#unctuous

He didn’t need to know that she was uncomfortable and eager to get home. As much as she loved her son, the pain of engorgement was making her grumpy and ready to go home despite needing to finish a few more meetings. She’d been in a hurry to get out of the house so nothing that would have helped with the situation was done and so she was left dealing with the uncomfortable consequences. 

Thankfully, as far as the man knew, R’xhin Sha wasn’t a woman prone much emotion outside of controlled indifference and the occasional bit of sharp wit. The name was one of the few aliases that A’sana still used and was officially the name she used on the paperwork of the various endeavors she’d invested in. It was the name on the leases she held, technically making her a tenant in her own homes since as far of Ul’dah was concerned R’xhin owned the properties, but she personally did not live in them. Everything was done to keep the name A’sana Dorel as far from her home and income as possible since, technically speaking, A’sana Dorel still was a wanted woman, even if the law had long ago stopped looking for her. 

“...truly, none of this would have been possible without your generous…” He was still going and it was hard to think past the uncomfortable ache of her breasts. Breasts that he had no problem with sneaking what he thought were discreet looks at when he thought her attention was elsewhere. Apparently the high collared top did little to dampen his imagination when it came to his gaze roaming her body. 

Any other day, she would have taken it in stride and used that against him. Her body and her looks were a weapon she was well versed in using against men like him, but today was not that day. Her bad day was about to become his. 

“Enough.” The single word was spoken just slightly below conversational tone. She’d found the softer timbre effective when coupled with a portrayal of absolute confidence and subtle dominance in keeping attention more than yelling could. It fit R’xhin much better than her normally verbose, rapid and slightly louder style of talking. “I did not come here expecting such obsequiousness. You are behind, Mister Travers, and you know how I loathe having to remind you of your dues.”

The man’s eyes were a bit wide, his first attempts at speaking lost to sputtering. “O-of course, I apologize Lady Sha…”

It wasn’t unusual for her to get lubricant on her hands as she went through the various moving mechanisms. This one had a trigger that felt like it was grinding on something. “What’d you do, bury this one in sand?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the elezen man replied. “That one’s been sitting around for nigh on a decade and hasn’t seen any use.”

Y’lydi stopped, her ears slowly laying back as she raised her head to give the elezen a deadpan look. “A decade.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve not so much as picked it up to disassemble and clean it?”

“That is correct. I found it a week ago, stowed away with a bunch of supplies that had been sealed away in a safe for just as long. I assume, at least, that no one else has picked it up in that time.” The man watched her with an equally deadpan, don’t-you-try-to-scold-me-about-this-I’m-not-an-idiot look before going back to his own piece.

The irritation faded for the moment. “You must be glad I came along, then, so you don’t have to try and get all of the dried-up gunk out of this thing,” she observed, bending once more to task.

“Oh, you’ve no idea. Now if only you’d be amicable to shooting it, too.” The man clearly knew what he was doing as he looked over at her with a half-smile on his face; she was growing attached to this gun already as she explored its inner workings.

“You won’t take no for an answer, will you?” she asked, amusement coloring her tone.

“My dear,” he replied casually, “I take no for target practice.”

The elders seemed to understand and respect her need for space in a way a few of the young ones did not. She couldn’t blame them for their curiosity. In the aftermath of Dalamud breaking like an egg she had been the only traveler they’d seen and she’d been brought in slung over the shoulder of one of the hunters with a pair of racing chocobos and a dead body in tow. There was obviously a story there.

She answered their questions as best she could, which was to say haltingly and sometimes circumspect with the details as she stirred a spoon through her oily stew. But when it became obvious she was growing uncomfortable with the attention, an elder would bap the adolescent lightly upside the head and that would be that. They’d leave off and turn their attention elsewhere. 

When her spoon scraped the last bits of the meal from the bottom of her bowl, Gundobald rose from the old crate he had been sitting on and motioned for her to follow him. As he had promised the other day in the tent, he led her to her father’s resting place.

He’d be laid in the shadow of the mesa that sheltered Little Ala Mhigo, with the others the camp had lost. They were all buried facing Gyr Abania so they could always see their way home, the way Gundobald told it. 

“Wha’ was his name?” He asked as she stared numbly down at the freshly turned rock and sand. 

Aislinn glanced briefly over her shoulder. “Jorund Ironfist” 

He made a low noise of acknowledgement in his throat. “A strong battle-name.” 

“He was a strong man.”

And he was. When she was young, her father was a tall tower. A wall no one could breach. She never worried about monsters under her bed at night because what monster could stand against such a man? She used to marvel at how her little hand could fit wholly in one of his wide, calloused palms, even with all her fingers stretching as wide as she could make them. He used to laugh at her efforts. The memories of her life with him began to slip through her mind like oil through her fingers though she tried hard to freeze and study each one. 

He hadn’t been the perfect father. Nymeia knew he had his faults. But he had been hers. She knew she’d never been a part of the plan and he’d tried the best he knew how. All her life, it had always been the two of them. And now it was just her. In her mind she seemed a pitifully inadequate figure left to stand alone. Much like the now pock-scarred world there was a giant crater in her life where her father once stood. It was one loss too many in a life of losses. 

Her shoulders shook with the effort it took not to cry. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t embarrass him by any un-Highlander outpouring of emotion. She was tired. She was just so damned tired and all she wanted in that moment was her da. 

From over her shoulder, Gundobald spoke, watching her struggle.

“I’ve seen men twice yer size fall t’ their knees an’ bawl like newborn babes. There ‘r times there’s nothin’ left t’ do but th’t. I’m thinkin’ fer you, lass, this is one o’ those times.” he said, his gruff voice low. His heavy hand came down to rest atop her head a moment and then he turned and made his way back to the fire glow of the small camp. 

She knew now why he brought her out here at night. So no one would see her in her private grief as sorrow overcame her and tears forced their way out through the cracks in her bedrock in messy, wracking sobs.

He was a wise man.