that cut between the tall, white-walled buildings on either side of them. For a man with such short legs Charlette’s quarry was surprisingly swift, and it didn’t help that he could duck under and zoom between the plentiful obstacles in their way. “I will not! Come back here! It is dangerous!” she yelled after him, like a mother chasing a toddler on a sugar-high. Ordio Nadio had the good sense of a Limsan native to always wear comfortable, water-tight shoes even in the city. Charlette’s regrets ran deep, heeled boots clattering on the cobbles and quickly being smudged in garbage, constantly threatening to twist an ankle. Gods she missed the openness of the Shroud, especially as she doubled-over to clamber through an open crate at the bottom of a stack. Like a tunnel made through the rubbish tossed into this forgotten place. “Sod that! Y’ not gettin’ it! It’s mine!” Ordio tore his way down a turn, slipping around the corner. A leather bundle held tight under one arm. She would never catch him like this. Charlette pulled the tome, hanging from a leather strap across her chest, up and flipped it open mid-stride. Pages fluttered clumsily as she kept pace, stopping and starting every time she had to squeeze between rubble, clamber over heaps and duck beneath fallen rain gutters. It would be so easy to just… oh. Ordio made a mistake, Charlette flew around that corner in a clatter of scuffed heals, long legs and with a tumble that had her sliding through brown water on her rump. “Ugh!” her side soaked in the foul street brine. Ordio’s laugh was boisterous, confident, right up until she stood and stared at him, dripping and done with this. It would be so easy, it really would. The tome had fluttered to a schematic, red-inked and sinister with jagged geometrics that aligned with an arrow pointing to the head of the page. Like the ironsights of a machinists gun. Ordio was not laughing anymore, as the dead-end he had run himself into bumped into his back. The freckled, fire-haired man suddenly became horribly aware of the situation he had put himself into. He hugged the bundle to his chest, possessive and rebellious despite having nowhere to go. Charlette took one step toward him, pulling her quil from a holster-like strap on her belt “Remain calm, Ordio. This has gone far enough, I think we can both agree on this.” as calm and polite as she was trying to be, that cold wetness running down her side put a mean edge to her tone. “Naw, dun’ think I will. ‘S not yours, ‘s mine. I found it, fair ‘n square, ain’t no leggy-treehugger gonna snap it from me.” He raised a pudgy hand, pointing it at Charlette. “Walk away, ain’t gonna warn you again.” The other gripped that bundle to his chest, then started to unfurl it. “Do not do that.” Charlette placed the inked tip of her quil to the page, like a finger to a trigger. “I ain’t givin’ it up. ‘S too good.” the leather falls away, and he’s already slipped his hand into the glove that had been contained within. His fist gripped around a pearlescent stone, like a spherical mirror that reflected the alley around it, Ordio on one side, Charlette on the other. Her heel snaps on the ground as her next step comes fast, hard. “You know what it does every time you use it Ordio. I am not the only one that noticed the tears, but I am your best option now. Give it up, and you can go.” his feet scuffle on the ground, he looks to each of his sides. Only walls looked back, his chuckle is heavy and humourless “Y’know, you ain’t the only smartass in this city. I know ‘bout you, Bellamy, they’s told me what your thing does, your people. I ain’t going in no vault.” swift as Charlette can finish that schematic, he cocks his arm back, the sphere glinting in his palm against the weak sunlight, and he tosses it as hard as he can over Charlette’s head. It would have been so bloody easy to just pull the energy from this irritating little scallywag, take that aberrant relic, and foist him onto the Order to deal with. But she had to be different now. Woompf! Orido disappears from where he was, and with another thud of air and space being displaced, he appears above Charlette. One hand with a death grip on that sphere he had hurled above her. “Aaaaaaaaaah!” he squealed, arms and legs flailing in the air like he was trying to paddle for flight. He tosses it again, woompf, and he’s several yalms in the other direction. “Ordio!” Charlette swipes the schematic, firing the draining aether into the literal cracks that had formed in the air behind him, aether splitting and whirling where it had been shorn into a knotted mess. Instability, the kind that can quickly get out of hand. No time, she had to chase him, listening for every thump of the lalafell tearing his way through the flow that surrounds us all. Gods the high, long road sucks.

I hope this message finds you well! It was quite an enjoyable puzzle to find your exact address and what a surprise when I realized it was the same man that had such concerns about my plant. Limsa truly is a city that feels so small, despite how grand it is. In Gridania you could go weeks without seeing your next-door neighbour, to the point it sometimes caused concern for their health. Well, now I know how to make sure you and your cat are doing well. Good thing you both live across the street and not in the same building, Nibblet is not a picky eater after all and that ginger tabby is quite a meal I must say. How often do you feed him? Anyway, I look forward to seeing where you choose to move your owl. Might I suggest angled toward the corner where those hooligans keep leaving their bottles after drinking the entire night away, flavoured with some of the loudest conversations I have ever had to endure? Sincerely, Your neighbour Charlette Bellamy, Student of the Arcanist Guild

She couldn’t speak, for her mouth was covered by a muzzle. It was comfortable, the stitch and inlay prevented any chafing, but it itched and every breath made it hotter, more humid around her. She could not struggle, because her arms were clamped in heavy metal behind her back, less comfortable and certainly chafing. She could walk in only short steps, the chain that joined her ankles by clasps clinked like it was attempting a merry tune, but creating a discordant dirge instead. She could listen, of course, she could see all that was around her. White-clad bodies frog-marched her down a long hallway lit with fire encased in crystal. A third stood behind her, the prim and feminine voice speaking with an authority that can only come from the righteous, or at least those that believed themselves so. When sense returns to her addled mind, so those prim words start to take focus, sharpen, until she could hear nothing else. “...deemed aborrant. Due to unconscionable acts made possible with your skills, talents or gifted belongings, you have been deemed a threat to yourself, Eorzea and the wider communities. For your, and the safety of all, a decision by the learned, rational and dedicated Keepers of the Archives has been made to remand you into our care and observation.” she lurches, her bonds pulling and pressing as her body involuntarily folds upon the last word spoken. The bodies at her sides pull her upright, and keep her moving. Door after door after door passes them by. All made of dark wood, polished to a shine and bolted into place with heavy, iron pins. They are massive, each panel that has been hammered into place the width of a trunk and the length of three people. “...while under our watch you will receive rehabilitation, care and education.” that voice continues, calm, almost pleasant. “If your aberration can be cured, it will be.” “If your aberration is due to an item, you will be freed from it.” “If your aberration is of your own making, or inherent to your being, a means to live with, control or repress it will be found.” “If you are the aberration, you will be safe and the burden of responsibility for your nature will fall unto us.” her legs had gone limp, folded beneath her. Her feet dragged out behind her. They did not stop, they did not wait, they did nothing but continue that long, cold march. Not until they came up to a door. Her door. “Subject two-hundred and forty-two, your time with the Archives begins this sun.” her head rises, why does this door loom so much more? It has no visible lock, but the scrape and clank of iron comes just before the ponderous swing. No one had touched it, like it knew to open once they were there. She struggles, she wants to scream, she wants to go back. It is black inside there. “No! I am sorry! I am sorry!” she would have shouted at them, if it weren’t for the leather that holds her words. “Please! Please I am sorry!” what else could she say? She would have gripped their robes if it weren’t for her bonds. Buried her face in their pristine, white robes and wept with all the grief and regret and shame that she could muster. “Please, please I am so sorry. Do not leave me here.” She was dragged into that room, turned and placed kneeling on the floor where she slumps. She raises her head, life and energy sapped from her, and does all she can to put that pleading regret into her eyes alone. She faces the source of that prim voice. Looks her in the eye and begs with expression alone. The Duskwight looking back pushes her thick glasses up the rim of her freckled nose. The open book she holds before her, thick and old, holds more of her attention than that desperation being bled out in tears. “Do not believe you are a prisoner, the Archives is not a jail. Redemption, salvation, healing or a new home. It can be any of these things for you, as long as you try.” Finally, this jailer of hers looks at her. Stoic, confident, just. But then why do the edges of her eyes crease when she sees those eyes, those wet, panicked eyes of Subject two-hundred and forty-two. Why does she, Charlette Bellamy, look at all when she knows an aberration should be corrected? It is here that she wakes-up. No panicked sweat or deep breathing, just cold. Like in that hallway, on that walk. Frozen within and without, cruel as the wind of Coerthas. She had been so close to forgetting, so close to being someone else. But tempering is a horrible thing and needed to be cured, she just never expected to envy the people who could have what they were, what they had done, swept away like a disease. How petty of her, to feel resentment at the fact that for them, it was that easy. For them, it was not their fault.

Across from her sat a Miqo’te, pince-nez balanced on his nose and a green beret atop his head. Long dreadlocks tumbled neatly to frame a nervous, stuttering face of boyish quality. “Y-yes this is true. But y-you also gave me a c-case that is not only incredibl-ly rare but poorly studied!” the poor man melted under scrutiny even of the gentle kind, brilliant as he is. Charlette leaned back, and placed her hands atop his notes “I understand Dihx, I am just being thorough. It is very important we do not rush to any conclusions and you are normally more, ah, out of the box than something like this. Direct aetheric manipulation?” Dihxoh’ya blinked so hard it seemed his head might fold in on itself. “I kn-know, but I’ve exhausted all possible resources I have and th-there just isn’t enough to go on. Charlette, I-I understand this is an incredible opportunity for you, a-and believe you me I would love to be accredited with curing an affliction of this k-kind. But I do n-not see any other way of doing so in the t-time frame you’ve provided. Th-that time frame being a ridiculous ‘Immediately or soon’.” It was the most timid way of throwing ones hands into the air, fingers splayed with a little apologetic wiggle. “T-time and available knowledge is simply n-not on your s-side I’m afraid.” Charlette paged through Dihx’s work. It was thorough and well-researched, of course it was, the man had devoured the library of the Arcanist guild with a memory prolific for never forgetting a detail. Gods, but they cannot do what Dihx’s suggestion. “It is far too risky, I appreciate your work and I am sorry for the unreasonable limitations placed upon it. It is just extremely urgent.” Their third companion finally chimed in, leaning forward and placing a finger atop the page. “Urgent or not, Charlette, you know Dihx is right. This is the most realistic option right now, so you have two choices. Do it, and accept the risks. Or put your nose to the grindstone and keep researching.” It is very hard to argue with Barapfrew, the man was as massive as he was often correct. A seawolf with broad shoulders, a long beard and a smooth, shaven cranium that might be an attempt to show-off the size of his intellect. “Either reel in your ambitions or take the leap. You know which one both Dihx and I think is the better choice.'' He lays his hand flat upon the report, and shakes his head. Charlette drops the page she held on the table top, resigned to still having no immediate solution “Fine, yes. I know. I know. I will take the time to investigate further. The both of you can expect to hear from me again concerning this.” Dihx’s nod is quick and eager to please, like a toddler promised pancakes if they do well. Bara’s, on the other hand, was slow and a singular movement as if he just won a predictable game of Triple Triad. Charlette’s was polite and swift, and then she was up and leaving them at their table. You can tell a lot about how a discussion between Scholar’s went by their nods. Charlette sighed, heavy with frustration. The longer it takes her to find a solution, the more danger he and the others are in. But she cannot be reckless either, not with a life that has been put in her hands with such trust. “Blasted man and his riddly-worries. I swear Red you are going to be the death of my curiosity.” Dihx’s report is shoved into her satchel as she makes her way to the Northern Gate of the city. Red was not going to enjoy the session they have this sun. Best she make a stop by the markets and pick him up something nice to balance things out. Perhaps new gloves? Would that ease the pain of a biopsy? She was going to find out.

Charlette’s hands ran over the satchel sat in her lap, the fresh leather of it recently stitched and only just starting to wrinkle where the contents caused it to bulge. She opened a small pocket at the front, fishing out the airship ticket inside. The corners were bent, and the ink was slightly smudged from being held by many hands. The Order had planned all of this long before her hearing, judging by the date of purchase on the creased stub of paper. ‘One-way to Limsa Lominsa’, how a little sentence could send such a nervous thrill rumbling from her gut and up her spine? The Arcanists Guild of the great City-State of Limsa Lominsa, the very first stop on this long, long assignment of hers. And she had chosen this too. It could have been the Thaumaturges of Ul’dah, even the Conjurers of Gridania or the Astrologian’s of Ishgard. It could have been anything the Order decided it should be. Instead, they begrudgingly allowed her to pick the trail she would walk for them. So naturally, she picked the one with the biggest library. With both hands she tried to smooth those bent corners and the fold that creased it through the middle. Charlette planned to keep this little stub, even if the bends irritated her. “Kweh!” the excited call of a chocobo rolled down the winding path fitted between the trees of the Shroud. The trundle is here, and the bo had brought Loash back with a snort, a jolt and an annoyed huff. He looked down the path, then to Charlette “What? Was getting to the good part.” he tapped a finger at his temple then stood and walked over to the pathway to wave the cart down. “Don’t lose the ticket, ‘s expensive and queues make me nauseous.” Charlette slipped it back to safety, swung her light satchel over her shoulder and stepping up next to him, nose raised “Of the two of us, you are the one more likely to misplace important travel documentation.” Loash flicked a pointed finger at her, just as the cart stopped in front of them and its passengers stepped out and started to unload it. “That’s true. Still, don’t lose it. Cost us a sun, and you’d be late for class.” This was also true and the thought of being tardy on the very first sun made her skin crawl. She stepped-up to the now empty cart, but Loash laid a hand on her shoulder to keep her there for a moment. “Y’ sure?” he asked, looking at her. Always the same impassive, unbothered expression. But she felt the concern in the squeeze of his fingers. She nodded “More than anything.” and without hesitation, he let her go “After you then.” both of them finding a seat, moments later the cart took off. The subtle jerk as it pulled them forward bringing that thrill up her body again. She watched her home grow smaller and smaller as they trundled along. “Sad or glad?” Loash asked as he watched her. “A bit of both. It is all so different this time.” Loash nodded, slow and ponderous “Better?”. Such a loaded question to ask in just a single word. “I do not know. But we are going to find out.” this seemed to placate him, or he had simply run out of his short supply of words, as with another dip of his head, he was fast asleep despite the gentle jostle of the cart. Charlette was not quite brave enough to commit to it yet, but a little voice in her hoped aloud ‘This time, I get to make it better.’

A leather boot that was practically burning with that ‘ochre glow’ scuffed at the ground, kicking up yet more of the red earth. A grey-blue hand peaked out from voluminous, location-appropriate sleeves and wiped at a sweating brow. The linen turban that had been lifted from it moments ago soaked dark with lost water. Charlette was not in her element at all, a fact that left a small knot of worry in her chest whilst she ambled down a pathway cut through the thin Thanalan shrubbery. It had been worn there by many carts, heading to where they all inevitably go, Ul’dah. Gods but it was malms away from the looks of it, though the waves of heat may be distorting her vision? Bespectacled people tend not to be all that trusting of their eyesight, pity she couldn’t listen for it, bat-like in her sense of direction as she was. Or so she liked to think. This was a fine mess to be in, and a fine time for this particular stretch of ‘country road’ she was following to suddenly be devoid of any other travellers. It was positively bustling when she had made her way out here, the guide that had brought her on his own cart had been positively fuming at the traffic. “I wonder what he was in such a rush to do?” the duskwight spoke aloud. She could taste her thirst on her lips, salty and sticky and threatening to crack, but all she could offer was a lick. Judging by the weight of her waterskin, she couldn’t quite afford to remedy that thick-feeling inside her mouth, like her saliva was slowly turning to paste. “Had other business, in the town just over, don’t you remember?” a voice answered her. Now she was alone that much was certain, but the second voice did not draw a startle from her. Instead she reached a hand into the satchel, always hanging from her shoulder, and from it she produced a book. Turned it over to face the cover and answered “Ah, so now is a good time for you to speak?” The tome she stared down at had an oval shape embossed into it, corners filled with floral designs like autumn leaves, and framed in the centre was the title ‘Legumes and Where to Find Them Volume 3: Decadent Desiccants of the Desert’. Yes, all that fit, but it didn’t really matter as at that moment the ‘M’ of ‘Legumes’ and the ‘W’ of ‘Where’ had blinked. The space between title and subtitle spread open, and the face of the tome spoke with a voice so soaked in smugness it could water the barren landscape and then some. “Oh do not be so dramatic, darling Bellamy. I am a busy text, after all legumes are the food of the masses, mmh? Many need me, and I can only attend to one volume at a time. You know this, you silly thing.” she did know this, she was well aware. About as aware as she was of the magnifying glass in her bag and its incredible ability to start fires in the midday sun. “Of course, though it seems your ‘popularity’ has distracted you from the important task of scheduling. We had an appointment, about five bells ago? I believe you said ‘With my vast knowledge and your nimble appendages, we will find those beans in a matter of minutes!’. Or was I mistaken?” Her impression of the book was only half-right, but we can forgive Charlette’s performance considering the circumstances in which she was giving it. The tome did not do her as much kindness “Well that was rude. I do not sound like that, though if it was an honest attempt at dignified speech then perhaps you should be more aware of your limitations.” The pout on the books ‘lips’ stretched the words and creaked the leather it was made out of. It did look positively insulted though. “Rude? Hmh, let us speak of rudeness then, yes?” Charlette smacked the spine of the book, Legume’s giving a pompous “Oh my!” as its pages fluttered, then snapped shut from the impact. Now it was paying attention, the eyes in the circles of ‘g’ and ‘d’ going wide with indignation “Is it not ‘rude’ to say you will do something, and then simply not do it?” Whack! She lifts the book and slaps it down on a flat palm “Stop that!” it complains. “Is it not rude to agree on a time for a meeting and then simply not. Show. Up.” she emphasised each word with a hard stab of a fingertip against the ‘face’ of the tome. “Ow! Stoppit! Stop!” it complained. “Is. It. Not. Rude!” Charlette rolled the ‘R’, practically revving an engine of disgust. Holding the tome with both hands, stopping in her dusty tracks and looking directly at the fat-lipped, indigent cover of a book about beans. “To promise someone you can lead them out of a bloody desert, to levin aspected beans, across the treacherous biome of the Thanalan savanna, all before the midday sun has a chance to roast her bloody ears to burnt match tips. AND THEN NOT DO IT?” She pulled Legume’s in closer, for that is now this book's name. It was but an ilm from her manic, dehydrated, bordering on uncivilised face. “And possibly leaving her for dead in the process? Is that not rude?” if the tome could nod, it would have. Instead, Legume’s offered this: “If you are quite done, you should probably know you are going the wrong way.” If Charlette’s sun could have been further ruined, it was. But perhaps not much more than Legume’s who found itself strapped to Charlette’s waist, and breathing in every puff of Thanalan dust her furious footsteps kicked-up. What kept him there, face forward and present at all? A magnifying glass and a rather angry promise to use it should they require a campfire at any point. If it had any clever thoughts to add on the subject of said dust, Charlette was glad that nothing but coughing came out.

“Hello Fred. Hello Brianne.” the headstones bearing the names in the graveyard of Willow’s Heart stood next to each other. Placed together for these empty graves were dug on the same sun. Just as it was when she had lost them. “Sorry I have been away so long, but I had a lead to chase, and eyes to escape. I think you will both enjoy hearing about a little something I have been doing recently. It is called the Unsung, and we followed a pilgrimage you would have enjoyed Brianne, and Fred I believe I found your match in a ‘cur’ called Redgar. Usually just ‘Red’.” ironic, maybe, but she liked to think her voice now made them feel more alive too. Perhaps if she believed they could hear her, like they believed in her once, it does.

Celebration, it is the first thing that comes to everyone’s hearts when the cold winds break and the warm gusts arrive. Ah, so fresh, so comforting, so good to be free of stuffy homes and thick clothing. Skin bared once more on shoulders, knees and even toes. The mud between them cooling, soft, diggable, far from how hard and chilling it can be. Even the pete smell of bogs coming downwind, heavy and hard on the nose, could not calm the clamour of welcome. “Smile on us, Shroud sun. We all are leaves, thirsty to drink. Pour! Pour! Pour onto us!” a woman, The Greyest, preached to the open sky, her grey-blue skin crinkled by the time and effort it takes to be alive. A golden chalice held in both hands and raised, empty, light winking off the polished edges. It poured in, in a sense. Charlette stood amongst a ring of Duskwights, all wore crowns of many colours, dressed to match the foliage atop their heads. “Pour! Pour!” they chanted with The Greyest as she ‘collects’ the warmth. Their hands raised together, upward, Charlette could feel the heat against her turned-out palms. Sweet in how it passed into skin, muscle, bone. The Greyest tells them it is the most intimate way they can feel the Star’s connection. “When we hold the hand of a lover, the shoulder of a sibling, the head of an infant, our warmth enters them, and theirs into us. We are held now, welcome the affection.” Charlette closed her fingers into her palms, twining them into imagined digits of sunlight. She gathered it into her palms and brought it down with all the other women in the circle. Each fist is pressed to her lips, one after the other. They all turned, first to the woman on their left, then their right, opened those warm hands and pressed them to the cheek of the other. “Life is what we hold, what it gives. And we pass it, flowing through us, to one another. To the Star.” the entire circle bent, crouched down to haunches and pushed their palms to the earth. Pressed through the overgrown shrubbery to touch soil. A tiny beetle, newly shed of its larval form and only now turning the orange that comes before their red, clambered over Charlette’s fingers. She watched, whispered under her breath “Hello…” the tiny little feet that traversed her skin utterly imperceptible. “...Dorian.” she named them “Happy Birthsun.” they stopped, turned as if to look up at her in thanks. Then their little shell parted, wings fluttered and they took off. Silence reigned as the warmth drained from their hands, cooled by the soil they dug into. “We give.” The Greyest declared, then fell silent for a long moment. Birdsong, the chirping of vilekin, the rustle of leaves disturbed by creatures and wind both. It felt like the Shroud itself had joined them. “And we receive.” all rose, fingers curled into the soft ground and pulled up earth, leaves, roots. Whatever came to be between their fingers was torn up and gathered in cupped hands. The Greyest walked around the circle, a pinch of each being plucked and placed in the chalice. Not chosen, simply grabbed. A young girl, dressed and crowned like the others, followed behind her and placed a glass jar at the feet of every woman. As the pinch was taken, the holder bent and emptied their hands into the jars, sealed them and picked them up. They are held, one hand around the neck, the other cupping the base. Cradled like newborns, and held against their navels. Charlette, grateful Dorian had escaped when he did, noticed a worm bending between her fingers. They wrapped around a digit, slithered in a slow panic to return to their home. She dropped them into her jar, with a glittering stone, a shard of bone, a strand of wild grass and Dorian’s discarded, larval shell. All gathered by chance, a spark of amazement passed through her at how much story there is in just two handfuls of her home. It was cold against her belly, the near-sheer fabric of their dresses thin. Nothing is worn beneath, this fact did not disturb the usually prudish Duskwight. This is one of the few moments it cannot. The Greyest returned to her place in the circle once more, the youngling at her side stared around the circle, found her mother’s gaze and recieved a proud nod of affirmation, a silent ‘Well done!’. Her little smile bright in the shadow she stood in, she held a bundle of The Greyest’s robe in a little hand and turned toward her once more. Secure. “Matriarchs, maidens, mothers. Caverns, canopies, canals. We will warm, as we shade. We are the keepers of our kind. For in the dark, we are the sun. in the light, we are shadow. In all things, we are the answer, the keepers, the hearts of our kin.” She raised the chalice one last time. “And this is the season of our return.” every jar is raised with it, bathed in that light. The oath, made far from Gridania, a promise all women of Charlette’s near-gone coven make. No longer taken deep in the collapsed caves of the Under Shroud, and changed now to suit their new home. But still devoid of the Elementals, pure and Duskwight. Entirely for them. Renewed far from disapproving eyes, suspicion, hatred. They will endure. The circle breaks in silence, and each woman takes her jar home to the place where the sun lingers longest. Charlette’s remained in her seemingly bottomless satchel. Where it clinked, amongst books and papers and pencils, to be taken out every sunset the Unsung saw on their journey. The Shroud, ever embraced.

“Yes, Loash, I would like that very much. You will have to ask permission, of course, but I do not think I want to start this on my own.” Loash nodded, looked behind them to check no one else was around, then leaned in close “Already did, they said yes. We’re gonna hope on it next moon, so you’ve got time for goodbyes and to tie things up with the Botanists.” It was sudden, she never quite felt herself moving, but she was there now. On him, in a tight hug that had nearly knocked Loash back in an ill-advised rock of his chair. But he settled, and held onto her. Moons of worry had ended that evening, but here was catharsis at least. She felt like she was back again. Loash, however, proved that she had never left.

“They do… but not these particular citizens of Kugane.”