A killer’s eyes (Ichiro).

A mass of white hair (Ichiro).

A duty to be done - a betrayal to make example of (Ichiro).

Then (Ichiro)... Nenda.

She breathed in again.

“I will stand.”

And she had done so without assistance.

“Good.”

They had shoved another’s clothing into her hands after that, some other crewperson’s, after directing her to their showers. Picked from the most approximate of them, and yet it was still too big. Xiaohu had found a sort of grace in that, covering the endless swath of ink that consumed her body in trousers that had to be rolled up, and a shirt that hung down her thighs.

She had not wanted any of them to witness, but yet they had, earlier, with the way she had tied off her kimono around her hips to run through the darkness with their Captain.

She assured herself in that moment that they would never again.

A towering Roegadyn woman had walked her to where she would lay her head after that. She spoke as little as the Captain spoke much. This ‘Yellow Rose’ had merely unlocked an unused suite, pointing with her head for their ‘guest’ to enter.

Something that she had hesitated with, for never had Xiaohu been presented with both room and bed to herself alone. An epiphany in which sparked an absence of warmth on both sides of her arms, recalling to Yuko and Masae at the teahouse, in the hold of that ship that had sailed her across the Ruby Sea, to Mei and Chenglei sprawled beside her, to her youngest memories of Father and Mother sleeping with her and Jian squeezed between them.

When she eventually stepped through, both women nodded to one another.

The transaction completed.

She saw peonies on the dresser in the dying bar of hallway light; the door closing.

‒ ‒ ‒

“...this is up to you, and you alone.”

In a sort of silent gloom, Xiaohu had merely scooted to one side of the bed, patted the emptied space for Es’mena, and drooped the curve of her face into palm.

They did not speak. For how long that quiet settled between them, Xiaohu did not remember. She only remembered the barest presence of a gap, only closed between a firm, “Well?” from the nearby Miqo’te.

Her breath built in her cheeks, before billowing out in a sighing gust.

She didn’t bother utilising the Eorzean that the Captain’s address had come in. Her thoughts flew forth in Hingan.

“I can’t give you a good answer of where I go from here. I have spent nearly half of my life in that teahouse, ni mingbai? Before that, I was just a girl from nowhere. If I had to be honest, I don’t know how to survive out there. And even if I did, what happens when I’m identified? Who stands between me and them? I can tell you that, right now, that I think your Runner is my best bet, that I can at least do work here, but who are we to predict fate?”

And, of course, Nenda came right back in the same fluid tongue, with the confidence that she has always mired every word of her’s with.

"There is no predicting fate. Rather, you could argue that there is no such thing as fate. We can get into the long-winded arguments of if fate is real, if luck is real...but in the end? I say you make your own fate. It does not matter if you were a girl from nowhere, a princess, if you knew how to survive, if you were a blithering idiot - it does not matter. We can go into the hypotheticals: if you are identified, if you are caught, if they manage to find you, but that does not matter either. What matters is this: Do you want to be here? Do you want to learn? Do you want to make your own fate? If the answer for those is yes, then we figure out the rest as we go. And we go wherever the wind takes us."

Again, Xiaohu demanded a sort of silence without gesture nor voice - only in the way that her eyes left the person aside her to stare forward, at that dresser and those doomed, now glassed, peonies. But, subtly, there was a sort of tension working through her body. Her leftmost shoulder squared itself slowly, and her chin drew away from its rest. To a degree, she straightened herself; her gaze traveled up to the lonely window of the suite.

“I told you a saying when this all ‘started’. Opportunity knocks only once. I can either answer the door then, or I can ignore it and let it walk away. And I’ll wonder what could have come of that house-visit had I merely let it inside. So… I don’t think I’m of a mind to refute any of that right now. If a good wind comes, you go with it, not against it.”

“Going with the wind– not refuting me– doesn’t mean you want it, however…”

Their words stretched on, though, eventually, the Miqo’te departed, pulling door shut behind her.

‒ ‒ ‒

Though temporal and uncertain, the decision was eventually meted between her and Nenda.

Xiaohu would be a crewmember of this ‘Runner.’

Es’mena’s first order of business was to put a roll of coloured tape into her hands, pushing her off towards the cargo-hold. Anything that Xiaohu taped in their unused furnishings would be carried over to her new room by that braided haired woman, M’gumi.

That one, that one was a talker from the start. Arrow volleys of words, all rolled around with a too-loose tongue. The Doman pondered to herself, silently, of how Chinatsu would have responded if she had dared to be nothing less but perfect with her own speech. It made her scar ache in memory.

She did not respond in kind. Had not wished to, with the way her head buzzed and her stomache twisted with her nerves. Xiaohu had started off with short, clipped, answers, then dwindled down to none at all during the whole of the process.

Finally, her silence was mimicked by the tanned Miqo’te. The other’s curious, slightly begrudging glances, suited the thief’s tastes much better than conversation as she picked out what little Hingan furniture there was. Her thumb stroked down on each surface, planting dashes of red-tape to indicate each one she desired.

After that business had settled, they had walked in their quiet to the mess-hall. M’gumi was quick to break off - something that Xiaohu had felt to be a blessing at the time. The cargo-loader settled at the same table as the Roegadyn from before, and a trio of Xaela… Jin, there was a lot of Xaela. She spotted two more huddled together into one of the emptier corners of the room.

Two Hyur ate separate, and alone, from everyone else in different parts of the room: one with starkly red hair, and another with black hair and strangely violet eyes. The first broke into a lopsided grin seeing her, the other, the latter, regarded her in a cursory sort of fashion, like the Doman were something to quickly categorise and file.

Then she drew her gaze up to the window that separated this seating from the rear kitchens. A somber Miqo’te in all black, with eyes equally violet to the other woman, stood with his back to the wall aside that opening and his arms folded. He was quiet in a way that made her remember Eisen.

And, leaning out of that window, her arm flush against his, was a tall, pink, Viera. Where he was statue-like, this one was all intensity. She did not hesitate to gesture wildly to Xiaohu the moment their gazes met.

Though it did not show on her face, her heart sank with the weariness of interaction pressed on her weighted soul. For seconds, she did not approach; considering a retreat to one of the emptied suites and locking the door.

Yet, she did walk forward eventually. How could she not? It would not do good for her to reject such an overt gesture, especially with the wide grin spread over the apparent Cook’s face.

In the meantime, the Viera had turned around, rummaging around the counters over that window.

Xiaohu sucked in a breath when the woman she would know later as “E’leyna” had rounded back.

Her hands bloomed open like a lotus.

She felt her teeth drive against one another, her temples throbbing as decrepit memory contributed to the suffocating magnitude of her stress.

Not dabao, but miso, a thick, lava-like, miso, poured over steamed rice with a layer of lard glistening over the broth’s surface. A small bundle of blanched morning glory tucked itself against the side of the bowl.

A meal she’d had hundreds of time with Yuko.

Her wind came out in a sigh, one that E’leyna luckily processed as surprised gratitude.

“Go on, girl, sit down and have your fill! There’s a whole pot where that came from!”

She did not bother to speak much; using her newness as an excuse to simmer in silence. She had taken the bowl, inclined her head to this woman with a murmured “Thank you,” and sat down.

Curious glances from seemingly all corners of the room seemed to burn into her shoulders and back.

She ate slowly.

She had never had that privilege before.

She savoured ziyou more than the meal.

M’gumi had offered to escort her to her room from here once everyone had begun to filter out for their night’s rest. Softly the Doman declined, and threw in another ‘thank you’ with the bit of energy that the hot meal had given her.

After that, once the Miqo’te had disappeared down the hallway - Xiaohu wandered.

Another thing she had never had the privilege to do in Kugane, so confined she was to that teahouse or a man’s side.

There was no eyes on her, no one following her, no one guarding their asset; her. Nothing loomed over her shoulders as they once did. No restrictions, no threats. Just her and the empty halls.

She wandered - explored. Every nook, every cranny. From every crew-facility, to the engine room, the cargo hold, the navigation room, the spanning guest wings and all of those amenities, the viewing deck, and then out onto the open decks of the airship, this ‘Runner.’

She examined everything, and touched everything, and listened to the way the airship thrummed in different crooning tunes dependent on where one was, and where they were standing in particular.

She familiarised herself with aching, near-obsessive, intensity to this… residence.

Some were still awake; notably a blonde-haired woman, their engineer, who she had not seen before.

They did not speak nor look at one another.

At this point, the night was on the cusp of shifting towards new light. She made her way down the expanse of the crew quarters all the way to its very end. To the right, that is where that Miqo’te had dragged everything into.

The braided-haired woman had called it cramped compared to her apparent ‘nest’ in the bowels of the ship’s hold.

Xiaohu had nodded softly to that, as though in agreement.

Looking around now, her chest tightened with a queer sort of feeling.

These rooms they had been transferring her around in -  to her they were enormous in their privacy.

In Yanxia, she remembers, her family’s bedding has been strewn across the single-roomed floor of their home. Over the Ruby Sea, they packed people like layers of fish at market within the wooden bowels of the ship. In Kugane, they had a room of the teahouse that was as large as this ship’s lounge, of which tiny futons and small bags of personal effects lined the floor to squeeze a hundred’s half of women.

She did not know what to do with its space, until she had pulled at her shirt with intention to exchange her wear for the fresher articles of clothing that had been scrounged up for her. Instead of her ingrained pattern; of performing such a motion as swiftly as possible and immediately donning the new piece before anyone could truly observe her... Xiaohu paused, and executed the action unhurriedly.

The new crewmember allowed her own nudity - another first, to have herself this way, without another ready to devour her all right then, or in the next room pacing restlessly for her, or dozens of other women at her flanks in the water.

The last time she had been permitted this was years upon years ago. A decade, perhaps? No - even younger, which such a thing was the way of children.

Time waxed on in a meaningless sort of fashion as she turned and shifted constantly in the lantern light. She examined herself. Black swirled endlessly across her: over her breasts, her ribs, her stomache, dipping down past the crests of her hips to where her irezumi continued to lick down all the way to her knees. In her new mirror, she studied how that Tiger amongst blossom blooms raked across her back.

She decided she liked the way that only a part of her flourished in colour; like how tea bled into fresh water. The pink little flowers dotting thin wood, the stark red-lips of tayuu, the golden embroidery, and the jade of silk, stained across her right hemisphere; contained by the black ribs of the bodysuit’s ‘zipper.’

She had never truly been able to examine her soshinbori.

Xiaohu only remembered the agony that consumed her days when she was not entertaining, and the blood glossed over her skin. The sting of when Horigu’s apprentices would wipe at her with warm rags, then replace her bloodcoat with salve. The way clutching hands, and black hair, and shoulders, always covered it from view.

It was beautiful in a haunting way. It twisted her stomache with a keen anxiety even as her fingers stroked along the painstaking lines that had been punctured into her over the course of years.

An artwork birthed from captivity.

Footsteps shuffled along the hardwood floor, her new neighbors apparently retiring from a graveyard’s schedule.

In spite of the solitude provided by the thick curtains of their ‘doors,’ her breath stuttered again.

This was for her; never for anyone else ever again.

She looked across the empty, barren, floor of this little chamber.

This was all hers now, Es’mena had said.

Hers.

A foreign concept.

But not an opportunity she would leave unanswered at the step.

Her irreverence sparking, she dropped every article that had once been on her person right onto the ground than to establish any sort of rigid order.

Started the first engraving scratch of her mark that way.

Hidden, for now, behind the curtained doorway.

‒ ‒ ‒

In the months after, she showed a feline affinity - explorative, and cautious, and aloof. There at one moment, then quick to vanish when the crew’s attention shifted onto her. Those that attempted to coax her out with them to taverns or to speak with all of them at the mess or after meetings were rebuked until the requests all trickled into nothingness.

And then, suddenly, her comfort came crawling into rooms and conversations. Then, later, it stood unto its legs and padded forth. Once its joints were fully warmed, it started to sprint down the hallways of the Runner unabashedly.

It all fit in a way nothing else has before; in which she did not have to consciously think about it, nor had she ever in its earliest developments.

She grew in a fundamental pattern, like it all had been built up in her blood and muscle, and everything knew precisely where to go and how to navigate there like impulses through neural networks.

And it unraveled silently, of course, like how she silently performed every gesture of true note. That was what the Captain picked up on. That what was meaningful in her new crewmember was what she didn’t see at all, or only saw in the minute disturbances of dust; what was void, or if not void, left unspoken.

That much became evident when Nenda, herself, chose to swing into the mess hall one night, many moons into the Doman’s employment.

Some had already sorted out - for work, or rest, or solitude, both old and new.

The rest had all gathered around one of the long-tables pressed up against a wall, emptied of its dishes. Oosra, with tendrils of dreamweed smoke swirling around his head to press up against the wooden ceiling, his frame hunched over and fingers loosely intertwined. Gumi resting against the inside of Rose’s left arm, the Roegadyn straight-backed, but not tense, with that same arm hooked around the Miqo’te, the other arm resting atop her own thigh. Prisa lounging her weight against the table, a glass of liquor in the hand not sprawled across wood. E’leyna standing, leaning over them with her weight pressed into palms spread across the table. And Xiaohu sitting across the surface in front of them, her shoulder propped against the wall, a hip jutted out towards the Doctor, and one leg drawn up with the other foot oriented towards the Xaela at the end of the ‘line-up.’

All of the group present were at a level of ease that could only be familiar. Their varied volumes did not ring in cacophony throughout the soundspace of the room, but with a natural cadance. The quiet were quiet because they wished to, than because it was expected or they were drowned out, and the loud were loud because there was no need for shame in speaking freely and in full spirit.

In the newest of them, this ease seemed plucked out of chrysalis.

The vastness of her ink was bared, the black of it bracketing her belly and engulfing her arms where her half-shirt didn’t tread. Her body language was open, unconcerned, with something she had obsessively kept out of sight before.

Her features were unmuted, no longer suspended in a cautious manner of aloofness with her crewmates, but something animated and complex. The soft arches of her brows shifted in conjunction with tense, glinting, eyes - giving her a wicked, lazy, sort of playfulness sinking right down to sly lips.

And her words were neither hushed, nor clipped, nor politely ceremonial. The formality of her learned Hingan had surrendered for the loose tongue adopted from their Eorzean surroundings. Amidst the lilting chitter of the Viera’s shining warmth, Gumi’s wild laughter, the gravel of Oosra’s observations, Rose’s humoured assents, and Prisa’s dry quips: Xiaohu’s speech sprung out assertively, knowingly (for how could she not be anything but attuned to them) in precise strikes of wit. It all weighed from out of her throat with mellow affection, yet the barbed arrowheads still landed with full mordancy.

Then, when the swaying brightness of Es’mena’s tail drew everyone’s eye, a pause occurred; a dimming of everything, not like their vivacity was being folded and packed away, but like the intake of breath needed when one’s contentedness flushes up to an even more buoyant state.

As the chorus of greetings, silent or shouted, began and died, the brunette amongst them followed up with what was her version of such.

A sardonic drawl of, “Captain on deck,” which found it countered by the sobering sort of way the other woman liked to drag a cursory gaze from one’s head to their toes and mimicked,

“Doman on table.” The amused Miqo’te beckoned her off the furniture with two fingers.

“Why don’t you pour me a drink if you’re going to make yourself so comfy?” Es’mena punctuated with a toss of her head towards the kitchen door.

‒ ‒ ‒

It occurred in passing.

The night was quiet. Not in some foreboding or stifled fashion, but the quiet that blankets true comfort with the ek of one’s existence. The Runner was ‘empty’; docked. Only its crew settled within its ribs.

Xiaohu was awake despite the hour; she always was at the day’s bleariest points. It was in the tranquility of solitude, the world at sleep, where she enjoyed putting herself to busywork. This was the time that she would slip into the med-bay’s back office, running through the paperwork that Prisa had urged her to assist with earlier in the day, or bring to order the wild domain of the mess-kitchen before dawn, and E’leyna, arrived. This was the period on which the vacated suites were restored to frozen perfection, and found ‘goods’ for appraisal slipped into the engine room, to be passed into Es’mena’s office in the daytime.

This time, however, there was a change in the lonely, silent, routine of it all: the Captain was still awake, performing rounds of some sort around the ship’s interior. They had looked at each only briefly, comfortable with the temporal presence of the other.

Then– as she had brushed past the Miqo’te to continue her own activities– Es’mena spoke.

“Xiaohu.”

She stopped where she was, looking over her shoulder to the summer-haired woman.

“O’ Captain?”

There wasn’t a need to remind each other of past conversations, to frame context. They knew each other well enough; had this moment between them more times than they should have. The question proposed, thus, was simplified to its bare essence:

“Are you staying?”

Xiaohu fell into quiet once again. It was not in contemplation. It was not because she saw an endless, unknown, sea spread out beneath her feet and ahead of her. It was the hush of realisation, and retrieving the humour found in that.

She felt her face, involuntarily, break into a smile that crawled through her lips, to her cheeks, all the way to the muscles around her glinting eyes. She turned to face her Captain, moving a hand to perch along her own hip. With the other, she opted to drag its fingers through the soft mass of her hair, pulling the curtain of it away from where it had pooled over her collarbone to move over behind her shoulder.

She answered as though it were the lightest sentiment; the easiest thing in the world.

“Oh, fuck yeah.”

And with the echoing nod and clicking footsteps continuing on their way, the once-stranger moved on her own way, to her own destination.

Opened that door with the last reverberating knock of Es’mena’s presence.

The others were talking of going out and taking to some hunt or other sort, and already Faeravel was getting invited to come along. Even though he wanted to go with them, he gave a dismissive wave and apologized.

“Come on… Let’s go find something large to take down. Or is it you’re too scared after last night’s match, eh? Don’t want to be shown up for, what, a fourth time now, Faer?” One boy said to him, taunting in hopes to get him to rise to the challenge.

Faeravel let out a snort, smirking widely. “You only wish you would be able to defeat this.” He said, puffing out his chest. He then, for pure entertainment's sake, began to flex his muscles this way and that. As if to show just how ‘strong’ and ‘powerful’ he was with just that.

The other men boo’d at him, pushing and shoving playfully, which Faer returned with a grin. He even had reached out, grabbing for one of them to pull into a headlock. The victim, slow as ever, was Otgonbayer. A whiny brat, all in all.

“What was that? Trying to challenge me here already?” He would wrestle with the other, all of them clearly enjoying this.

For a while, they did tussle. More pushing, taunting, and generally being a pain in the ass for one another.

Still, Faeravel would wave them off, “Go on. Off with you sorry lot. I have to go find my true prey- I’m going to go find Jaran.”

“Ooohh… that’s a sorry hunt, Faeravel. Too easy to find- probably resting away in some field with the sheep.” A man named Chuluun tossed back to Faer’s excuse.

“Bah. So you think. Clearly, you misunderstand just how good he’s gotten at hiding in plain sight.” Faer grinned, then just turned with one last wave. “Good hunting, brothers!”

There were a few more taunts thrown at him, but eventually the laughter and chatter drifted off, and towards the horse pens where they surely would soon find themselves riding out of. Faeravel didn’t mind nor care at the moment, far more interested in finding the prior mentioned topic of his ‘excuse’. 

For the better part of the afternoon, he’d gone to search. First to the places that would normally be set for him… then asking further. He’d received no clear answer of where he’d gone, merely a few shrugs here or there.

Finally, when coming to one of the yurts, he called in, “Gansukh! Gansukh, have you seen Jaran?”

An old man was settled by the fire, looking irate at the interruption. He simply snorted, “What are you talking about? Of course I haven’t.” He kept slowly carving away at a wooden figurine in his hands.

Faer had let out a long sigh, “I’ve looked everywhere for him. Mother’s looking for him.” Sure, he’d lie a bit… but at least it sounded less like a random intrusion. Many knew Taban’s nature for getting into everyone else’s business, especially when it concerned her ‘son’. Either of them.

Gansukh would then furrow his brows, “You didn’t hear?”

Faeravel blinked at that, not understanding that sort of response, “Didn’t hear what?”

“Jaran left.” The old man tossed out so casually, never ceasing the movement of his knife whittling away at the wood.

The young man’s eyes widened a moment, then he asked quickly, “Where’d he leave to?”

The man shrugged, “Heard he was going to the sea. Off to find a boat maybe. He left late, though. Not sure everyone he told, but that’s just what the watch said. Surprised Taban didn’t know of it already, if she’s out sending you to bother me.”

Faeravel was dead silent for a moment, processing this new information. Jaran was gone? Why would he leave? Why didn’t he tell him?

Remembering his manners, Faeravel nodded his head a bit, “Of course. Right… Well, then i’ll go see what’s going on with that. Do you need anything before I leave?”

Gansukh snorted back, waving his knife a bit, “Go off somewhere else, boy. I don’t need anything. I’m not some frail old man yet.” He said with clear annoyance. He just wanted to be left alone to his own tasks right now.

Faer accepted that, leading himself out of the older man’s yurt and slowly going back through the gathered homes to where his own family’s stood. There was a deep frown on his face, and his brows knitted with worry.

The afternoon turned to evening. The evening turned to night.

Still, Jaran did not come back at all. There was little to any news, other than a mention from Taban with some worry, before his father quickly silenced the concern with some other business.

Faer had to admit he was a bit bitter- angry, more than anything. He swore as soon as he’d see Jaran, he’d make sure he wished he’d never left without telling him. Honestly, just who did Jaran think he was now?

There was no sight of Xaela the next day.

Nor the next… or the one after that…

A week passed. A month.

Soon, winter had come, and there was no word from Jaran at all. 

In the end, Faeravel grew to fill a different role. He traveled more from the steppes and each time, the thoughts of where Jaran had gone dissipated. They were lost, just like he’d lost the man himself.

His heart ached still, but there was little to do about that now. After all, he couldn’t go searching for lost things forever. He had to move on, like he imagined Jaran had.

And he did.

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