#cerigg

Cecetu folded her arms and glared at Chotan. “Friendship requires mutual respect. And you don’t care about anyone and anything other than yourself!”

Chotan was shocked. Aggrieved. Hurt! “Now that’s a lie. I care very much about you, my friend!”

“...Do you? You talk about how I’m the greatest rival and your best friend but do you actually care? Haven’t I made it clear that I hate you? Despised you ever since you strode up bragging about how you’re the next greatest Black Mage Eorzea will ever see, clearly not even noticing or caring that I changed? That maybe, I was in a stressful situation in my life, with my mother locked up, accused of being an accessory to regicide! That I wanted to just make myself into something that wasn’t tied into the city that always hated me! And then there was you!” She said pointing in his face. “Flaunting my old job, being the pompous arsehole you always are! You still are! All you’ve been talking about is that ‘Taynor is the key to all of this!’ I may not be the most sensitive of person, but even I can tell. You’re just thinking about the neat mystery that can be solved! And a chance to show off how cool you are! Because that’s all you aim to be! Just the most grandest and best mage ever, not even caring about anything else! Because what else do you have?!”

A business, that I am learning to manage. Loads of money, and lots of people who see me as only a vector to that money. He was quiet for a bit, pondering how to organize those thoughts into something that wouldn’t hopefully anger her further. “I own Sasaki’s Treasures, a store for strange and exotic goods, of imports and exports of strange antiquities. I impressed my father, by sneaking off with one of his own precious relics, a job stone, and returning with skills unparalleled, beating out my siblings for ownership, not by any business sense I might have gained in Ul’dah, or my connections with Rowena, but by mastering a strange and lost art. I understood my father in a way my siblings didn’t. And what did that get me? Ownership of the precious store, and hatred. Hatred that was always there as the bastard-born, but was now blatant.” He wanted to bring up that Cecetu and him were both bastard children. He saw the pale scales along her ear. He was too short for a typical Au Ra. He took a breath instead. “With my connections in Eorzea, I’ve managed to bring new customers and new trade. But everyone wants a piece of me, to take that part for themselves. And so, I stood my ground and firmly planted myself into something different. Something they can’t take. Trader of antiquities and black mage extraordinaire, such an exotic art, now resurrected from beyond!”

“One that is still forbidden,” Cecetu murmured. “It’d be one thing if you managed to pick up Thaumaturgy, but-”

“And yet, I managed to succeed, all through trial and error. On my own. Alone. And when I heard there was another, I was so elated! Someone to share in this gift! A rival that could keep pressing me to greater heights. And what did I find but someone who forsook her art. So it was up to me to become what you couldn’t. And I kept encouraging you, yes? To come back?” He gave a sad chuckle. “Sadly, it was Shattoto, and only her, who managed to bring you in. You had her skills after all. That, and with the heist of my father’s job stones, and revealing his corruption, I thought...even if you were angry all the time, it was just how you were. Because we were still companions.”

Cecetu looked to the side. “You never understood, and never noticed. I don’t know if I will ever like you.”

Chotan felt his heart break. He closed his eyes, preventing the tears that were welling up to break loose. But we have so much in common. He didn’t understand.

“...I’m going to patrol the sands,” Cecetu said, sliding off her chair.

A Mord walked up to Chotan. “Oh boy! Mean lady! Never mind any words, never mind! Surely you need a drink and something to fill your stomach to feel better!”

Chotan got up and out of the table. He didn’t know where he was going to go. Maybe back to trying to learn Norvarandt’s language, maybe to whatever tomes he could find in the Source. But he needed to be alone.

Q’hara gave a low whistle. The table the two were sitting at was not too far from where he and Cerigg and Traynor were lingering around and they weren’t exactly being the most quiet. “Well that was…honestly, felt like something that needed to be long said between the two of them.”

Cerigg nodded. “Much of that flew over my head but they need some time to think.”

Taynor just glanced down at the ground, not saying much. “Not your fault, kid. Her grudge against him has been brewing for a long while,” Q’hara said. He nodded but Q’hara was sure the kid was still taking it personally. Ah well. He would see how they acted together next time and go from there.

However, as much as the citizens would otherwise, she missed the gentle snowfall and grey clouds. She missed the crackling of firewood burning in a hearth and the hot chocolate that would be prepared the moment she would step through the front door.

Most of all, she missed the people that she had to leave behind—the family that had taken her in when she and hers needed them most, her brother that could only pray for her safety and do what he can with the Scions left behind...and a lover that had responsibilities just as important as she to attend to.

Aria knew that Aymeric accepted this of her the moment he had asked her to be his. In fact, the second that he discovered that it was the Warrior of Light—and all her titles that could fill a ledger all on its own—that he had fallen for, he should have come to expect it. It didn’t stop the guilt from shaming her and a part of her wondered if she should cut back on her adventuring just a tad to spend more time with him albeit his assurances to remain exactly as she was.

It was then that the sound of a voice snapped her back to attention from her innermost thoughts. When she shifted her head to see what it was, the other hunters of the Cardinal Virtues—Granson, Giott, Lue-Reeq, Taynor, Cerigg and Cyella—eyed her with both concern.

“Is everything alright?” the Dark Knight asked of her, worry glistening in his eyes despite his hardened expression.

Aria smiled softly and inclined her head. “Indeed, pardon my inattentiveness. I was lost in thought.”

Taynor leaned in, unable to school his emotions.

“Maybe some rest would be a good idea?” he asked.

“A tankard of ale would be more than enough, eh, friend?” Giott laughed merrily as she downed one of her own.

Lue-Reeq frowned and shook his head. “I daresay it would make her feel worse rather than better.”

“What did you say?!” the dwarf exclaimed aggressively.

The sight of the two’s bantering was enough to bring good cheer to the table as Cyella leaned in to the Warrior as if to tell a secret.

“Perhaps a return home is in order, is it not?” she offered to her.

Aria pondered on that thought, inclining her head, and the sight of it was enough to catch the attention of the others in the group. Her girlish and innocent appearance caught them off guard, a look unlike that of a seasoned warrior that was a master of multiple martial arts across the realm.

“I think it might just be,” Aria replied excitedly in a soft voice.

Everyone smiled. She could finally rest.