#koriah

Maybe it shouldn’t have. Koriah Azmerien had always been warm and sunny in personality (or what her detractors would call: ‘frivolous in demeanor’). She didn’t take anything too seriously. She wore what she wanted to. She went wherever she felt. And she genuinely did not care at all about what people said to or about her. When Adelaide would be stuck with insecurity regarding what she should say to someone (or -not- say to someone) at public events, Koriah never understood. She’d say, “If you introduce yourself and  they are unimpressed, they are the problem not you. So why worry about it?”

Well, Adelaide worried about it because her mother worried about it. And her sister worried about it. And two of her brothers worried about it. And she’d heard plenty of gossip that told her that she should worry about it. Why didn’t Koriah worry about it!? She’d one day be heading her family’s estate as well, shouldn’t she want to make the right impressions to the right people? Wasn’t she as stuck in this stifling, rules heavy society as Adelaide was?

That answer cleared itself up fairly quickly. At 19 Koriah said she was going off to see the world outside of Ishgard to learn what she could about other places. She longed to see other venues, other people, to taste other foods.

What she really wanted to do was see the Limsan ocean. She’d stared longingly at painted pictures of the ocean since she’d been so small she teetered and fell down more than she actually walked. The bubbly child would get quiet and listen with rapt attention to any story that featured dashing rogues and pirates by the seaside or that told tale of giant sea monsters or seductive sirens. Koriah’s parents eventually tired of buying their daughter stories about the ocean, perhaps wanting her to focus more on Coerthan tales of might and adventure instead, but the ocean had Koriah’s heart. So when her aunt and uncle stopped providing the books… Adelaide found a way to sneak books to her young cousin about high sea adventures instead.

And as Koriah grew older, her taste for the seafaring stories grew as well. Moving past the usual children’s tales, her book collection became… rather more ‘adult’ in nature-- much to Adelaide’s sheltered embarrassment who until her cousin had showed her the collection of erotic and romantic Limsan pirate and rogue stories had not even thought such a thing had existed. By that age, late teens, Adelaide had, of course, known that kissing was a thing. That touching was a thing. That the common folk would sometimes disappear into dark alleys and do… things. But she’d been raised by a very strict mother who had made it clear that such things were ‘crass’ and ‘unladylike’ and that as the future head of the Azmerien household, the future of the Azmerien name, she had best not ever think of such things.

Being told not to think of such things and then being shown books that wrote -exactly- of such things of course meant that Adelaide would rebel. She thought about ‘such things’ frequently. But she’d never -buy- such a book. She’d just borrow them. Where did Koriah even find those? Wasn’t she embarrassed to be seen with them?

No. The answer was no. She said someone had taken the time to write those things so someone might as well take the time to read them. She didn’t make it a point to read them in public and she hid them in her room so they weren’t immediately on display-- but she did not hide that she purchased them herself. “And if someone were to take time to read them, that someone ought to purchase them herself rather than sending out a servant to do it for her.”

So when Koriah said she was ‘off to see the world’, Adelaide knew that she was ‘off to see the ocean.’ And when she imagined Koriah out in Limsa Lominsa she imagined her capturing hearts and scandalous kisses the same way the heroines in her books did. She only wondered if it’d be a pirate or a rogue that she’d end up running away with in the end.

It was a rogue, apparently. Letters from Koriah came back regularly… until they didn’t. Koriah’s parents and younger brother received the boring letters that spoke of Limsan gossip and fashion. Adelaide received the letters that spoke of the things her cousin actually cared about. 

And the things she loved. 

And the boy she loved.

And that boy’s goofy little brother.

The boy was named Lysander Winsome and he was a key figure in some sort of thieving gang based in Limsa, but it wasn’t the life he wanted anymore. He wanted out. He wanted to save enough to buy a ship-- his dream was an airship because his heart belonged to the sky as much as Koriah’s belonged to the ocean-- and he wanted to get away with only what mattered most to him: his brother and Koriah. She thought it’d be easier to buy a ship they could sail on the ocean. That’d be a dream easier and quicker to reach and while they worked on the ship they could have adventures and save enough for the airship. But what if-- what if one day they had a ship that functioned as both? Wouldn’t that be amazing? Would Adelaide want to come to visit on a vessel that could both sail and fly?

Adelaide wrote that of course she would. But honestly, it was all a little hard to believe. Koriah’s letters sounded as much fiction as any of the books she’d left hidden in her bedroom. Maybe these letters were just fantasy. Maybe they were meant as fun reads when her reality was really just the boring letters about Limsan gossip, sales prices, and fashion that she sent to her immediate family. And she continued to think this until the letters became more sporadic and then stopped all together.

And until she met the goofy little brother.

Adelaide had assumed that ‘Winsome’ was a made up last name. No one was named that. That was an adjective, not a name. But when the 12 (or was it 13?) year old boy with chestnut colored hair, the oversized @dumb-hat swallowing up most of his face so that she could hardly see his amber eyes, looked up at her and then grinned so wide that what she saw of his eyes lit up, and told her that was his real last name… Adelaide knew that it was both an accurate adjective and a real last name.

Koriah’s last correspondence to her family was a letter that Evander clutched in his hands, written in her hand, beseeching them to care for him if he arrived without her and making clear that she gave him all rights to her property-- including her inheritance-- and that her final wish was that he be treated as the family that he was. She had married the boy’s brother in secret and in the absence of her and Lysander-- Evander Winsome was all that was left of her and should be treated with the same love and courtesy that she had been treated when she was there.

She never said ‘alive’ or ‘dead’ in the letter. But everyone knew what it meant.

What Evander did not know and would not ever know, was that a week before he arrived to Ishgard without her cousin, Koriah had written Adelaide a letter too. That letter contained two notarized copies of a will that made legally official and binding that Evander was her heir and was to receive all her property and inheritance. It was sent to Adelaide to ensure that the one person in the family that Koriah trusted as much as herself would have it and could speak up for the young boy in the unfortunate possibility that Koriah’s family would pretend they had never received a letter of their own and tried to wash their hands of Evander. 

The letter also read:

“Adelaide,

The storms in Limsa have made the ocean more alive than ever. It thrashes and dances with such exuberance that it makes me want to dance as well. The white sea foam reminds me of the lace hems on the dresses you and I loved so much as children: the ones that would twirl when we’d spin. I wish you could see it.

Lysander and I plan to make our escape soon. I never told you before because I didn’t want to worry you, but the gang did not take it well when Lysander made it clear that he wanted to strike out on his own. In fact, while we don’t speak of it because we don’t want Evander to overhear it, we’re fairly certain they plan to retaliate. As of now we plan to board a trading vessel that will take us out of Limsa Lominsa-- maybe even out of La Noscea entirely. We’ll head somewhere new and see the ocean there. Lysander wants to try his hand at opening a jewelry shop. He thinks he’d like to be a goldsmith. But his dreams and ambitions change as much as the sea does- so when we get to the new place he might decide to do something else entirely! I look forward to it. We both do. 

But on the off-chance that we never see that dream come true and that the Limsan ocean is the last one we see, I will pay for Evander’s trip aboard another vessel with a few people I trust and see that  he gets to Ishgard. Please welcome him. I don’t know how long he’ll choose to stay-- but I hope he gets a chance to foster new relationships, experiences and a new family while there. 

And on the off-chance I never see you again: I love you. I know that’s not a thing the family says. But sometimes it has to be said.

The books belong to Evander now. But you let him know I said that you can keep borrowing them.

Koriah.”