Rancour & Ruin

Characters

Carrd

A'tari Nim

Vahri'a Korla

Imogen Lafontaine

Signe Ymir

Mana Siltanho

Mitra Sattari

Ish'kirya

Campaigns

Unsung Prompts

FFXIV Write 2021

FFXIV Write 2022

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Bakool Ja Ja/Wuk Lamat, Bakool Ja Ja & Miilal Ja, Bakool Ja Ja & Zereel Ja Characters: Bakool Ja Ja, Wuk Lamat, Miilal Ja, Zereel Ja Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Touch-Starved, Miscommunication, Enemies to Lovers, Sparring, Consensual Violence, Slow Build 

Summary:

Vahri'a's picatrix was lain amid the unwashed ceramics, a small stone keeping it spread flat. It hadn't been cleansed in a while, and some of the inkwork had worn with time and friction, for Vahri'a had stopped using it as a grimoire altogether last year. However, there was the occasional spell of use that remained within these pages and not yet on his skin. This was one of them.

He worked his fingers over the geometry, his own latent aether to the page. With the flick of his wrist, he pulled in a touch of the signature aether from atop the neighboring plates, funneling it into the equation — then the splay of his hand dissipated it in completion of the spell.

"Now it'll wash off easily," Vahri'a demonstrated. He lifted the plate vertically, picked up the basin, and ran the water over its surface. The once-stuck morsels were swept away in the current, leaving the ceramic plain and clean. He handed it to Mana.

"You can do this with ephemancy?"

"With arcanima, yes."

Mana took up the remaining plate and washed it off, then stacked the two parallel on the drying rack.

"Whew! Thank you. I'll need to learn that one some time," she said, then tapped her chin with a curious index finger. "I wonder if you could modify that spell so that it just removes the stuck-bits entirely…"

"Arcanist spells primarily work for non-living matter, save for spoken humors which we understand quite intimately. The once-living and the living are the realm of the thaumaturge and the conjurer respectively," Vahri'a was quick to answer in what Mana knew to be his 'teacher voice', though he cleared his throat out of it. "But, I don't see why it can't be done. All things are made from aether."

"Exactly," Mana said, brandishing a wooden spoon like a wand. "If I knew the alchemical composition of the food, surely I could factor that into the spell?"

Vahri'a had never thought of this key interaction between three seemingly adverse disciplines: alchemy, the culinary arts, and the magic of arcanima. Visorless, Mana was rewarded with the rare sight of her cousin… impressed. Speechless, even.

"Can I take a copy of this spell?" Mana asked, breaking the silence and picking up Vahri'a's picatrix.

"Ah, it's a little complex. Let me make a copy for you," Vahri'a offered, gently taking his book back.

"At least let me supply the aetherial ink, then. That's expensive."

"I have more than I would ever need. Consider it a gift."

"You've already done me enough favors."

The ambient sound of water crashing against bathroom tile occasionally interspersed their conversation, and had become welcome background noise at this point. What perked both their ears was a hum — coming from behind the thick washroom door, T'orii hummed a momentary ditty. Either she had forgotten entirely that the two were just outside, or she knew and didn't care.

"Our song of hope, she dances on the wind… higher, oh higher…"

Vahri'a's heart thumped and thawed.

"I know how I can pay you back," Mana chimed. She was looking at Vahri'a, who had been looking far away. He knew immediately what she meant and his ears braced to the top of his head, yet she spoke it all the same: "You've a brilliant mind, Vahri'a, but in the Goddess's name — let me help you with the matters of the heart."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Back in Everkeep, Ish'kirya thought he had the best bedroom setup achievable to man. It was a massive project he undertook when he turned twenty-one and finally started earning his own money (the True Vue way), when his first cashed check was lush.

Oddly, Ish'kirya was inspired by the luxury pod hotel he stayed at. It was a rare visit to the 4th Level, and he hadn't expected there to be amenities of any sort on the production floor, yet it seemed like those who worked in the factories stayed late oft enough to require such a thing.

By the time Ish'kirya had finished with his bedroom, it was the pod's concept taken to new levels of comfort and automation. Everything predicated on a pre-programmed 'morning time'.

Half a bell before the morning time, the room would gradually fill with natural ambient sounds — miscellaneous bird calls, the gentle rustle of wind through leaves, and a dash of white noise that helped everything blend together (and leave out unsightly audio blemishes).

A quarter of a bell after that, the room would slowly introduce a golden glow, starting from the gradiated strips he placed on the floor and slowly rising to the ceiling, until the whole room was bathed in faux-sunlight.

Once the scheduled time hit, the birdsong would hit its apex in a much more forgiving alarum, and a beam of sunlight would soak in over his face from a carefully placed electrope light. The upper half of the mattress floated up and forward, while the latter stayed steady; the bed would prop him up in a reclined sitting position, the perfectly placed eye-beam moving with it, and he'd wake to a synthetic sunrise.

By the time the project was done, his room was a holy sanctum, the comforts of which had never been achieved even by the Residential Sector commissioned for millions of credits by Praxis Park. He achieved it himself, and that was the beauty of Alexandrian society. Everything was by design. There were no gods. Only mankind could determine what was best for mankind.

Ish'kirya awoke in the Sheshenewezi Springs inn room. Sunlight filtered through the dilapidated window as distant, uncurated birds called — eagles, he thought. He still lay vertical, but the sun beam hit his eyes anyway. Rubbing stardust out of his eyes, he sat up, awake.

Huh.

He didn't like looking at his face in the morning light, ignoring the mirror entirely as he brushed his teeth and splashed his cheeks with lukewarm water. How he missed closets that would cycle outfits out for him, mists that tacitly applied his lotion, primer and foundation.

Truly, Ish'kirya couldn't be bothered with any of it, and he got right to the meat of the day. Straight from the sink, he sat at the bedside bureau. Little pieces of electrope were undergoing delicate engravings with a needle and pocket knife. He had a nice laser cutter that he used to hook up to his computer at home for electrope matters…

"You're up early," grunted Iron Lotus, who finally awoke. Ish'kirya turned around. He was still getting used to seeing her without her helmet, before her own morning ritual.

"Woke with the sunrise. What can I say?"

"You say a lot. Is the levin rod ready then?"

"Nope. A little bit of patience goes a long way, you know." It was taking longer than he expected, though he'd never admit it in so many words. Lotus stood and took a look at his workdesk. He looked up at her expectantly, hoping his return-fire gaze would deter her from watching over his shoulder.

"You're working with a pocket knife?"

"There's a needle here too, if you look with your eyes."

"Mm."

"What? Use your vocabulary," he scolded, turning his chair all the way around. "We're not fuckin' lush on tools, you know."

"There's probably something better to use."

Ish'kirya hated these vague sentiments. His mothers were big fans of them; nudging him in an indeterminate direction, expecting him to get it with the faintest 'suggestions' of advice and patting themselves on the back for words that barely counted as hints. He gave Lotus a withering look, but her back was turned. Great. He'd be passive aggressively nudged to success from—

"Here."

By the time he turned his back, Lotus had approached him. Between fur-lined digits was what Ish'kirya could only describe as a tiny spear (he had seen the like in RPGs); a thin implement with a bladed edge on the end, sharpened to a tight point. The whetting wasn't even, but the end was precise enough despite the more than apparent handmadeness to it.

"What's this?"

"Scalpel."

Ish'kirya took it into his own hands and twirled it. A scalpel, she said. He tested it on the side of the desk, watching it curl up a wood shaving in its wake.

"Cool."

Lotus said nothing. They weren't the type for please's and thank you's, between Ish'kirya's brash demeanour and Lotus's unapologetic silence. Despite how far behind Shaaloani was, it possessed of niches that Ish'kirya hated to admit he needed. Perhaps he would learn to find it enough.

"How long will it take?" Lotus broke the silence.

"I'm a getting tired of this 'are we there yet' routine, you know. It's giving three-year-old."

Lotus stared dead at Ish'kirya, then made her way downstairs for breakfast. Truly, the preferable means of communication between them was non-verbal.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Red's night terrors, regrettably, had become a natural alarum for Imogen at this point. She awoke to his scream with a jolt still — that much hadn't been blunted and desensitised, yet — but she relaxed easier than she did the first time, her hands ghosting over Red like a shawl.

"Red. It's me," she said no louder than a whisper, and clinically shook him by the shoulders. It was a gentle jostle, like riding a chocobo carriage on an uneven road. She modulated her voice to rise slightly with every "Red", until she was speaking at normal volume (which, for Imogen, was anyone else's outdoor voice).

Eventually, he quieted awake.

"Sorry," he said. "I—"

Imogen cut him off. "I was having a weird nightmare, so cheers for that."

Red rubbed Althyk's sand from his lashes, turning his bleary blues to her. "What about?"

"I don't really wanna talk about it, honestly."

"Fair do's. Me neither."

Imogen kicked her way out of the blanket and cracked some fire crystals under the kettle, which had a permanent place on their stove. The Kugane estate that Yoki had rented was certainly intended for weddings, she thought; nowhere else would they offer a kitchenette next to the bedroom. She walked her fingers through the tea bag labels, flickering past the various citrus and ginger variants. She fished out two mild greens and dropped them into twin cups — the handleless, Hingan variant.

Red eventually got up and joined her, watching the kettle. He poured it out as she held out the ceramics. He insisted on doing the honey, too, and Imogen was particular about how squeezy 'one squeeze' was.

She wasn't used to seeing the moonlight against the grey of his hair, so she didn't look at it. She only ran her eyes along the fissures of his scars, relieved to still see most of them there.

"Kanpai," said Imogen.

"… Sure," snorted Red.

Imogen brought her tea to bed and took Red's once-place on the far side, where fear-wrought sweat still clung to the sheets. Her breath skid along the surface and turned to fog, then in her impatience, she scalded her tongue with a flinchless sip.

Red didn't drink his tea yet, and that was fine. Imogen was so easily offended by the star, but not him. She slipped a tome off the bedside table by her and waved it at him.

"We've still got a chapter of this pillowbook to devour," she said enticingly, and Red laughed. She didn't know what she'd do if that was taken away from her too, so she savoured every note, memorised the key.

"I thought ye hated th' last chapter."

"Yeah, that's why I want to read more of it. I need more kindling for my fireplace of ire. I'm a hatred-engine running out of steam."

"Or — 'ere's a wild idea — ye actually enjoy the story—"

"I would rather be devoured alive than admit such a thing."

T'was a strange metaphor, yet Red skated past it gracefully. "Right. I'll be Lord Aurumspire and you'll be Lady Bronzebosom?"

"No, let's mix it up this time. You read Lady Bronzebosom's lines."

"I'm flattered, dove. Y'think I've got the bosom to pull it off?"

"Bosom doesn't sound like a word anymore."

Red languidly held one side of the book from the top, and Imogen supported the other with a limp, lackadaiscal wrist. She thumbed the wearing pages, and noticed that they were almost through the novel entirely. Her breath hitched on something in her throat she didn't know was there. She had every temptation to just close the book on Red's fingers and try to read in silence.

Every temptation save one. One small voice in the back of her head, that she gave voice to quietly.

"Let's try and finish this tonight."

"Eager fer the climax?"

"Shut up."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The bead-woven entryway parted for a pair of chesnut brown ears, one bisecting the curtain and the other following quickly after. A'tari sat up straight on her sleeping mat, tail fraying at the ends.

It was just A'khadia.

"You should have knocked!"

"On fuckin' what?" A'khadia popped his head back and punched a fist through the curtain in its stead. A'tari chortled, her laughter its own little song, as she waved him in.

"Okay, you can come in now. Thank you for finally showing some decorum."

"Don't get used t' it." He cut a path through the generous space that they'd been given for the festivities, astral wind prickling in his wake. He wasted no time in sitting, cross legged, across his sister. He wasted even less getting to the point. Even the Warrior of Light couldn't dodge it.

"Ye alright? Y'left the council faster than I could blink."

"Of course! I just… had so many ideas, I needed to write them down."

There was no parchment in sight; they both stared at the empty space where it would've been. A'tari was a bad liar when it came to A'khadia specifically, for the sheer reason that she already knew he'd call her bullshit no matter what she said.

"Tari, s'kosher if yer overwhelmed. No one ever makes me do a speech 'cause they know I'd rather jump off'a cliff."

With a great, windy sigh, the Warrior of Light was toppled to her deathbed with mere sentiment.

"It's different for you. They ask me to do speeches wherever I go. Just because I'm a bard doesn't mean I'm good with words!" She pressed her palms into her eyes until she saw stars, the pressure staying her impending headache. "And I don't know anything about war tactics or intertribe politics. I'm not a leader! All I do is hit things until they die."

"Ye saved the star more'n once. Yer more right to be a leader than I am."

"Saving the world doesn't mean you're any good at leading it."

Only recently, she'd accepted the mantle of sage advisor, someone worth following. Past the stars in her eyes, she hears flashes of echo-embedded memories: a horrific wet gurgle parting wisened scales into soft palates of flesh — chalkboard screeches, manic and unyielding to metre, amid blinding gold — and not so far off in the distance, the full, swelling silence of Elene'shpya amid the fading twinkle of electrope.

"I don't know what I'm doing, Khade. Why does everyone think I know what I'm doing? Why does everyone think I'm you?"

A'khadia's hand was ilms from A'tari's shoulder before it retracted, fingers frozen mid-stretch. "Me?"

"You built all of this, palisade by palisade. You made every decision that kept these people alive. I gallivanted my way around Eorzea and fell into success."

A'khadia shook his head. "That ain't fair, Tari. Lizha designed the layout, the farms… I just helped hunt down th'seeds. Dusa stopped me makin' some stupid, headarse decisions n' took 'em into her own hands. And without yer help with the O'ghomoro, we'd all be tempered by now. It's never bin' just me."

A'tari breathed deep of her brother's words.

"I wish the Scions were here," she said, curling up into herself. She couldn't keep the secret from her twin for too much longer, but how she missed them. Alphinaud taking care of silk-spoken words, Alisaie having such a way with compelling ones — swooping in when A'tari suddenly forgot all the vocabulary in the star, Echo and all. Urianger and Y'shtola's thoughtful solutions to age-old problems, Thancred and Estinien's furtive efforts with people on the ground — where A'tari couldn't keep track of the small, moving parts, tunnel-visioned entirely on the monstrous threat in front of her. G'raha and Krile's innate senses for space and aether, concepts she could only dream of grasping, to see beyond what the barely-mage was capable of. And, though she never thought she'd miss it rather than fear it, Tataru's unstoppable sense for business — it encompassed everything she was struggling to do here today.

All these thoughts filled the silence between them. They fell into it often, the twin satellites.

"Let me help ye wit' the speech," A'khadia offered.

"No, you can't do it for me. I can't keep letting people do things for me because I can't. You've already done enough for our people, all because I was scared—"

"Never said I'd do it for ye. Lemme help."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

It's been eleven years since Dalamud ravaged Eorzea. All those years ago… near everyone we knew was suddenly gone. We'd barely grown beyond cubhood, and now we had the weight of the Antelope's legacy on our shoulders.

It weren't easy. All the family we had was each other, y'see — our mother and Nunh were in Thal's hands — an' the options weren't plenty. We made the 'ard decision to part ways. But it wasn't 'cause we decided t' give up.

I had no idea how I was going to help other people, let alone a tribe. I wanted to figure out who I was, what I was good at. I travelled across Eorzea and threw myself at everything. I'm sure many of you know the habits I fell into, drinking deep of my cups, staying up until the Lover's Bell, living from paycheck to paycheck. A'khadia supported me despite all that.

An' I didn't know how t' live without people aroun' me. I wasn't built ind'pendent like that. I travelled 'tween the tribes and y'let me learn yer ways. Ye didn't have to, and some of ye couldn't — I was another mouth t' feed on top of everythin' that'd happened. But ye all humbled me. I learned so much about our people. A'tari kept me company on the suns that no one could spare a hand.

It was in finding my own way that I learned how to be strong for other people.

It was the strength a' other people tha' helped me find me own way.

The Rising always sits under the constellation of the Goddess, the Balance. Nald'thal presides over it too. They both call us to keep, well, balance — between the self and the people. Between each other. To give when you take, to help when you're helped. It's one of life's many cycles that the Traders preside over.

Thank ye all for comin' to our Risin' memorial celebration today. Ye've helped us all so much, an' we wanna return it. Tari and I'll be sittin' here all evenin'. If ye need advice, a lil' helpin' hand, or even jus' an ear to listen, we'll do our best. We ain't miracle workers — we ain't the Warden — but we're both better listeners than talkers, anyhow.

… That's it! We're gonna sit down now. Come one, come all!

Yeah, jus' lemme take a leak first.

What little light the star could afford filtered through the blinds. Signe awoke to the cold snap; though she so loathed these stretches of winter, their days were longer when the chill ghosted her shoulders 'fore dawn. Easy to rouse, difficult to rest. The lot of the sibyl's bride.

It was often that Mynatrach would wake in tandem to Signe, much to her horror, or startle her in the wee hours of the night speaking in Mhachi tongues. Futures that the two were like to see, thousands of years in the future, of levinstorms spanning the entirety of kingdoms, blustering winds blowing one continent into another, and dark ages of flood where pirates ruled the seas.

Not today. This morn, Myna lay still. Signe sat up in their bed, breathing through the space between them. With featherlike footfalls, she left the room with nary a sound in her wake, not even the door. Their cottage had dilapidated, yet she had a duty to its homestead all the same. She rendered the coffee beans to grounds and brought water to boil 'pon their rusty stove. Like cauldron's brew, she tossed in plenty: a pinch of salt for herself, a dash of whiskey for the missus.

The tray they possessed was rickety and warped, burned on one side in its entire, yet she trudged up the stairs with it anyway. For a mercy, nothing spilled.

"Good morning—"

Signe hadn't seen Myna's face when she left the room.

Her cheeks had sallowed over the years, but this time they clung to the hollows of her skull, the circumference in leathery wrinkles. Rotten, brown teeth showed through the rot of her skin, and her pores had widened to off-colour craters dashed across her nose and under her eyes. Once-grey locks had shrivelled to thin, white strands that barely covered her crown, and several had shed upon the floor. She could see every one of her joints; wrists, elbows and knuckles, as her body rusted away.

Signe was not scared.

Worse, she was relieved.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Signe awoke to the cold snap and Myna's sleeping face.

Her lover's cheeks were filled out, rosy with the blush of cold. Some of her hair was stuck to her face. Her lashes were delicate and woven together, as were the ends of her fuchsia brows. She breathed deep of the world and gave it back when she was done, the slow cycle of God-given life, as Faram intended.

"Ooh, I remember. That happened what, four years ago?"

"Erm... 'Bout an epoch ago, Vahri. I was like, nine."

"Oh. Right."

Meindo rattled on about a memory that Vahri'a hadn't realised was so long ago. Her words turned to a vowely mush, as if she were speaking in another room despite being one fulm across him.

He called this affliction of his "the demon" (to no one but himself, of course, because it was stupid and melodramatic and frankly, personal). After that fateful hunt, his perception of his own life had been utterly fucked.

Parts of his life that had been truncated together now occupied a large stretch of once-blank land, and the rest all huddled shoulder-to-shoulder to make space. Events from his early 20s felt far closer than they actually were when he looked at a calendar, and he struggled to play them out without imposing his slightly more aged face over that of his youth.

Sometimes, Ma's passing felt like it was two moons ago. Sometimes, it felt like it never happened. Sometimes, he felt like she had been dead since he was born, and that wasn't right either. The demon was behind all of this, of course.

It was the same demon that guided his hand into his pocket every time he was in a rush, only to find for the umpteenth time that, yes, his house keys were still there. The very same demon that made him double, triple check that he turned the stove off and safely packed away the fire crystals before leaving home. And when he used to use arrows, it was the demon who compelled him to count them again to be sure they were at a nice, round number.

That demon relished in anchoring him to the past or torturing him with a hypothetical, disastrous future, but never found solace in the present. The present was a relative past. He rarely ever felt it in the moment — always two steps behind or two steps ahead, out of time.

"... So I wanted ta' ask ye about voidsent."

"Wait, why?" Vahri'a had only just tuned back in to Meindo's monologue. "What do voidsent have to do with All Saint's Wake?"

"I jus'— Augh, look, I'm jus' tryin' ta keep me and me friends safe."

"But you can just avoid the festivities altogether, can't you? You didn't even like All Saint's Wake when we last went."

"'Cause I was like, nine, Vahri. I'm a full grown adult now. I ain't scared a' merches in costumes tryin' to sell me shite. I dunno if tha' rumours are true about voidsent, so I dun' wannit to stop me goin', but I wanna be ready. On tha' off chance somethin' happens."

Vahri'a spoke low. "I don't think you can be ready."

Meindo grumbled. "If you ain't helpin' me, then I'll ask someone else."

"No, no, Mei, I'm sorry, I didn't mean you specifically—"

"S'fine. Let's talk about somethin' else."

Vahri'a sighed. He knew this tack and followed suit, otherwise the conversation would end period.

"Okay. If you want to. Uh... how's training been?"

"Oh yeah, you remember when I first applied t' be a Maelstrom Jade?"

Dior's reflection revealed the worst of them. An ugly scar raked up their inner arm. Ladder rungs of dark, crumpled flesh. Scion Gale had offered to graft new skin atop the mess for them, but they declined. It was only now that they regretted their decision.

It wasn't just the scar, even though that was the worst of it — it was the only thing Dior consciously thought to hide under foundation crème and long sleeves, after all. But it was also the jagged zag of their teeth, not gnashing flush together, not pristine and pearly white. It was also the little dry cracks in their bottom lip, like thick lashes, all tightly knit.

Dior had never thought themself a vain person. How times had changed. They weren't happy with their body and they weren't sure why, or if it was a sin to.

"We're ready to leave," said the Lord of the House with a gentle knock at the closed door. They never heard him coming, despite their best efforts.

"Yes, milord."

TW. Grievous child injury, child death, child endangerment, and reckless behaviour reminiscent of self-harm. CW. Dawntrail spoilers.

"Hey, Mama. Do we know anyone who's died?"

"I wouldn't know, Ishy."

Ish'kirya, at the ripe age of six, asked questions their mother wasn't prepared for. Aolaani put down her reading tablet and gave the little one a once-over. Their eyes, mismatched hues of magenta, stretched like great dishes with pinpricks of antennae as their pupils. Their ears were swivelled towards her, wide and wanting for more about the world.

"Why d'you wanna know anyway, kiddo?" she asked, knees brushing the carpet as she squatted down in front of them. "Anythin' on ya mind?"

Imogen's heels clicked down the dusky streets of Foundation, making the same journey she did every sennend. The Congregation of Knights Most Heavenly requested her in immediately and often, and it wasn't as if she complained; Imogen liked to work. She liked feeling needed.

So she gazed upon their imposing headquarters with little awe, seeing the building more as a second home. Unsurprisingly, she found Ser Penault waiting in the entrance hall, standing to attention as she entered. Penault was a poorly-postured man with what Imogen liked to call a 'looking glass face' — he mirrored the emotions of the people he spoke to instinctively, and they shone through his features. He was ill-suited for this type of work, and she suspected he preferred the duties of Temple Knights that pertained to public order.

"Dame Lafontaine," Penault greeted with an Ishgardian salute. Imogen appeared thoroughly unimpressed, and so his heart was immediately struck with a deep insecurity. "My apologies—"

"At ease, Ser. Where's the interogée?"

"In questioning chamber four."

Lady Irie stood from behind her desk, leaving behind a modest stack of administrative forms. Irie's face was made up of soft curves that begot her shrewd eye. She was the perfect administrator to greet witnesses at the front desk, and she wanted nothing more than it. Paperwork was easy and let her go home before closing every sun.

"Fury take me, Penault. You've called Dame Lafontaine in again? Last I checked there were at least two dozen inquisitors working the questioning chambers, yet it's been the poor Dame every time."

"It's fine, Irie," Imogen chuckled wry, the inner corners of her brows ticking upwards. "I wasn't busy, and the case sounds interesting."

"You're certain?" Her glasses glinted. Penault looked to Imogen with a squint, reflecting Irie's disbelief. Imogen shrugged.

"I'm here now, aren't I? Tell me about our troublemaker, Ser."

Penault took Imogen to a breakroom, where their target had been contextualised with pieces on a corkboard. It was a breaking and entering case: the Viscount of House Realeux reported an unlocked window and several stolen possessions, including a luxury ornamental tea set from Thavnair, a number of paintings by the famed artist Lord Duremert, and a business ledger.

The loss of particularly expensive artefacts caused the reporting Viscount to believe the thief was a member of the lowborn, though nothing else really pointed to this as a hard fact. In greater leads, the large amount that was stolen would require a number of accomplices to support the load, the least in a carriage driver and the most in several people manually carrying off the cargo. A neighbour of the Viscount recalled a larger amount of people in their residential district of the Pillars than the usual, but they were dispersed and did not seem to be talking to each other.

One Redgar Ashten, a Hyuran man born in the Brume, matched the neighbour's descriptions well — a short, muscular spoken, with a shock of red hair and several facial scars.

"Just because he's from the Brume doesn't mean he's more predisposed to being a thief, Ser," Imogen warned, giving the portrait of Mr. Ashten another once-over. "Who is the witness?"

"Baroness Alseonne de Dzemael. She has no history in criminal heresy and her statement was corroborated by Baron Ezex a street over. I don't mean to act out of bias, however, there is no motive for neighbouring highborn to steal items of monetary value. They are quite well to-do."

"No motive at all?" Imogen sighed, pushing her fringe out of her eyes. "No matter. Where did you leave off with the interogée?"

"He's… something else, Dame." Penault shook his head, his brow tense for the recollection alone. "Frustratingly obtuse. Wouldn't budge on anything. Kept playing games with us, even when I brought in Dame Gleafoix for the Muttant-and-Jefoix. He doesn't respond at all to intimidation tactics. Seems too confident for an innocent person in questioning, but he hasn't confessed to anything. Answers questions with other questions."

"Well, at the very least he's talking. How long has he been in there?"

"Three bells."

"Three bells? Twelve forfend, Penault."

"We know he at least knows something, we're trying to exhaust him."

Imogen sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Okay, okay. Give me a moment to prepare and I'll come in."

"Thank you. Will you need another Inquisitor on stand-by?"

"I'm not doing Muttant-and-Jefoix, he's obviously read that."

"Of course. My apologies."

Penault left the prickly Dame on her own. She skimmed over the loose transcript that their clergy-scribe had put together of circular arguments that went nowhere. She took a look at the artists' impressions and rubbings of the window-sill. It was all really nothing, and they had no reason to detain the suspect for this long — but these were the cases they usually brought her in for. No proof, but they just knew something was up with this guy, and Imogen agreed that his staunch noncompliance was suspicious. She ended up focusing more on her plan of action than the file.

At first, Imogen hated the questioning chambers. Coming into a room and pretending to be a desperate person's friend. Making jokes, listening attentively, professing passionate lies. Insisting she knew that her confessant was not a bad person, just to put them in irons and read out their counts of heresy not bells later. It felt slimy. She struggled to stay in the room longer than half a bell at a time.

But over time, she realised how good at it she was, even intrinsically. How interesting it was, when she separated a person's feature from their body, to read what those expressions meant. To set up little traps, entice the interogée to trap themselves in their own web of lies. It was fun; it was like fighting on the frontline, without blood.

Well. Without blood that she had to see.

Dismissing the thought, Imogen shrugged off her Inquisitor's jacket and left the crest brooch loose on her tunic. Her plans could only achieve so much. It was finally time for what she was made for, the show, the fun part. It helped that the suspect seemed like he'd put up a good fight, too. She wiped the little twitch of excitement off the corner of her lips, and made for questioning chamber four.

Scene I

[Enter Lafontaine with a glass of water.]

LAFONTAINE Good evening, Mr. Ashten. I'm Dame Lafontaine. How are you?

ASHTEN It's what it's.

LAFONTAINE Sorry?

ASHTEN Hm?

[Lafontaine places the glass of water in front of Ashten. He does not drink it.]

LAFONTAINE …Can I get you some food, ser?

ASHTEN S'fine, I'm alright.

[Lafontaine sits at left centre stage. Ashten is seated at right centre stage — moves stool to centre stage, flush to table.]

LAFONTAINE You're to be read the prayer of justice as a reminder of the Fury's graces to you before we begin... It's protocol for anyone we bring in here.

ASHTEN If ye say so, Dame Lafontaine.

LAFONTAINE Excellent. Under the gaze of the Fury, thou may avail of thy Twelve-given silence should thou fearest invocation of the Goddess' wrath. Should thou profess thy truth, it shall be offered unto the Goddess, whose rancour knoweth no bounds. Got that?

ASHTEN Loud an' clear.

LAFONTAINE Just procedural stuff. My colleagues probably read the same spiel out to you earlier. But you've been in here a few bells now?

ASHTEN Give or take. There ain't a chronometer in 'ere or anythin', so I've had t' go by shadows.

LAFONTAINE You'll find the Warden unmoved here.

ASHTEN Well, when's She ever?

LAFONTAINE A few bells in here, then. How's that been? A long time to be holed up in here, I know I'd hate it.

ASHTEN Ye got a fire goin' summat fierce in the building, s'nice.

LAFONTAINE Feeling cold lately?

ASHTEN Only the last epoch.

LAFONTAINE Firmament's got some nice offerings on. Good insulation. You planning on making the move sometime soon?

ASHTEN I'll prolly pass, Dame.

LAFONTAINE Why's that?

ASHTEN S'not exactly free, innit?

LAFONTAINE Worried about finances lately, Mr. Ashten?

[Ashten leans over the table, past the glass of water.]

ASHTEN Well, if you're offerin', I'll take ye up on that.

LAFONTAINE On what, sorry?

ASHTEN Marryin' up. That's very kind of you.

[Lafontaine sits up straight.]

LAFONTAINE Excusez-moi?

ASHTEN Pardon, I might've misread. A cute temple knight, worried 'bout me finances? Thought it too good t'be true.

LAFONTAINE Ah.

ASHTEN Cat got your tongue, Inquisitor?

LAFONTAINE One moment, please.

That was the fastest Dame Lafontaine left a questioning chamber, ever. Her heart hammered against its cage like a woodpecker. She closed the door quietly and then bound around the corner to the entrance hall, where Penault was discussing something-or-other with Irie. What it was was unimportant to her and fell on numb ears.

"Ser Penault! Break room!"

Penault jumped. "Yes, yes."

Penault took a seat, only to find Imogen insistent on standing in the doorway. Her eyes were steely cold, her arms folded tight over her chest, as she questioned the easier interogée with aplomb.

"You didn't say he was going to flirt with me." No one flirted with her. She looked constantly tired, the idealistic image of an old maid, and her inquisitor's badge didn't help. Her poor posture didn't flatter her much, nor did the dark circles around her eyes. It was easier that way for her, too; it was a boon. Tonight, she had been so taken aback by Mr. Ashten's little smile, the challenge of it…

"What?" Even Penault thought it surprising; that or he was just raising his brows because she was, and oh Gods, was she? "He didn't flirt with me or even Gleafoix."

"Ugh."

"Sorry, you left the room because he flirted with you?"

"Yes!" She chewed at her nail.

"Why? He's just going to keep flirting with you now. You could've waited a little longer at least—"

"I don't see you in that room anymore, so save your opinion!"

Penault sighed. "Apologies, Dame Lafontaine. I understand it is a disrespect to your honour and modesty."

She glared at him. Penault glared back, albeit uncertainly.

"Fine. I'll just flirt back. Do things your way."

"Halone preserve, I'm not sure that's appropriate."

"Nothing about this job has ever been about honour, modesty, or what's appropriate. Get the clergy-scribe and wait for me in the breakroom this time."

"But Lady Irie—"

Imogen's glare won out.

"Yes, Dame Lafontaine."

Scene II

[Enter Lafontaine. Ashten has still not drunk the water.]

LAFONTAINE Apologies, Mr. Ashten.

ASHTEN No bother. Everythin' awe'right, Dame?

[Lafontaine pulls her chair up flush to the table, mirroring Ashten.]

LAFONTAINE I merely had to ensure my colleagues gave us some privacy.

ASHTEN What for?

LAFONTAINE It wouldn't be appropriate for someone in my role to indulge in your… ministrations. At the very least, with witnesses. But here, we can speak earnestly.

ASHTEN Great. Speak away.

LAFONTAINE I found… uh, hm…

[Lafontaine breaks eye contact.]

LAFONTAINE You're quite flattering, Mr. Ashten. Very direct. I would like to get to know you better.

ASHTEN S'pose that's the point of these rooms, innit? Wish we had a candle to light in here.

[Lafontaine honks a laugh and claps her hand over her mouth. Ashten does not flinch. Off-stage, Penault coughs.]

LAFONTAINE Anyway. We were talking about the Firmament. If you were to move there with me, what sort of house would you want? How would you decorate it? What's your dream estate?

ASHTEN Great question, that. I'm thinkin'… In th'bedroom, we'll catch forty winks on a big bed — or zero, Dame's choice — a nice window facin' the sunset, and a fancy armchair in the corner.

LAFONTAINE What's the armchair for?

ASHTEN For iff'n we want someone to watch.

LAFONTAINE …What? Why would we—

ASHTEN Jus'seems like your kinda thing.

LAFONTAINE How? How does it look like my kind of thing, pray tell.

ASHTEN S'no shame in it, Dame.

LAFONTAINE I— Anyway. What about the kitchen?

ASHTEN If you're feelin' bashful 'bout it, we can talk about the armchair some other time.

LAFONTAINE Oh, my Gods.

ASHTEN Is it 'cause this is bein' recorded?

LAFONTAINE This is not being recorded.

ASHTEN Ain't you gotta tell me if sommat's bein' recorded?

LAFONTAINE No, I don't.

ASHTEN So it's bein' recorded. Fer shame, betrayal from me own fiancé.

LAFONTAINE Stop dodging the questions, Mr. Ashten.

ASHTEN Sorry, I thought we was just chattin' it up. First date an' all.

LAFONTAINE Argh!

Imogen opened the door to find the clergy-scribe writing more transcription than she had ever seen him achieve. The daggers she gave him stopped him in his tracks.

"I told you, he's a complete buffoon," Penault said as Imogen chugged a cup of coffee. "He wasn't that way with me, but he was non-complaint in every other way. Not that I would've complained. Wish the wife would talk to me that way."

"I can't do this," Imogen despaired, dragging a hand down her face.

"It's really rattling you that much, Dame?"

That stopped her heart in its entire, wrought a single blink from her and none else. She could sense it, the disappointment in his voice. She had been such a star, cracking people wide open, and here she was. Brought to bear by a belligerent interogée who only had to comment once on her potential preferences to get her to leave a room. Twice.

"We should just keep him in overnight and try again on the morrow," Penault sighed, getting up from the table.

"No, we don't have a justifiable reason to."

"He's completely non-compliant—"

"And we have nothing connecting him to the case except for an eye-witness who described someone similar."

"So what now?"

Imogen wanted so badly to go back in there and show him. Drop salacious one-liners that left him speechless. Catch him off guard, hitch breath in his throat. Unbutton her shirt and out-slag the man. She wanted to win, and for some reason that made her face feel hot. Halone's chill wasn't present here, and that was a great shame. She held her face in her hand and uttered words she hadn't before.

"Just release him."

"He might run away if we give him the ilm—"

"You have no other inquisitors and I need a break. Let him go."

Penault silently left the break room and made for questioning chamber four. That hanging silence, no "Yes, Dame" or "Very well, Inquisitor".

A single Brumeling had unmade her, and even moreso, unmade her colleagues' respect in her. That stung the most. How hard she had clawed her way up for any modicum of respect, despite the circumstances of her birth, despite the point of her ears. How hard she had to convince her father to let her pursue this dangerous, dark work instead of marrying up, as Mr. Ashten so aptly put it. How damning, how dire. Perhaps she should just go back to guard work.

Yet, there was something about this challenge that enticed her despite her initial failure. There was something provocative about failure to begin with. That anyone could make her bleed after so many years in the art was intriguing in the least. That anyone could fluster her after years of being alone…

"Broke him already, Dame Lafontaine?" asked Irie as Imogen walked out the door. She knew what she was doing, that little chime on the end.

Ishgard was the last place Vahri'a expected to warm his bed.

It wasn't an Ishgardian, either — Vahri'a had a guilty pleasure for Gridanian men, despite (or perhaps because) of the fear they planted in the pit of his stomach. They possessed of a lithe, autumnal beauty, with their freckled skyscapes of skin and cherry bark hair. In the same manner that marmots seemed unlike to be pests at first pass, the soft appearance of the Gridanian midlander begot a predator's prejudice.

Thankfully, not Cormac. Cormac travelled between the Twelveswood and Coerthas in support of the Firmament project, and wound up on a mead-mellowed eve in the Forgotten Knight. If he had misgivings for Keepers of the Moon, he hid them well enough.

One might mistake Vahri'a for one blessed by the Goddess for how often he found himself wanted. He knew better, for his yearning was stronger — his appetite quiet, yet constant — that Dalamud, the ravenous hound, was his better.

Cormac returned to the inn room with two glasses of water and a wobbly smile.

"Thank you very much," Vahri'a hummed, reaching over to take a sip. The water was nice and crisp with Coerthan character. "Must be cold out there."

"A touch." Cormac's tunic hung loose over his shoulders as he perched against Vahri'a's shoulder.

Vahri'a could never explain the way that another's skin made his blossom, the satisfaction of a yawn that emanated from another's weight, the champagne bubbles from every brush against his collarbone. It was as natural as eating and as luxurious as dining.

Cormac set aside their comfortable silence for his curiosity.

"Hm?" Vahri'a piqued; he had been so zoned out that he only heard the sentiment as mumbles.

"Sorry. I just mean to say… Keeper life must be nice, no?"

"Hah, I guess so." Vahri'a wasn't sure what to say to the question, this sudden interruption to his lazy river leisure. "Why do you think so?"

Cormac's eyes shifted to one side, suddenly bashful despite what they'd shared. "Maybe I'm mistaken, but I've heard that Keeper men… wander? You get to meet all sorts. They probably clamour for you, since there aren't many men. You get to live a bachelor's life, forever."

If only it were so easy! But Vahri'a was not the type to stir the pot, the only indication of his discomfort being a slight shift in his posture, sitting up a little.

"Mhm, it can be nice. I haven't taken up that mantle myself."

"Just doing it for the betterment of the wider star then, are you?" Cormac teased.

"I suppose I'm sating someone's needs." Vahri'a ran his finger along the angle of Cormac's jaw, up the slope of his perched chin.

A wanderer provided a need for his people. If all wanderers forsook their duty, and if another calamity hit… only epochs could pass, and Keepers would be a distant memory. A culture kept from the Fourth Astral Era, entirely begotten. He knew he was one man, but the weight of their world weighed on him still. It did not feel freeing, unlike Vahri'a's exploratory beddings across Eorzea. Those were just for him, these morsels of pleasure. How selfish; how small.

Vahri'a hadn't realised how much he was hanging as Cormac blinked at him expectantly.

"Mm?" he asked, retroactively flattening his ears and perking them up.

"I mean… It's not something I'd normally do, but it's nice. Perhaps I'm just jealous. You're not expected to settle down and die in the same cot you'd been sleeping in for fifty years." Cormac pushed his hair out of his face. "Sorry. I'm just bending your ear now."

"It's alright," Vahri'a chided before kissing Cormac's cheek. Then he caught the corner of the man's lips, and the thoughts stopped.

In the early hours of the morning, Vahri'a was still awake. The Ishgardian sun was pale and frosty, wafting through the broken blinds of their cheap inn room and grazing the bed. It was the Warden's cue, fetching him from the Lover's throes. You've got places to be, she said to the hound, and he obliged her.

A'tari woke with a start from another nightmare that wasn't hers.

It was an immersion of her own undoing. The bard had learned to capture the precision and subtleties of sound, and she drowned in those sounds in her dreams. How vividly she could hear the rattle of gunfire, the roiling mass of clamouring voices, and the jaw-clenching scrape of metal on metal. The rest was an impressionist's painting of reality: swatches of sunset for the oldstone houses and the faces, baked red. The thick, sticky, serrated scent of sweat and smoke. The numb thud of shoulders and elbows into her sides, all piling on in her new sense of gravity. The taste of blossoming, sour iron in her mouth. Flames of hair licking at the tops of her vision.

A'tari found herself sprawled out in the bed on her own. A rustling shift of the sheets and a turn of her head revealed Urianger at the desk, poring through dense text.

"Didn't get a good sleep either, huh?" A'tari asked him, sitting up in their sheets.

"I fear it shall not come to pass. Not tonight." Urianger closed his book. His features outlined nicely in candlelight, orange blooming in the little hairs of his beard and lashes. He beheld A'tari, bundled in blankets, with a knowing and tired sympathy. "Pray tell, whose visions plagueth thee?"

"Fordola rem Lupis."

Perhaps it was the woman's resonant that allowed so many of her nightmares to seep into the folds of A'tari's mind. It was difficult for A'tari to not give the Butcher grace the moment she showed an inkling of change; the Echo had slipped Fordola's hands on hers like gloves and forced her to watch them defend herself, to kill. It was difficult to truly know which of her thoughts about Fordola were really hers: the pity, the hatred, the hope, the lot.

But how many others had she come to inherit the nightmares of, long after they passed? She saw the young, prepubescent face of Asahi sas Brutus, which was tinted with hatred even back then. She heard the chime of Meteion's, "How are you feeling?" and the smothering silence that followed. She felt sand nicking at the wounds in her aether-thinned skin as the rattle of the serpent hastened from one ear to the next, before she lost consciousness in the desert sheets.

"Alas, hers is a plentiful spring from which thy shadows sup," said Urianger, breaking her spiral of thought.

"And what about you? How did the star end this time?"

"'Twas the black rose that blossomed once more."

"What a pair we make. One tortured by others' pasts, one suffering from apocalyptic futures."

Urianger smiled in dry amusement.

"In truth, I would not trade my vocation for any other. To be without the gift of prophecy is to be without the gift of thee."

A'tari brushed her thumbs over her knees, a simper hidden behind her perching duvet.

"You aren't tired of seeing me die over and over? I'm tired of it, and half the time all I see are dead strangers. People I didn't even really know… People I don't have the right to grieve. Yet, I do. Still."

"'Tis merely a vision, and for that I am well glad. Were I to forsake the art of prophecy, the worst of my visions shall come to bear." Urianger shifted his chair around entirely, facing A'tari properly. "The nightmares compel thy heroism — thy desire to savest those who may yet be saved."

"Maybe."

A'tari never thought of it that way. It was easy for Urianger to find the silver lining. He sought to intimately understand the worst so he was motivated to strive for the best, every time.

A'tari was not so resilient. A'tari wanted a good night's rest, without the heavy mantle of everyone's struggles on her shoulders. Why couldn't she just take it, the way Urianger did every time he delved somewhere strange, alone, and came back the same? Him — lovely, kind him.

Urianger stood and drifted across the room. His finger caught a tear on the apex of her lash, and she hadn't realised she was crying.

"My burden is fear, as is the burden of spokenkind in its entire. 'Tis no different from reading hypotheses. Thy burden art beyond mine own, A'tari. Thou hast seen the myriad horrors of the star, in the very flesh thou hast cut down again and again. Such visions of the past cannot be changed. Were I plagued with thy gift and affliction alike…"

"What would you do?"

"I would seclude myself to the farthest reaches of the star, and hope that in so doing, I would be full rid of the possibility that a vision might find me. Were I braver, were I stronger, mayhaps I would allow for a single companion. Yet thou claimest companionship in every breath, A'tari."

A'tari gleamed watery-eyed at Urianger. In a blink, her arms were wrapped around his hips, and her cheek pressed against his sternum.

Urianger wrapped his arms around her, one across her shoulder blades both, and the other stroking her hair. She didn't cry, but this was close, and he allowed for the mourning silence indefinitely.

"I'm going to try to get back to sleep," she said eventually, gratitude woven into the levity of her voice.

"Fare thee well." Urianger turned away, towards the desk — until A'tari grabbed his hand.

"Come try with me?"

Part One

Hunting in Thanalan was abhorrently easy — so much so that Vahri considered venators of the region to be charlatans of the art. Tracks faded quick, sure, but they were glaringly obvious for their short life. You'd have to be stupid to miss sightlines, even when rays ricocheted off the flat earth, for at least the earth was flat. She felt a prodigy enough shooting in the Twelveswood; in the desert plains, she may as well have been the Wanderer.

Vahri wondered why the adventurer she was following decided to hunt with a tiny pair of kitchen knives. Archery had the clear advantage, yet he seemed to want to get up close and personal with his prey. Was it his lack of practice with the bow? Was it the intent of practice with close quarters combat? A shortbow was easily the solution to both — kill two sparrows with one arrow, as her sisters so often put it.

Well, if he favoured these ineffective weapons so, then it was his burial.

The stranger, satisfied that he'd escaped her ire, slowed his thief's slip to a creeping gait. He didn't move much like a smart hunter, approaching vilekin with eyes on the sides of their head from the flank, like he was about to say hello to an old friend. Perhaps it was the distance from which she watched him, unaware of his sound — rather, the lack thereof — as he slunk up unnoticed by the antilon entirely.

How futile, she thought.

From the nearby butte on which she'd hurried and perched, Vahri nocked her arrow. Her bow was of elegant make, supple yew that plied to her will. Hanging from her quiver, a sharp peridot glinted in the sun. It was as she pursed her lips and trilled birdsong into the aether that the gem glowed.

The stranger's neck snapped in the direction she projected the call. It was a unique dialect of huntspeak, the clicks and whistled replaced with notes of stacatto and vibrato in the mimicry of a bird. It took him a moment to recognise the command — Look alive — before another sound whistled past his ear.

The huntspeak was an ample distraction, especially for someone who could understand it, but that was just a nice-to-have. Its true audience was the arrow, which glowed with biting wind as she sung. The arrow flew blink-and-you'll-miss-it quick. It whistled its way into the antilon's head.

That smirk was completely absent when the stranger turned back to his mark — murdered in a manner of moments. He couldn't see her, but he knew the game and started running towards the nearest antilon. Alerted to its predator, it clicked its pincers at him, mirroring his gleaming twin fangs—

Th-chk! Vahri's triplet arrows struck it first. Her trill echoed on the wind and it provided the percussion, thumping lifeless on the ground. Through the tresses of his hair, the stranger's eyes were piercing purple as he finally spotted her atop the cliff. It would've been sensible to hide behind the cliff face... but Vahri couldn't resist the urge to be the smug one, pulling the corner of her mouth into a frightening uptick.

There was one antilon left in the vicinity, more than alerted to the danger. He leapt over the dead one's body and readied one of his daggers to throw, bearing one pearly fang. She knew she was no archmage, but she still possessed the acute ability to plan ahead. The arrow was already nocked, and had been the moment he spotted her. She just wanted it to die in front of him.

She reared her shoulder back for a single, stormbitten shot—

Ping! The arrow glanced off his pauldron like the high morning sun. The nerve, the foolishness! It could've caught him through the neck if he was ilms off the mark. The move placed the stranger right in the antilon's path. It scraped fabric from his skin and skin from his shin, fresh blood dripping down his ankle. Vahri shook herself out of her dumbfoundedness and readied another shot, this time to save that stupid stranger, aiming right between the antilon's eyes.

It would've been gruesome if the man's knife met the antilon's neck, or the antilon managed to snip off a finger. Both were imminent to come true, after all. The vilekin was instead knocked back and twitched itself to death.

Three out of three. The stranger cast his gaze up, up at the woman who bested him. She stood proudly on her hill, on which she was willing to die but mercifully triumphed. He approached her and, despite the ten fulms of altitude between them, yelled up.

"Nice shot." How she glowed at that admission.

"Shots," she corrected. "I believe you owe me that hunt bill. I'll even come down to collect it."

"Really? As far as I'm concerned, you just saved me a load of work and whetting. I'm going to go turn this in."

Vahri's amusement fell fast into a scowl. Did he truly mean that?

"What, you'll be happy with collecting a reward for doing nothing?" she spat.

The man's face split into a great, pearly fissure. He shouted, "I'm joking! That's me told. I'm still nursing my poor little ego. Other adventurers might not be so honorable, though. Not that you couldn't put an arrow through their head anyhow."

Vahri released a sigh she didn't know she was holding and clambered down the small plateau. It wasn't as forgiving a descent as that of a tree; she'd come up here on a slope, but wanted to add insult to injury by alighting the harsher side to collect her reward.

Vahri only then realised the stranger was offering her a hand.

Her eyes fell into his palm for two long, wordless measures.

"You'll scrape your ankles, huntress," he purred, that last word a prodding tease. She took his hand. Calloused and sharply silhouetted as it might've been, his palm's grasp was pebble smooth, like all the callous on this side has been burned away.

Their shared grip started firm and mechanical. When she landed, loosened, the touch fell into something gentler. The pad of her thumb brushed away from his inquisitive index finger, and when it left, she felt air between them instead of a wall.

He didn't say anything either. It was a silence shared between them and the ant corpses. Vahri eagerly broke the silence.

"If you promise to never steal my jobs again, we can hand it in together." It only seemed the forgiving thing to do — the Mother Moon needed sating.

"You sure?" He didn't even wait for her to rethink it, the bastard. "Sounds good to me."

Side by side, the two Keepers hauled tail back to the Adventurer's Guild. Gods, it hadn't even caught up to Vahri just how tired she was until now. Her cheeky pursuit, a rush of adrenaline, was finally over. Now she just wanted to take a nap. Oddly, she found herself craving a warm sleep despite the heat. A comfortable blanket, weighted and wanting.

She gave the compulsion no further thought as they arrived at the levemete's desk. Vahri turned to Kai'a and he turned away, fast.

"Turning this one in."

"That was quick. Are both of you collecting?"

"Yes," Vahri cut in immediately. The stranger's laughter was surprisingly light, chiming. She snorted.

The levemete took the bill and gave it a bright, red stamp. It was the first Vahri had seen.

"Your name, madame?"

"Vahri... Korla," she remembered.

"And yours, ser?"

"Kai'a Yarhasa."

"Are you both in the same adventuring party?"

There was a pregnant pause, then both spoke at the same time:

"Nope."

"Not at the minute."

Vahri turned to Kai'a Yarhasa with a curious brow. He was still turned away from her, his hair curtaining his eyes but unable to hide his tiny, wobbly mouth.

"No worries," said the levemete. "Do let us know if that changes and we can re-register this under your party name. Congratulations and thank you on behalf of the guild."

They relinquished the line to an adventuring party behind them. Vahri knew she was meant to be angry with Kai'a, if not done with him — he had been such an unapologetic bastard, after all — but she kept stealing glances at him, as if she cared to know what he was thinking. As they stopped by one if the tavern's many banisters, she caught a thought-to-be-furtive look from him, and they both turned away like their eyes had touched a stove.

"Korla, huh. Not a clan I've heard of."

"Mm." A story for another time. For a friend, not a stranger. "Yarhasa family's from the South, right?"

"Yeah. The South is a shithole."

"It mustn't be all bad. There's a reason the Coeurlclaws choose to make trouble there, right?"

Vahri laughed sarcastically, which Kai'a mirrored dark.

"I'll see you in the early bells tomorrow then, Korla."

"Not to steal another bill, I hope."

"No, I did promise."

Kai'a offered a pinky. It was sopping in irony, which only made Vahri take it in earnest — to stick it to the wanderer, of course.

"I'll hold you to that, Goddess as my witness."

"I'm sure She has better things to do."

Before Vahri could retort, she'd blinked and he'd slinked fulms away again. Rat tail swinging behind him. A rhythm to his gait, almost like he was skipping.

Vahri was a woman of only nineteen summers, though she couldn't tell what gave it away. Sure, she had a wiry body, but it was all lean muscle, tightly packed, athletic — moreso than dainty or lithe. Her gait was mean, and her vocabulary beyond adequate. Yet the billposters always asked her nameday, and they never gave lalafell a double-take. Admittedly, she was still getting used to the lalafell herself, pitying every apparent lost child until they spoke.

City-state streets were a den of distraction. Brass Blades asked if she was begging on Emerald Avenue, which in Thanalan was a greater sin than slavery, and she gladly demonstrated how well she could mind her own business. Aspiring adoptees asked if she was waiting for her parents, and she proudly informed them of her emancipation with a quick 'Jog on!' How plenty merchants spoke to say so little. Enough frugal 'yes'es and 'no's were enough to send them onto the next prospective customer.

The first time she visited the Quicksand, just before sunset, all the quest bills were gone. The billposter said the best time to check was noon, but she didn't want to wake up that early. The early hours of morning would have to do, no matter how much exhaustion racked her every step. All she had to go was get the bill, and she could fulfil it by night and turn it in the next morning. For a mercy, no one else had the same idea.

Vahri slipped through the sliver between the tavern doors the moment she heard the bolt release. It was a sharp turn left. She wove past overnighters who had just finished their complementary breakfast and slippery drunkards being herded out far later than they should've been. They were all no different from trees, perhaps even more languid, and through them she kept her eyes on the leve board — the prize.

She truly had the pick of the lot. There were all kinds of leves plastered over the wall: escort missions, guard postings, bounties, and her favourite, hunts. She spied a crisp bill for three antilons near Black Brush Station, freshly screenprinted. They just needed to be culled. Three overgrown insects dead in twenty-four bells? For the Shroudborn, that was child's play—

"Not so fast."

A hand slipped into her field of view. A dark brown dorsal with prominent, scabby knuckles. Callouses that caught the light. Ungloved, dry, clean. It plucked the bill from the board.

Vahri followed the hand to find a miqo'te. This interloper had a sharp, leopard-like face — small eyes with large irises, a long, sloping nose, and a tiny mouth that curled up on one sidre, all smug. His entire body was as wiry as his hand, joint bones jutting unapologetically from his limbs, which were all posed at bold angles. Light attire accentuated his natural silhouette, a tight waist and athlete's calves, and the only things he seemed to carry were a gilpurse and twin daggers, leather-sheathed. His tail was thin and nearly hairless as a rat's. His damson hair fell over his eyes and darkened the shadows around them, but they were still prominent. Vivid violets, gleaming as she frowned.

The round pupils gave it away.

He was a Keeper. Try as he might to pass the garb off as Thanalan-made, for its cropped sleeves and rust red dye, the leather was elastic diremite — what other material could have the belt hug his waist like a corset? And the holsters at his hip had floral engravings, reminiscent of thorny Oldroses. Gridanian make, a city guild merchant's signature. The only thing Ul'dahn about him was the jewel hanging from his ear lobe, blemishless and sparkling new.

"Excuse me. I was about to take that bill." Vahri opened her hand expectantly.

The stranger dangled it over Vahri's hand. "That's unfortunate. It's mine now."

"Please. I clearly saw it first. I was here first."

"I saw it from all the way over there." He hiked his thumb towards the Quicksand's inner counters, where the Hourglass receptionist was drumming his fingers. So he was staying at the inn; he must've been loaded.

"Come on. Have some respect for your fellow-women."

"Oh sorry, huntress. We're not in the woods anymore. There's a bunch of other leves on the board, so why don't you nock an arrow at a cactuar or something?"

Before Vahri could retort, the vagabond slipped behind a group of migrating tourists to the Quicksand doors. Her blood was simmering and close to boil. Yes, she supposed she could go hunt some cactuar. They were easy prey for a sniper. And she supposed that she had her pick of any other quest. But she didn't want the other quests now. She had just been told no, and she wanted that one.

Vahri stalked out of the tavern and back into the blearing Ul'dahn sun. Through the harsh light, she spotted the purple blur flitting through the smattering of Emerald Avenue early birds, making his way to the Gate of Nald.

The post was still crumpled in his hand. That smirk was still smudged over his face. How well a smile suited his easy features. How eager she was to wipe it off him.

Bill or no bill, she had a mark to hunt.

Another crumpled piece of parchment arced over Imogen's head. It landed fulms from the wastebin with the rest.

It was a waste, and with that waste came a sunk cost. She had to get this right. Else those trees would've died for nothing.

My Redgar thinks himself a shadow I hadn't the heart to tell him, but here goes: A shadow dissolves in candle light, it leaves no traces Of him I have evidence aplenty He doesn't seep into the floorboards, he plays them like percussion for the crowd He speaks before he's seen, little shadow, those Limsan greetings chime Everyone turns with gaze a-snare Expecting his crimson head of hair — of course, fucking Red is there Red, here, there and everywhere He'll tuck you into bed and claim his hands are made for choking He'll kiss your brow at dead of night and claim his maw is made for biting His cheeks are red as apples — he claims to draw blood, never yield it And perhaps all of that is true But only in Menphina's dew, when midnight strikes and the moon is Watching the little "shadow" move Dissolve he won't, he can't, no cover For the once and forever clandestine lover My Redgar is the big bad wolf My Redgar is the boy who cried The fault is in the fools who think that either or must lie

Satisfied for now, Imogen bookended the poem with authors' notes. First, the prelude.

Red— They were having a limerick contest in the mess hall today and it pissed me off. This poem is fueled purely by spite. It is the first ever hate sonnet.

Then, the footnote.

One expects their room to feel empty when their roommate is gone, but not always. T'orii was a dam — the only thing holding back the catastrophic disarray that Mana was capable of. Without eyes that could be offended, for hers were so forgiving, Mana had no reason to maintain a respectable private life.

Every object in the room had something to say. They echoed the pretty, enchanting words of upper market vendors, for whom deception was a disservice to their truly quality products. The fixtures around her didn't heckle or bargain with reality, no, they all had a different promise to offer. And every promise tasted sweet.

Mana's attention flittered around the room to hear out each of these voices. She'd wanted to compare the taste of water crystals from La Noscea to that of Ala Mhigo, and that took her fancy for a moment — until her undried, unhung clothes from noontime's wash clamoured up her nose, the smell having taken on a new, musty smell. She had a Living Lexicon article she clipped from the Mythril Eye that she wanted to read, and keeping the mind spry was mighty important, but also she'd scuffed her new shoes on the pavement the other day and needed to repair the scratch before it became too apparent. She'd laid out everything she wanted to do out in the open field of the apartment with hopes that it would spur her to a decision, but this only made their heckles louder, each indecipherable from the other.

There was really one simple task that she could do — a task that could kick it all off and was urgent enough to have the honour — which she didn't want to do at all. There were two dishes from last night that needed washing. She'd left them in a soapy tub overnight to let the dried garlic mince unstick from the plate, and now they were due a clean. But Gods, it was still going to be a terrible scrub. Their sponge had lost its texture for the most part and was merely there to dispense soap suds.

Two dishes. That's all it was.

But it wasn't the easy task, really.

Mana kept herself anchored to the bed with one foot that hooked into the duvet. The rest of her body stretched to grab the Mythril Eye clipping she left on the floor. She realised half-way in how much more effort this was compared to just standing up and grabbing the thing. But if she got up, she'd have no excuse to put off standing tasks like hanging up the laundry and washing the—

Oh, "truculent", Mana hadn't heard that word before. It served as a segue to examine Garlean propaganda pieces over the cycles. And Garlean art differed from Eorzean art fascinatingly, too. This spurred Mana to pick up a book from under the floor and start comparing the two illustrative styles in meticulous detail…

Mana awoke to a pamphlet on her face and a knock on the door.

"C-Coming!" she chimed, hopping up from the duvet and, to her chagrin, over the mountain of incomplete tasks that were still sprawled out over the inn room like furniture. She thwipped around and kicked her shoes under the bed, threw the crystals into a drawer, shoved her wet laundry back into the still-damp tub. But the dishes weren't going anywhere, more than apparent in the sink.

Mana opened the door with a shy creak.

"Vahri'a! What are you doing here?"

T'orii and Vahri'a had been out on an anti-date. As she understood it, Vahri'a was invited for the sake of repelling men. She hadn't expected her cousin to come back with T'orii, especially not with his arm in hers. Her blood felt bubbly like champagne; she was happy for T'orii, whatever this meant for her. But did it have to be Vahri'a she brought back to their desecrated inn room?

"I was escorting T'orii home and she insisted I stay the night."

"Oh, should I give you two space?"

"N-Not like that," Vahri'a assured her behind a crumpled fist.

"You don't mind?" T'orii asked Mana, and she could tell there were a thousand thoughts behind those sharp eyes.

"Of course it's fine!"

"Great. I'm going to hit the showers."

T'orii skipped past them and left the two Cirkans alone. Mana could see the red dusting Vahri'a's cheeks behind his visor; she hurried to pour him some water, which gave her ample excuse to block his view of the sink.

"Here, have some water." She offered it to him, but stood perched against the basin with her hand outstretched. Vahri'a hesitantly took the glass — the offer was odd — and didn't drink it.

"Thank you," he said all the same.

"So, how was your night out?" Mana asked, her smile lopsided, ready to pounce up into a grin.

"It was… nice." Vahri'a took a seat on a stool by the vanity, tousling his hair one way. "Er, Mana. Can I ask you something?"

"What is it?" She was barely paying attention. The offer was an automatic response. It was only after her question mark piqued that she realised Vahri'a Korla was asking for help in only so many words. "Yes, of course you can."

"How's T'orii been lately?"

Mana cradled her chin, sinking against the kitchen counter some. It was a difficult question to answer in earnest, and Vahri'a could likely tell given her pause.

"Sorry, I shouldn't ask through you," Vahri'a mumbled.

"No, it's fine. Are you worried about her for a particular reason?"

"Nothing's wrong, it's just… I don't know. If things are weird or bad for her right now, I don't want to make it worse. This was already a bit of an odd request, so…" Vahri'a was made of sharp angles, but she noticed his guilt made him soften up and deflate. This time was no different. "Sorry, that's probably nothing. Ignore me," he added briskly.

"You're not making anything worse for her, Vahri'a."

"But I could, right? I have too much baggage. I very well could."

"Anyone could. That doesn't mean you're going to."

They simmered in thoughtful silence together for a bit. How could Vahri'a possibly think he would drag T'orii down? He wasn't the one living with her and messing up the room while she was away. He wasn't the person she felt she had to take in because that 'perfect stranger' was also such a mess. Vahri'a would have gotten the dishes done.

"I mean, she's just been through a lot. I know I have, too. I feel like struggling people need solid anchors. That's why it's good you're in her life, Mana. But maybe on my part, it's not a good idea to want to…" He trailed off. "Gods, I'm taking leaps and bounds with this, aren't I? It was just a nice night."

Mana's black irises swam with stars as she looked to Vahri'a anew. He was thinking the exact same thing she was, perhaps; she'd inherited the chaos of the city that he'd lived in for half an epoch, and only now realised how small it made her feel. Amid the myriad things to do and sights to see, how difficult it was to lead a normal, stable life. How difficult it was to feel like you weren't another puzzle piece in the chaos; that you were a problematic fixture in an out-of-control world.

"Vahri'a. Can you help me with something?"

His ears perked in surprise.

"You need my help with something?"

It was a first, she knew.

"Mhm. I have these two dishes I haven't cleaned, and I need help scrubbing them."

Mana slyly curled away from the sink and revealed the sudsy, since-cold tub of watery porcelain. Vahri'a stood and took a look, brow furrowing as he noticed just how splattered these dishes still were.

"Do you have any other plates?"

"Pff, nope."

"You meant to do these while T'orii was out?"

"Yep."

"What happened?"

"I just… didn't."

Mana couldn't tell him why. Perhaps there was some tirade of explanation she could run headfirst into, give him a life's worth of justification for her failure here. But she knew it was something she didn't know, and that she wasn't perfect, and that was okay.

"Okay." There was levity in his chest. Perhaps a lilt of amusement in his voice. Mana beamed, fangs and all, as she handed Vahri'a the sponge.