Max turned the vial between her fingers, its contents casting a faint, crimson glow. The shop was dark and dusty, lined with a layer of comforting silence. Tobacco smoke hung thick in the air. She felt at home among the oddities, rarities, and antiquities of Grimorium Verum. Or as close to home as she would allow.
“You’re awfully quiet, Bato.” Max’s fingers closed around the vial, sealing away its light and ethereal warmth. “Gil for your thoughts?”
She stole a fox-quick glance over her shoulder. And there, framed by towers of decrepit books and obelisks of junk she found the greatest antique inside Grimorium Verum. A raisin of a lalafell hunched over the sandstone counter, milky gaze narrowed through a thick veil of smoke. Grey hair hung limp over his shoulders, left to grow wild and unruly. A black coeurl made fat and lazy laid on the counter next to him. Chirped when the man gave its belly an absent pat. His lips shriveled into a deeper scowl. The pipe hanging from them bobbed when he muttered.
“Nothin’ important.”
“Same as usual, then.”
Max’s laughter died prematurely when Bato remained quiet. Not even a twitch to hint that she’d been heard. She cleared her throat, gaze flitting to the curio cabinet. A mental note was made: whenever the opportunity presented itself, she’d drag that old sense of humor under the table and smother it.
“Anyroad- I have something for you.” The vial was returned to its home on the rack. A placard beneath it labeled the vials in thick, black letters - Voidsent Blood. Max reached into her jacket, procuring from its folds a velveteen pouch. She hovered uncertainly. Then tossed the pouch onto the counter. “Happy Starlight.”
Bato’s eyes flicked down to the pouch. Smoke rolled over his lips as he barked a humorless laugh. “Starlight?” - withered fingers curled into the plush fabric- “Heh. Ain’t ya’ just sweet.” He slid the pouch into a drawer, then returned his attention to Max. Stared at her through wire-thin brows. She knew that look very well. It was a look that demanded no nonsense.
So, she tried again.
“I need a favor.”
“O’ course ya’ do.”
“This one is different.” Max’s hand slipped into her jacket once more. This time, she retrieved a slip of parchment.
Bato upturned his nose with a chuff. “Different my ass.”
The note was slid across the counter, pinned beneath her finger. Her voice dipped into a gentle hush as she leaned forward. “Please, Bato.”
The lalafell grew still and quiet, milky gaze burning a hole into the paper. A sly smirk drew across Max’s lips as she withdrew her hand with aching slowness. It felt good to win.
Bato remained silent a moment more before relinquishing a defeated sigh. He fumbled with the note. Read it over once. Then gave a curt nod. From its resting spot against the counter, he retrieved a wooden cane. A few hobbled steps brought him to the curio cabinet beyond the desk. “Curse th’ day I made that promise t’ ya’ father,” he grumbled as he began plucking jars from their shelves, “ ‘Twixt the two o’ ya’, m’ gonna be bled dry.”
“Oh. You’ve seen him recently?” Max propped either elbow on the counter, watching the Lalafell measure spoonfuls of fluorescent powder onto a scale. The warmth that crept into her smile almost felt instinctual. “And what exactly is my little brother up to these days?”
Bato hesitated. Threw a weary look over his shoulder before tapping off the excess powder from the spoon. “Shovin’ his nose where it doesn't belong.” From a drawer, he procured a draw-string bag. As an afterthought, he added, “Came ‘round here lookin’ for ya’ again.”
“I see.”
The powder was scraped from the scale and dumped into the bag. He sealed it with a taut pull of its strings. “He knows, kiddo.”
The air felt suddenly cooler, and the shadows appeared much darker. Max stepped away from the counter. Found a home for her twitching hands in the comfort of her pockets. “How much?”
“Mo’e than he ought to know. Enough t’ ask the right questions…”
Max drew in a quiet breath and held it until she could feel her pulse in her ears. When she finally spoke, she cringed at how weak her voice sounded in the open air. “Did you tell him?”
Bato’s nose crinkled at the question, lips curled to reveal a picket fence of plaque. “Told him the last I saw of Maxinora was on a boat set for Kugane.” He dropped the draw-string bag upon the counter. “An’ nothin’ mo’e.”
Inklings of relief seeped into Max’s fingers as she reached for the bag. After a moment, she mustered a quiet- “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
Max met Bato’s gaze. She still remembered a time when he looked upon her with warmth. When her puckish antics merited begrudging smiles and smoke-tinged laughter. Cold indifference warped his eyes into something far paler and more distant. He was peering through Max as though she were made of air. In this shop she called home, she was little more than a shadow on the wall.
“I did it for him,” the Lalafell sighed, “He’s finally findin’ some happiness. An’ he sure as shit doesn’t need you fuckin’ it up for him.” Bato plucked the pipe from his lips, dumping the ash into an awaiting tray. “He’s better off without you.”
She didn’t need to hear it from him.
She already knew it. Repeated it to herself until the words tasted foreign on her tongue. As if she could form a callus thick enough to withhold against its bitter sting.
Hearing it and knowing it were one thing. But seeing it with her own eyes was another.
Merriment lined the streets of Ul’dah by way of strung-up lights and Starlight sentinels. Vendors’ pockets were fat and deep from the seasonal bustle. Children were made gleeful by the mounds of snow pocketing the curbs. Warmth filled the air as couples meandered through the night, hand-in-hand. And above all the wonder and delight rose a note of laughter.
A sound she knew better than her own heart beat.
She picked him out of the crowd, though it took a few tries. He was taller than she remembered. More broad of shoulder. The missing tip of his ear was also new. As was his steady gait. She’d recognize those eyes anywhere, even if they gleamed with confidence she knew he wasn’t born with.
When did it all change?
He wore a bright smile unlike any he’d ever donned. A smile that was unafraid to exist beyond the confines of his cheeks, becoming more teeth than eyes. It was one of growing happiness, much as the sun peeks through an overcast sky. It came from deep inside him. A morsel of his own soul offered in the most gentle of fashions. And she heard it, too, in his voice. In his choice of words. In the way he relaxed in the presence of that white-haired Au ra.
Max watched from afar, hidden in the recess of an alley, as A’gust and his companion disappeared into the crowd. How happy he seemed to be these days.
[Warning: The following except contains sensitive content regarding oblique mentions of suicidal ideation. Viewer discretion is advised]
Tell me. What is it like to fly free?
The sky stretched above, unbroken and unending. Clouds doused in ink shivered under the low growl of thunder nearby. They seemed to bulge towards me, crumpling the air from my chest; I welcomed their weight. My toes curled along cool shingles as I outstretched my arms, eyes slipping shut. Light settled on my lids- the sun’s crucifying stare- and for once, I found myself smiling in the face of the endless expanse. It all seemed too vast, somehow, too massive. As if at any moment the sky and the horizon would collide and sweep everything asunder, joining two existences into one- a clean slate. And what a comforting thought that was to have at the edge of the world, feeling the birth of a storm woven in gossamer threads.
I was only one step away from finding the answer. From being able to see the world again in the monochrome ambiguity of innocence lost. Yet I stood there against those first few, frigid drops. This fear, this tremble in my soul, was a paralyzing one. It’d been my constant companion. For so long it drenched my tongue in poison that I’d forgotten how to speak in truths, even to myself. A breeze whipped past. Heralded by the soft hush of rain trailing along shingled roofs. I curled into myself and released a wail so long and harsh that it scorched my throat. Such a wild thing. Not a soul heard it; swallowed whole by a crack of thunder.
And a new beginning was marked by my first and only truth.
***
Night blanketed the streets of Radz-at-han, casting a monochrome dark broken only by the balmy halo of street lamps. Few windows appeared lit from inside. Most of the city slumbered. Their story told in the colors of a bustling market, a treasure remembered in their bones and blood, lay quiet. Empty, even, save for the scuffle of sandals along the terracotta path. A shrouded figure skulked from one pool of shadows to the next, stealing glances over his shoulder at every interval.
Two things weighed on Mishhar’s mind as he slipped from his home in the Kama: his last conversation with Malfud and the gravity of the decision he was about to make. His grip tightened on the satchel at his hip, knuckles turned white. The memory played clear in his mind’s eye as the tapestry of stars above. They spoke over a dinner of spiced wine, zarda, and sheermal prepared that morning by Biyaada. A ritual they’d done each month, long before either found their footing in the world. Back when life was as simple as peddling ceramics for pennies. His younger counterpart smiled, all teeth and no eyes, over the lip of his glass as he retold the dealings of his latest investment. The East Aldenard Trading Company wanted to expand Malfud’s company into Eorzea, a storefront in each city-state. Joy gleamed in Malfud’s eyes as he reached across the table and gather Mishhar’s hands into his own. A promise, spoken with genuine warmth, of a place in this commercial empire was placed in callused palms.
“I will share my prosperity with you,” Malfud had said, “Save you from this destitution as you did me. And together, we shall dine like kings, my friend.”
A smile drew across Mishhar’s lips, sweetening the wickedness that churned in his chest. The Sisters were cruel for first stripping him of his wealth and now his dignity. O’ so very cruel.
The elder man dipped his head low and pulled at the edges of his cowl. The road he traveled extended out onto a bridge connecting the Kama with Yuji. Rivulets of moonlight seeped through stone arches, twisting his shadow into something far larger than him. Its presence looming, judging, as it eddied him forward. The darkness sewn to his feet knew what he sought to do. Rumors of a peddler, masked and mysterious, were on the tongues of strangers and spoken into the ears of travelers. No one knew their name nor where they came from. Their presence assumingly birthed from necessity and desperation for they appeared not long after the destruction of the Final Days. Whispers said that they appear on a street corner at a quarter past midnight. A beacon in the dark as they huddle beneath the lamp’s glow, Moogle-mask limned by hair illuminated in crimson. And rarely is the peddler without their devashuni- the black dog whose gaze follows strangers with unrelenting intrigue. Its eyes capable of piercing mortal flesh and seeing through to the deepest pits of the soul. So long as there is a trade to be made, the peddler and their devashuni will listen; a gift to those with worthy offerings of a remedy for any affliction.
Or, so Mishhar was led to believe.
A final stairwell crested onto the Yuji’s promenade, vacant and quiet now. Mishhar eased his steady pace into a hesitant shuffle, feeling the air shift with his own anticipation. Chills danced down his spine as he swallowed hard and tucked himself into the alley’s shadows. He drew in a quiet breath, satchel clutched close to his side, and squeezed his eyes shut. In the distance, the twelfth bell tolled. And he waited in the following quiet. Waited until he forgot he was waiting. Until nothing else existed aside from the dark pressing on his eyelids and the steady stream of his own breath. Then, finally, the soft scuff of nails against stone broke the monotonous silence. The shadows of his mind drew images of the devashuni in colors of malice and fear; eyes that peered into him and saw the wicked thorns encasing his chest. The satchel’s strap dug into his shoulder, reminding him of its weight. A choice, the pain said, only he could make. And as he met the black admissions of his own heart, he felt a tremor in his resolve. His grip on the satchel lightened. His breath released in a quivering stream. His feet remained rooted in place.
The click of nails eventually ceased and the alley drew quiet once again. Though the air grew no lighter and the night no brighter. The peddler, Mishhar knew, had made their claim on the street corner. All of their wares - promises of a new beginning- whispered sweet temptations in tune to the thrum of his chest. He licked the salt from his lips, the taste reminding him of that dinner. Malfud’s grin bobbed to the surface of his churning thoughts and suddenly his blood went cold. Cruel fate would have him kneel - No, grovel at the heel of his inferior copy. All that Malfud had claimed was earned on Mishhar’s back, yet no morsel of glory would be left on the table for him. Nothing but scraps left.
Venom coated his lips as they upturned in a disquiet smile. He hadn’t come this far, spent the last of his gil, to balk at the last second. Resolve coaxed his eyes open, pins and needles crawling ups legs, and forced him to step out from under the cover of night. Around the corner, he peered and saw the first glimpse of the peddler.
She was a spry thing, perched on a planter’s ledge with a knee curled to her chest and chin resting on top. Shorter by full fulm than him and half as broad. Armed with naught but a pair of stiletto daggers and bandolier laden with pouches and vials. The painted smile of her lacquered mask looked dull compared to the crown of fire she wore, and doubly so compared to the small, black bundle of fur she stroked. It was a dog, yes, but certainly not the hound Mishhar had conjured in his mind. The devashuni simply sprawled across the peddler’s lap, snoozing while its master surveyed the promenade with a faux, absent gaze. Mishhar’s brow dipped in a furrow, the sweet venom once coating his lips turned sour as it slowly dripped down into his stomach. He suddenly felt quite foolish.
Mishhar dared a step back and no sooner did he that the woman turned to meet his gaze, plucking him as easily from the shadows as one might a grape from the vine. An airy, smoke-tinged laugh drifted through the air.
“Hello,” she breathed, a smile laced in each note, “Friend.” She outstretched a hand and the dog in her lap stirred. Its eyes fluttered open, endlessly black and glistening like polished marble. The woman beckoned Mishhar closer. “Come into the light. I don’t wish to speak with shades.”
Mishhar released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Slowly, he slithered out from under the shadows and into the lamp’s light. His fingers drummed along his satchel’s strap, unsure if he could speak above a hoarse whisper. He licked chapped lips, casting the dog a wayward glance, before letting his eyes fall to the floor. Even then, he could feel the devashuni’s attention as its gaze caressed every crevice of his soul. “You are,” -his gaze drilled into the cobblestone- “The Alchemist, yes?”
The masked woman breathed a contemplative hum. Then expelled a curt chuff as she waved him off. “Is that what they call me here? Mmmmm’ suppose if it pleases you, then so it shall be. Yes. I am the Alchemist.”
“Then you’ve a remedy for me.” Mishhar sank to his knees as he began unbuckling his satchel. From its folds, he procured three jars. Two were stuffed with dried ochu vines and the third was accrual of pickled imp wings. He lined them before the Alchemist and turned to her with a pressed smile. “I’ve brought these for you. Only the finest purchased from Bazaar to trade with you.”
He searched the lacquered mask, with its faux eyes and cherry cheeks, for some semblance of interest. Intrigue. He’d even take amusement if it benefited him. But not a flicker of emotion crossed the Alchemist, save for the subtle cant of her head. She nudged the hound from her lap, the devashuni spilling to the ground with a languid yawn. It padded up to the jars, and Mishhar’s heart seized when it gave them a tentative sniff. The seconds between stretched for nearly a what felt like decades. Millennium. Eternity.
Then the hound wagged its tail.
Relief flooded over Mishhar as he expelled a breathless sigh. He shuffled closer, hands upturned to the Alchemist as he continued. “You will trade with me, won’t you?”
The Alchemist shifted on her perch, creating a symphony of chiming vials, and saddled an elbow on either knee. Her painted gaze turned in an exaggerated fashion between each jar before finally settling on him. “What is it,” she began, dropping her chin into an open palm, “That you want?”
His hands fell to his lap and his gaze to the side. “I want…” He spoke barely above a whisper now, stripping pieces of his soul and finding them to the shadows that were tethered to their feet. His stretched, contorted into a shape he no longer recognized. And yet somehow it appeared far smaller than hers- a feeble thing that didn’t know how to navigate the dark. Another quiet breath. Another moment of silence.
Malfud’s smile drifted in a passing breeze, memory of his laughter caught in a strand of wind and scattered like dust.
“I will share my prosperity with you.”
Mishhar rose to his feet and brought his gaze level with the Alchemist. Fear of the dark paled in comparison to the fear of humiliation. “I want,” he continued, ichor seeping into his voice, “A poison.”
His request broke through the night, like a pebble cast into a lake. The ripples stretched in notes of silence as it sank down.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Their shadows twisted with an unseen current and flooded his heart; surged through his veins; blanketed his skin. Her quiet regard became suffocating, her painted gaze asphyxiating. Mockery heard clear in the puckish grin of her moogle mask. The gravity of his decision finall laid in full upon his shoulders as the devashuni’s eyes bore into his soul; his desire to kill weighed a ton.
“Oh.” A single syllable breathed on an incredulous scoff. The Alchemist leaned back on her palms, head canted to one side. “You weren’t going to add anything to that, were you?” She hummed. A mixture of amusement and disappointment. “I’m afraid I cannot help you.”
“What?” Mishhar spat the word, lips pulled in an abhorrent snarl. “But you promised something for every affliction- for every cause! You are held on the same pedestal of legends, yet you deny me aid?”
The Alchemist hitched her chin back. Then shook her head with a half-hearted laugh that seared his cheeks. “I promised you nothing.” She outstretched her hand, beckoning her hound hither. The small, black dog retreated to sit quietly at its master’s side, tail still pendulating. “You’ve drawn your own conclusions; however, I misspoke. It is not that I can’t help, but that I won’t.”
All the air seemed to escape his lungs. His hands fell to his sides as he stared down at the jars lined at his feet. “I don’t understand… These are the finest goods I could purchase. The devashuni accepted them. Is this not a fair trade?”
“First off” - the Alchemist upheld a single finger which she twirled in the air then used to point at her companion- “This is a dog. The level of sentience you’ve assigned her is neither applicable nor relevant.” She flicked up a second digit to join the first. “Secondly, you’ve brought me absolute garbage. Common wares. Pantry items.” She slipped off her perch and came to stand before him. “As a man of Radz-at-han, surely you’re aware of Alchemy’s First Law.” She brought either hand level to her chest, palms upturned and teetering like the plates of a scale. “To obtain anything of worth, you must give something of equal value. Most adequately put by the Nald’thal’s devotees: As Above, So Below. Now, do you honestly believe that what you’re about to give is equal to what you wish to take?”
Mishhar deflated under the woman’s scrutiny, her words slipping under his ribs like little daggers. His eyes fell once more and watched as all his dreams drained away into the gutters. “There is nothing else,” he whispered, “I have left to trade.”
“Then there is nothing,”-her breath warm at his ear- “I have for you.”
He bristled at the touch. But when he whipped around, hand raised, she had retreated from under the lamp’s light and into the shadows. His eyes narrowed in a lethal point. “You are a cruel woman.”
“Think me unkind if you wish, but I am simply maintaining the balance of Equal Exchange.” The Alchemist placed a finger to her mask’s lip. So small, she appeared, without the aid of her high perch. Dull and faded without the filter of a warm glow. A legend turned into a shade before his very eyes. Yet no less ominous as some unseen force stilled the anger from his twitching fingers; bade him to stay his wrathful hands. Perhaps it was the way she carried herself, unhurried. Unbothered. Or the daggers that gleamed in the wane light, shine met in equal measure by the vials chiming at her belt. Or perhaps it neither- perhaps it was the way the shadows embraced her form with a certain, intangible familiarity; as if she were the candle that beckoned the dark.
“You see…” The Alchemist stepped further back, turning from a shade to a silhouette, then to a shadow, then to nothing but a disembodied voice. “That is my first and only truth… I’ll humor you again, Mishhar, when you bring me something of worth.”
The Yuji’s promenade became vacant again save for a cloaked figure and his jars of hollow dreams.
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