#lorh asks

Thank you for the ask @the-warrior-and-the-mage!

Thank you for the ask @flood-of-shadow!

❌

Lorh watched the woman beside her sleeping, the soft rise and fall of her chest beneath the thin covers and the heat of her leg pressed against Lorh's skin welcome evidence of life in her pallid form. The first few times Lorh had woken beside Pidgeon she'd been struck by the intense urge to check the woman's pulse.

Her gaze fell to the bandages wrapped at the woman's shoulder, clean and fresh. Beneath them she knew she'd find tidy stitching, the wounds well cared for. That Pidgeon had needed the medic's care at all stung at Lorh. She'd hoped that Pidgeon would care to stay over again of her own volition now that Lorh had recovered from her own injuries, not that they'd merely trade the roles of injured and caregiver.

The ache at seeing the woman's injuries shifted in Lorh's chest, slithering into that old familiar voice that had plagued her as long as she could remember.

She'll go. She'll go. She'll leave you eventually.

Lorh pushed it down and lay back on her pillow, careful not to disturb Pidgeon with the movement. Having the woman in her bed this last sennight had been a balm, even if half of it had been spent with her body aching and her mind fuzzy from the medic's treatments, but it was pure foolishness to think the woman would stay. It was far, far too early to be thinking that way for a woman she'd met hardly a few weeks before, and even if it wasn't Pidgeon had made her status as an eager vagabond incredibly clear.

Lorh shifted again, too restless to sleep on her back. As she repositioned she let her hand rest on Pidgeon's waist and buried her face in the woman's hair. The sweet floral smell of it was soothing, and slowly, eventually, she was able to ignore the strangling bubble of fear in her chest and drifted back to sleep.

🧱

Wolf held her breath, staring down the ridgeline at the group of Wood Wailers as they stalked slowly through the foliage. Their spears rattled along the low-hanging branches, making enough noise to scare away most of the wildlife. How they managed to be so damnably bad at their jobs baffled her, and yet she was greatful for it as she stood stock-still in the hopes they'd pass by and miss her and Gilberne.

Another few tense moments and they'd walked on down the deertrail, passing right beneath the two poachers as they waited in the brush. Finally Wolf sighed and crouched over Gilberne, her voice still a low whisper, "You think you can sit up?"

Gilberne shook tears from his eyes and pushed up, grimacing as he did so. Wolf didn't need to be a chiurgeon to know his leg was shattered. He'd be lucky if he walked without a limp ever again. His stunt had been a stupid one, but she felt awful that he'd paid such a high price for juvenile stupidity.

"You shoulda gone," he mumbled as he looked at his leg.

"Nope," Wolf grunted as she wrapped a massive arm around him and carefully picked him up. She was greatful he had the good sense to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle the groan of pain, and she settled him as comfortably against her chest as she could. He was so light, and she could feel his ribs through his filthy shirt.

"We're gonna get you back and fixed up," she said as she started to carefully pick her way down over the jagged rocks. "Don't leave folks behind here. Not like them," she jerked her head in the direction the Wood Wailers had gone. "Leastwise, I don't."

Gilberne clung to her neck and Wolf sighed. The kid was an idiot, but she'd meant every word. His voice was tiny and contrite as he clung to her, "Thanks, Caps."

Lorh watched the body, so familiar in life and so alien now in death, fall the two dozen fulms and crash into the sea. The muddle of steel gray hair and ashen skin of the huge roegadyn churned beneath the ship's wake and then disappeared. Dragged down by the weight of the stones tied about her feet.

The shoreboat lurched as it fell another yalm and Lorh felt a rising tide of nausea sweep over her. She fell against the iron clad lip of the boat and heaved her meager lunch over the side. The boat swung wildly and then hit the water with a heavy splash, knocking her back into the bottom of it as the familiar faces above her cut the line, sending the hempen cordage crashing down on top of her.

"It's nothing personal," Rin shouted down at her from the railing far above, the woman's dark hair buffeted in the strong wind. "You're just a liability I can't afford to have, Lorh." Her white toothed grin flashed in the sun as she gestured to the shoreboat and the stacked cargo inside it, "Thanks for making one last delivery for us."

Lorh didn't respond. She wanted badly to wipe her mouth and her face, to clean it of the salt tears and the snot and vomit, but they'd tied her hands behind her back as they'd thrown her in. The wound in her side stung unpleasantly and she wondered now how long it would take to kill her out in the open ocean. She hoped it'd take her before the lack of water or food did.

Later Lorh would regret not seeing the munity coming. She'd regret not protecting the woman she'd grown to think of as her real mother. Irynbryda's pale corpse would haunt her dreams, and those still waking hours when she allowed her mind to grow too still. For now though, for now the only thing she regretted was that as she gathered the strength to spit out the foul tasting swill in her mouth her former confident and lover wasn't close enough to hit with it.

28. Describe their morning routine. (Lorh)

Wolf hefted the rolled tent onto her shoulder and then settled it onto the chocobo’s back, strapping it down with care before reaching up to scratch the bird’s neck. Behind her she could hear Mirelle’s breathing shift and she braced herself for the woman’s questions.

“Will you tell me where you’re going this time?” Wolf had known it was coming and still she didn’t have an answer.

“I’ll be back around in a sennight,” she couldn’t bring herself to look at the elezen, even though her words were perfectly true.

“That’s not what I asked, Wolf,” Mirelle sighed as she wrapped her arms around Wolf’s waist, running her hands across the roegadyn’s stomach. Wolf could feel Mirelle leaning her head between her shoulder blades, and with a sigh she turned around to embrace the woman properly.

“I know it ain’t,” Wolf sighed and pressed her nose into the woman’s dark hair, smelling the warmth of the sun and the sprig of lavender tucked into Mirelle’s braid.

“Why?” Mirelle pulled away from her then, enough to look her in the face. Her blue eyes were sharp with the weight of the question.

“Why do you have to know?” Wolf mumbled, “I’ll come back. You know that.” She hated these conversations. Hated the way her empty answers made every parting a battle between them. Wolf leaned forward to press her forehead against Mirelle’s hair, closing her eyes so she didn’t have to see the woman’s face as she lied to her. “I’ve just got errands to do. Nothing interesting.”

“Errands,” Mirelle’s voice was flat, and Wolf’s shoulders sagged. She’d known better than to think her lie would satisfy Mirelle’s curiosity, and yet she’d hoped just this once they could part with sweet words instead of a fight.

The chronometer chimed the seventh bell and Lorh groaned as she fumbled for it, slapping the mechanism on the chime into silence. She let her hand hang there for a moment, the subtle tapping of the minutes keeping her from truly falling back asleep. Finally she pushed the covers off of her and slid out of the tall bunk, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she set the kettle over the burner and flicked a fire shard into the small stove. As the water for her tea heated she fumbled around until she found the paper sack she'd brought home from the cafe yesterday. From within it she produced a large pastry covered in sweet cheese and rolanberry jam.

She chewed it slowly, her eyes slitted to watch the kettle as she mentally went over her plans for the day. She'd stop at the ferry booth on the way home from work. Should she buy a new jacket for the date tomorrow? What shoes would she wear?

The kettle whistled and she swore, snagging it off the heat a moment too late. While she waited for it to cool she measured out the tea leaves and set the canister back on the ledge.

Frustration nagged at her as she pulled together her outfit for the day, something somber and comfortable for the hours in the office. Then as she let the tea steep she did her makeup, balancing delicately with the roll of each wave to avoid jabbing herself in the eye with the brush as she lined her eyes with kohl.

Finally, with her makeup done and one boot pulled on she got to drink her tea, the warmth and ritual of it perking her up as she finished getting ready for another day in Limsa Lominsa.

The horizon was barely visible against the dark merger of sea and sky, the only evidence of its appearance the subtle way the stars transitioned from bright pinpricks of light to dim, ever shifting reflections. Lorh stared out at it from the open porthole and then sighed as she paced the scant five steps back to her bunk. Spread across the mussed sheets was a haphazard collection of clothes, silk jackets mingling with cotton blouses, fine skirts with tight linen trousers. Lorh was vaguely startled to realize just how many clothes she'd managed to cram into the tiny vessel, and equally irritated to realize that none of them were exactly what she wanted for this date.

A flutter of nerves washed over her as she recalled the subtle smile on Pidgeon's dark lips as she'd accepted her invitation. A trip aboard the ferry from Limsa's lower decks to the lackluster docks of Aleport seemed hardly worth the effort, and yet Lorh had spent every spare moment that day agonizing over what to wear.

Her gaze was drawn to the porthole again, and to the flickering sparks of light on the waves. Like the lights there her frustrations were a distortion of reality. She expected that she could turn up tomorrow clad in an empty cod barrel and find the other woman just as fascinated by her decision as if she'd shown up in the highest of fashions. Lorh could practically see the hungry curiosity in the other woman's eyes at the prospect of untangling the motivation between such an odd choice of attire. Which meant, of course, that she'd have to impress the woman with personality and charm alone.

A laugh fell from her lips then, and she threw herself down on the bunk, her fall cushioned by the pile of clothes as she buried her face in the smoke and salt smell of them. What in the depths was she doing?

Wrapping the other woman's curiosity around her fingers had been a task so easy Lorh had hardly needed to exert any effort at all. She'd anticipated that being under such close scrutiny of another Viera would be a particularly sharp kind of torture, but instead it had been one of the more delightful afternoons she'd spent in recent memory. There was no undercurrent of motive beneath Pidgeon's questions, only the bald desire to somehow better understand the woman before her. The direct and gentle honesty to her questions had somehow caught Lorh off her guard, and she'd found herself admiring the conjurer more and more as the afternoon had worn on.

And now, dammit, now she wanted to impress Pidgeon, when of course the woman wouldn't be impressed by any of her usual tricks. The perfect outfit, the right perfume, the enticing flirtations all felt suddenly useless in the face of someone that actually wanted to know her. She'd been caught in her own net and served up as neatly as any Bismark chef could want.

Lorh rolled over and pulled her favorite jacket over her face with a groan. The soft brushed silk caught her strangled laugh of frustration and she sat back up, clutching the jacket to her chest. She stared at the dim interior of the tiny boat and then with a sigh she got up and began to put away her wardrobe.

In the end it was he favorite jacket and a simple shirt and skirt that won out. Practical clothes for the cool Limsan autumn. Clothes she felt at home in, herself in. If that was truly who Pidgeon wanted to know it'd be enough.

Wouldn't it?

Lorh really appreciates people being honest and direct with her.

Doing this one for Lorh since I've done a bunch for Wolf lately!

melancholy

In longing, you are melancholy. You feel deeply and quietly, the feeling of yearning constant, like your own personal raincloud over your head that rains cold and collects in your heart, sometimes filling to overflow. The feeling follows you around and you push it away, but its always just a step behind; when it catches up to you, it turns your expression from a bright smile to a brief look down and your lips pulled into a kind of grimace. You bite your lip to break the look and hope no one notices. But secretly you hope someone did. You know this feeling is a creation of your own mind but you just can't shake it, and in some ways, you don't even want to. You know in your head what you desire is doubtful, but in your heart you don't want to give it up. The feeling is close to sadness but it's deeper, more meaningful than that. It pulls at your gut in a way that could bring you close to tears with a mere thought of that which you seek. Be strong my love, your time will come.

tagged by: @violetlypurple, @etherealrosexiv

tagging: @vazaymir, @the-void-stared-back, @luck-and-larceny

A hundred and fifty? I’ll say that’s a full life and then some. What, were they mummified?

Her earlier words crashed around Lorh's mind like the waves on the rocky stones of Aleport's sea wall far below their inn room window. Beside her Pidgeon slept, her dark hair spread out in a tangled halo, completely oblivious to her new lover's fit of dawn anxiety. With a soft exhale of breath Lorh rolled to the side and covered her face with her hands, cursing herself for not thinking before she spoke.

The memory of Pidgeon's sincere face as she explained the details of a Viera lifespan was burned into Lorh's mind now as she felt the same wash of panic and foolishness she'd felt then. But how could she have known if no one had told her? The sensible part of her brain clamored to jam that thought in between her self-flagellation and was swiftly drowned out by the memory of a dozen interactions with other Viera over the years. Had they all thought her a foolish child?

The bed creaked as she rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. She wanted to scream. It was simply too much to think about, and yet her brain would not, could not, let it or her words go.