#setoto

Momodi eyed Alka up and down, then squarely met his wide, earnest eyes. “You seem an all right sort,” she said. “Honest enough. I’ve been in this business long enough to have a pretty keen sense for these things, if you’ll excuse me sayin’.

“But just so I ain’t callin’ on some other distressed young lady today, I’m goin’ to need her name.”

“Setoto,” Alka said, relieved. “Her name is Setoto, and oh, thank you, miss. Tell her it’s Alka Zolka asking after her.”

“Don’t go thankin’ me yet,” Momodi cautioned. “If she decides she ain’t of a mind to see you, I won’t be pushin’ the subject–and neither should you.”

Alka nodded so vigorously he had to push his slipping glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Yes, yes of course. Thank you, ma’am.”

“I said don’t thank me yet,” Momodi said wryly. She waved a hand toward the center of the Quicksand. “Take a seat, then. I’ll have one of mine call on her.”

As the Adventurer’s Guild’s branch in Ul’dah, Alka Zolka did not expect the place was ever what could be considered quiet, but with the Little Ladies’ celebrations in full swing, most of the seating was already taken by adventurers. He gratefully took a small table off to one side when a server pointed it out to him, assuring him that no one had come to claim the seat yet.

The sandy and earthy tones of the Quicksand’s decor were awash in the bright pink of potted cherry blossoms and paper blooms, and the reds of decorative parasols and runners laid across each table. Alka twisted his hands in his lap anxiously. The noise–and trading his armor and axe for the loose, breezy fashions of Ul’dah–did not help calm his nerves any. Just to take his mind off things, he started counting the petals on the floor that had drifted in from the main avenue, and tried not to glance in the direction of the bar too much.

It was during one of these glances that he at last caught sight of Momodi gesturing him over. He hurriedly stood. 

“She ain’t ready to come downstairs,” Momodi told him when he reached the bar.

Alka’s expression fell. Momodi wagged a finger at him. “Now, don’t go mopin’ about just yet. She said you can go up and speak with her. Room twenty-two, on your left.

“And while I don’t know what happened, you set things right, you hear? I don’t want to see any young ladies’ cryin’ their eyes out on a day meant to be all about their happiness.”

Alka, one foot already on the stairwell, looked over his shoulder. “Bringing her happiness is precisely my intention,” he said, resolute.

Momodi nodded approvingly.

Setoto’s room was near the end of the hall, and Alka wondered if she had intentionally asked for such a secluded lodging–at least as much seclusion could be found in such a well-frequented establishment. He knocked softly under the “22” that had been engraved into the wood of the door.

“Setoto?” 

There was a pause, and then Alka heard a shuffling and a quiet sniffling from behind the door. His heart sank.

“Setoto, what’s wrong?”

“I…I….” 

Another fitful lapse into silence, punctuated by another sniffle.

Alka swallowed. “If…if it isn’t your wish to have me accompany you as your seneschal, my lady, just say the word. Your comfort and happiness is paramount to me, on this day and any other.”

To his dismay, that only prompted a loud sob. “Oh Alk- k- ka, it’s just like you to assume you’re the one at fault. I-it’s not you. It’s me!”

“How can it be you?” he asked, bewildered. He wished he could open the door and sweep her into a hug. “I don’t understand.”

“I-I don’t want you to see.”

Alka leaned his face against the wood and closed his eyes, ignoring the way it dug his spectacles into the bridge of his nose. “Setoto…you know that I have ever found you beautiful beyond compare. Even if you were to suddenly turn into a tonberry again on the morrow, it would change naught of how I see you.”

He waited. Suddenly the door was yanked open and he stumbled forward, nearly falling on his face.

“I’m sorry, Alka,” Setoto hiccuped, letting go of the door handle to steady him. “I didn’t know you were that c-close to the door.”

Her cheeks were flush and damp with tears. Before Alka could reassure her that the apology was unneeded, Setoto abruptly pulled up the sleeve of her riviera dress and thrust out her arm toward him, her face screwed up in distress. The exposed skin was riddled with painful looking weals, each swollen and red.

“I d-don’t know what’s happening,” she cried. “They just started appearing, a-and I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong with my codex or my incantations or if it just isn’t responding to healing magick.”

She yanked her sleeve back down before he could take a closer look. “What if it’s the plague coming back?” Her gold-colored eyes were brimming with panic and more unshed tears. “I think it started this way, too. The welts, and then the ghastly greenish color, and then the painful shriveling of the limbs, and–and didn’t Surito say there was a chance it could come back? What if–”

“Setoto.” Alka grasped her hand, careful not to jostle her afflicted arm. “We don’t know that yet.”

A door opening further down the hall alerted them both. With Setoto’s hasty nod, Alka fully stepped in the room and quietly shut the door. 

“You are but recently come to Ul’dah,” he told her gently. “There may be all manner of common sores and illnesses that you’ve never been exposed to, making you more susceptible to them.” He reached into the pocket of his sarouel and handed her a handkerchief. 

“I apologize,” he hung his head, “I should have thought of that before inviting you to a city packed to the bloody brim for a festival…”

Setoto gratefully took the handkerchief and dabbed her eyes before noisily blowing her nose into it. “Don’t blame yourself, Alka,” she said thickly, “I would’ve come anyway.

“I…I really do want you to be my seneschal for the day. Just not…” Setoto gestured hopelessly to her arm with her hand that clutched the kerchief, still holding his hand tight with her other. “And what if, in public….”

Alka mustered his most reassuring smile. “Let us call upon a chirurgeon. I am sure we can arrange to have someone sent up to the rooms–Ul’dah plays host to the Alchemists’ Guild, after all.”

“But…”

“If they cannot diagnose it,” said Alka, squeezing her hand, “we will call upon Surito. He will set things right.”

Setoto’s shoulders relaxed, but her eyes were still fearful. “What if it’s just a temporary fix?”

“Then we seek a longer term stratagem, my lady.” Alka gingerly lifted his hand to her cheek, and when she leaned against the touch he thumbed away the fresh tears there.

“Let us take it day by day,” he said. “And today, I have a princess that will want for escorting after she is given the very best care the realm has to offer…if she is still amenable.”