She took a fist full of Coerthan tea leaves and, somewhat elegantly despite her iron-clad hands, dropped them into the hot milk to allow them to steep in the teapot. Closing the lid, she returned the intricately designed pot to the platter and sat it amongst its matching teacup.  Oh, well, a second teacup should probably be in order, the Lord Commander did have a guest after all.  It would be impolite to only serve him tea, but at the same time would anyone question a second teacup on the platter?  That guest was not necessarily supposed to be there so late in the evening…

"Lyse, uh... now that we're up here, this is starting to look like not-as-good-an-idea-as-I-thought."

"Really? Why?"

"Well, we're a hundred yalms up, for one."

"I'm not going to fall off, and I know for a fact that you've survived worse. So! Next problem!"

"There's also, well. Mages don't really spar like this... If we're just fighting for fun, then you're perfectly capable of pulling your punches-"

"Not that I would."

"Not that you would, right. But I don't really know how to make a Fire IV safe to get hit by..."

"Oh, relax. I can take it!"

"Alright, if you say so. Are you sure, though? I could try just sticking to ice spells-"

"Okay, I've had enough of your concern. Here I come!"

(Behold: My gift for the #FFXIVswap going on! My giftee was @sasslett (which tumblr is being a real pain about tagging for some reason), and with how creative everone else's gifts have been so far, I thought I'd try something I haven't done since college: ink painting! I even did the old fashioned way with an inkstick/inkstone to boot.

describe your OC's feelings/relationship to an NPC.

Ohhh man Yotsuyu.

So, if I may go off on one before I actually answer the question... Yotsuyu was my favorite character before I played XIV. I remember seeing her illustration and went 'HER. I WANT HER.'

If you couldn't tell-- I have a type... lmao. Tsuna and her ended up looking really similar but ONLY because I based Tsuna on Yuko xxxHolic... and then they ended up having similar backstories, too but it wasn't intentional 😭 Even their names... Tsuyu... Tsuna... fuck.

SO ANYWAY it just kind of evolved into them being two sides of the same coin. Stormblood was a expansion for thematic foils for sure, but Yotsuyu is 100% Tsuna's.

Tsuna is an Au Ra with hang-ups regarding Hyur and Garlean alike. She was also a child who got sold into indentured servitude-- her saving grace was that it was to an okiya and not a brothel. She's a Raen! She's the sun! She embraces love!

Tsuna also condemns the Garleans for subjugating her people, and wants revenge for her family. Yotsuyu would work with the enemy to get back at her family. Listen, it just works. I didn't design it that way.

I mentioned before that the two of them are perfect foils and that's why.

What is their relationship, though? I will definitely have more on this when I get to Stormblood on my ng+ run, but for now I'll say it's in the same vein as my answer for Fordola. The only difference being is Tsuna sees herself in Yotsuyu, and that scares her more than anything Zenos could do.

Yotsuyu, however, sees her as nothing but an obstacle, and maybe there's potential for her to exhibit jealousy as well. After all, they were cut from the same cloth so why did Tsuna become what she did, while Yotsuyu was forced to crawl through the mud. 'What makes you so special' kind of thing. The answer is love, I suppose.

No matter what Yotsuyu did, I don't think Tsuna could forgive her for willingly siding with the Garleans. She displaced thousands of innocents for her own personal vendetta. Tsuna considers the people of Yanxia to be her people.

I still have yet to decide if they would have met previously in the story considering they would have both lived in the pleasure districts for most of their youth. It's undetermined where Yotsuyu's brothel was located but I'm assuming it would have been Yanxia before she razed it.

I also want a little bit of ho yay for them if I'm to be perfectly, unabashedly honest. They should be rivals. The Seifer to Tsuna's Squall. I just think Yotsuyu should tilt her chin up and blow smoke in her face. You know. You feel me? You get me?

That scene with Gosetsu in Namai... [clenches fist] it should have been Tsuna...

Ooooh so this one is challenge mode since I was still very much figuring out X'vahl's storyline when I was playing through Stormblood so take this as an extremely rough draft: subject to change.

Seeing as X'vahl was really Going Through It:tm: during Stormblood with Gyr Abania being where he grew up and getting some extremely heartbreaking personal news around that time I feel like he was probably pretty numb to a lot of things going on around him around then. He was just sort of blindly following what people were asking of him with a vacant smile and little regards to his own well-being. That being said, I think he didn't really get to know Hien that well since he wouldn't have been in the right headspace to do so.

answers from the WoL Question Set

Ceres: oh absolutely. she's also pretty dangerous to be around when spooked, since she's got long nails and a tendency to start casting fire V.

Tonkatsu: she'll only be really scared if she's on her own. if she's with someone else it's much easier to assume the 'noble protector' role. unless it's yarzons. fuck yarzons.

MUNDAY ASKS!

I haven't been anywhere TOO interesting, since sadly I don't have the means or even the ability to travel far (as besides my day job, I am technically a live-in caretaker) but there was at one point I did manage to go to the Outer Banks in North Carolina with a bunch of folks from my family.

It was fun, but definitely a bit of an experience on the beach, as the part I was in, we were allotted a private second of the beach specifically for people rending the condos and houses.

INCOMING STORYTIME:

So fun fact for those who don't know: the Outer Banks has wild horses. These horses often congregate on the beach. The same beach you're on during your time there.

Now me being the resident vampire (aka I burn super easily in the sun), I was just chilling under the beach, under the big umbrella, taking a bit of a snooze while everyone else went to have their fun. Now while I was passed out and my family was having their fun, NO ONE NOTICED the small herd of horses that found their way to me.

I woke up to the rather large nose of the baby horses right in my face.