FFXIV-RP NONSENSE

Aezh's Miscellany (RP, Crystal-Mateus, NSFW, 18+ Only)

[clawabiding]

Red Rhotano

Across the aft of the Mare’s Milk sprays a seafoam deluge. The sky is clear and the sun is high, but the sea roars as if the heavens are in revolt. Red Rhotano, her name bought and paid for by the crashing, thrashing waters on the border of Limsa Lominsa, closes her eyes and inhales. Mist, salty and cold, fills her lungs as much as air, and she expels both in a sigh so jubilant the errant souls of the Mare think she were, despite the long frame and longer ears of the Rava, born of the waves. 

Red hung from the center tie of the mizzenmast with her eyes on the approaching vessel. Winds as they were, a mainsail that large would overtake the Mare’s Milk in less than an hour and put the Mare in cannon range in just shy of forty minutes.

“Swarbera,” she called to the Sea Wolf at the base of the mast, “It’s them. It’s the <godsforsaken> Longpike.”

Swarbera Sterrahlsyn, cannoneer of the Mare’s Milk, clapped a ham-sized hand over his forehead in frustration, “Aw no, aw shite -- the Executioners ain’t suppose t’sail beyond the Swallow Meridian! They got laws! The Accord!”

Red shielded her eyes with a canopy of slim fingers, “You know another banner with a bloody neck-stump stitched into the weave, <friend?>”  

Swarbera ignored her, his mind still struggling to acknowledge who exactly was tailing the Mare, “Aw, and the bleedin’ Longpike? She’s supposed’ta be on the other side of the parallel! She’s supposed’ta be halfway to Thavnair! She’s supposed’ta--”

“‘Bera!” shouted Red, “Tell the captain to <get his knickers around his ankles and prepare to receive,> because the Pike is gaining.”

Swarbera, who knew maybe four words of Red’s hometongue from proximity to the long-earred viera, stared vacantly up the mast.

“Tell him to prepare!” she cried.

To her, the masts were just her native spruce, uncomplicated by uneven bark and branches. Navigating the slippery, boot-polished deck, even thrown to and fro by an angry sea, was simple compared to the winding narrows of Golmore. Everything was known to her when she stepped on her first ship. Everything was basically the same, just kissed by the overzealous affection of the big, deep wet. 

Red stood with her back to the sails and her eyes on the Longpike. Swarbera had been right about the Executioners. They weren’t out here by choice or by plan, but chased toward the Mare’s Milk by a sky of dangerous purple-grey. Twenty minutes had passed and now she could see the veins of lightning in the clouds and the spreading darkness on the horizon. A storm and a bad one. A void-colored seafarer’s hell reaching toward the Longpike and, eventually, the Mare. 

Under normal circumstances there’d be an unspoken truce. The Longpike would sail by the Mare’s Milk and both vessels would pretend they didn’t see one another. The Pike wouldn’t even log the sighting. Against the coming storm ships on the Rhotano Sea were allies facing a common foe. But the Longpike’s crew were notorious even among the Bloody Executioners: they didn’t arrest pirates, they scuttled ships and took pot-shots at the drowning crew. They didn’t take captives, they took corpses if their faces were on warrants. A slower ship, especially a pirate vessel, facing a coming storm? It would only take a short cannonade to cripple the Mare and leave her for the demon winds to unmake. The Longpike would barely need to slow.

“Red!” shouted Swarbera from halfway to the bow, “Get your stilt-legged arse below deck, Captain is gonna scare ‘em off.”

Red turned to face Swarbera, confusion etched over her features. She couldn’t imagine what that meant. “‘Bera, what is it exactly that scares a <bear-hunting bird> like the Longpike?”

Swarbera grinned. Finally, a word he knew. “A bigger <bear-hunting bird.>” he said, pointing a finger at the dark clouds overhead.

She isn’t one for hiding. For all her natural talent, Red doesn’t do well when she cannot see the sea. More often than not, her place in the small barracks goes unused and she sleeps with an arm around the rigging. Cold is cold, but walls and a roof are captivity. Motion is her enemy when she cannot see the sky. Red Rhotano has more friends in the harsh wail of a banshee wind than she does in the quiet creak of the below-deck hull. Her home is -- was -- open to the air and a hundred feet off the ground. That will never change.

“Your funeral, Red!” sighed Swarbera when his explanation of the plan and the resulting argument didn’t sway her. He went below deck when the first thunder shook the masts, leaving Red up top to help with the change in course. 

The captain’s plan was simple: steer the Mare’s Milk perpendicular to the storm instead of running from it, make the Longpike chase them if it wanted a bite, only to lose precious ground to the advancing swell before the worst of it hit. The captain was counting on the Executioners being unwilling risk their vessel to the storm, especially if they thought the Mare had little chance to survive in the heart of the squall. The trick would be doing exactly that. The Mare’s Milk was a tough vessel, but it was going to be a close call. Even the best case scenario wouldn’t leave the Mare unscathed. 

Red was the last hold out on deck when the final crewman went below. The final departee was Captain Sterling himself. The gruff, older hyur made eye-contact with Red long enough to acknowledge this was what she truly wanted. She nodded as she tied the mainsail’s last rope.

She remembers her mother, almost eight decades old and as beautiful as anyone in Muscadet. She remembers hearing the frustration in her mother’s voice turn to something damning and afraid. But mostly she remembers handsome Coeli, sick and surrounded by her wives, all sworn not to leave her bedside. She remembers leaving Muscadet behind with her best baskets in tow, and how chilling it felt to step beyond the final edge of Golmore.

Alone on deck, Red watched the distant Longpike continue its approach, course changing to match the Mare’s. A chill ran down her spine like a finger of ice, but she realized too late she was wrong. The Pike wasn’t changing course entirely, just enough. It bobbed on the rocky sea like a stain against the purple sky, too calm and too quiet. All she could hear was the subtle roar of the ocean.

When Red heard thunder, she knew it wasn’t the storm’s doing. Her ears twitched when the low whistle of a fast approach grew increasingly more obvious. The moment etched itself in her memory. Had it been forty minutes? Surely it hadn’t. The Longpike’s cannons couldn’t possibly reach the Mare yet. This had to be a warning shot.

The deck exploded beneath her feet, or near enough not to matter. The concussion deafened her, the force threw her, and the last thing Red Rhotano saw was the ocean rising up to claim her. Then, cold. The sea was so cold. So dark.

Red never felt a cold like this and never would again. Her mother was waiting for her, standing at the edge of Golmore with three women she didn’t know ...and a man, a man with so many scars she can read the lonely history in them. They won’t let her pass, and despite that she knows this as well as anyone, she argues. She yells, she screams, and she has to be held back by her mysterious sisters. “Take it,” she begs, “At least, take it. Please! For Coeli and her wives, just fucking take it!” And in the greatest mercy Red’s mother has ever offered her daughter, she takes the vial that cost Red her home and turns her back, forever. 

The cold and dark were interrupted by something yanking her upward. It was tight around her middle and pulled so hard Red’s back spasmed with agony, despite the rest of her being so numb. When her face breached the waves and she drew above the lapping ice-tongues of the sea, she tried to draw breath and couldn’t. The cold and dark were still winning. 

All at once, something hard hit her back. Hands on her sternum forced something to crack and she spat up a lungful of sea. Red pulled herself into the closest thing to a ball she could manage and coughed so hard she tasted something coppery on her tongue in addition to all the saltwater. 

Awareness slowly bloomed around her. She was alive, she was on the deck of a ship. She opened her eyes and saw a blurry face.

“S-swarbera?”

 No, not a face. Faces. Four of them. Surrounding her, all looking down on her. All close enough to smell their sour breath. 

“Alas, no,” came a calm voice, pickled in the amusement of the cruel. She wasn’t far off though. A roegadyn, a sea-wolf. Whereas Swarbera had a thick black beard this one’s face was clean and feminine. 

“Welcome t’the Longpike, little rhotfhis,” said the woman foremost among those crowding around her, her curly mane of grey-green falling over her cheeks and brow, “We don’t expect you’ll be stayin’ long.”

[thatsadorbsyo]

Mateus (18+) - Not Safe For Hydaelyn! [Discord]

Mateus (18+) - Not Safe For Hydaelyn! is a Discord community of adult roleplayers on FFXIV's Mateus server (though we welcome all of our Crystal Data Center brethren) that encourages and embraces the responsible and ethical roleplaying of adult content. In our current iteration, we’ve been around for about two years now, and we’ve developed a pretty awesome community over that time, growing mostly via word of mouth.

We emphasize the community aspect of our server and expect all who join us to prioritize engaging respectfully with one another on the occasionally sensitive subject of sexy content! We are LGBTQ+ friendly, and have a welcoming atmosphere for all who wish to join. We have channels for seeking other adult roleplay partners for whatever content you wish to RP, private and public server events that our members plan, organize, and host, and discussion channels for character ideas, gameplay tips, and more! If that sounds interesting to you, check us out.

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Invitation link: https://discord.gg/22rzWUq

[clawabiding]

J’ahza Nunh

Thunder, then silence. J’aya Nunh falls to his knees, dagger clutched in his duplicitous hand. The weapon’s edge glows with goldbile, fresh enough to smoke and sizzle as it drips from the blade. A coward’s tool, made worse by the four miqo’te toughs with similar instruments of deceit. Five villains, all laid low by one avenging spirit; among them, only J’aya remains conscious enough to keep his grasp on the cruel weapon.

J’ahza Tia, despite his deadly wounds, holds his repeater steady. Malboro poison racing through his veins, sweat and blood stinging his eyes, still he manages to keep the weapon pointed at J’aya’s rotten heart, daring him to make the next move. 

But J’aya is the most dangerous when wounded and J’ahza has made the mistake of mercy. The bullet hole in his thigh means nothing to J’aya, Nunh of the Jackal tribe! He flicks his wrist and the blade sails through the air, but not at J’ahza -- at the fair J’avet Alazh who watches nearby!

J’avet sees the arc of the blade and screams in terror, knowing her time on this star has come to an end. But J’ahza has one last cartridge chambered, the one cartridge that could make him Nunh and halt J’aya’s reign of terror. His aethertransformer glows. The cartridge flares. He fires! But the shot isn’t aimed at the monstrous warlord. It’s a one-and-a-million shot toward the flying blade! Sparks fly. The blade is thrown off course! Silence once again settles across the scene.

“The Jackal tribe… is still loyal… to me,” says J’aya with a clenched jaw. Blood wells up between his teeth. He collapses in the sand, his own poisoned dagger jutting menacingly from his chest, its trajectory reversed by an expert ricochet. J’aya’s own cowardly poison quickened the end of its master.

“Jackals are loyal to jackals,” growls the bloodied J’ahza, catching the terror-stricken J’avet as she falls, weeping, into his arms, “Not corpses.”

“And that,” J’ahza exclaimed in his sing-song way, “Is how I became the numero-uno premium breeding stud of the Jackal tribe.”

Peregrin stared at her half-eaten meal of dry sprouts and saltcod, wondering if she had it in her to finish her food. With J’ahza repeating the oft-told tale of his ascension of Nunh, she had to decide if she was going to correct him or let these new exaggerations fester in the pit of her belly. Her appetite depended on it. Shishi, their new Doman intern was staring at the miqo’te in a kind of awe and Peregrin was worried she’d fallen for the tale. It made her stomach even more topsy-turvy. She had to say something.

“Have a big brood, do ya?” Peregrin heard herself asking, “Made a lotta fertile Seeker women round with yer little pups?”

Despite the ribald tale of heroism and skill J’ahza had just told, he blushed like a Midlander boy faced with his first harvest dance. “Well, uh...”

Peregrin felt bad, but not bad enough to stop teasing him. She was already turning toward the new recruit. “Shishi, ask the runt where he got a six-chamber repeater in Thanalan before the Ironworks had a branch out here.”

“Well, I made it” J’ahza began, “...and maybe it wasn’t, uh, six entire chambers. More than one, though.”  

“Ask ‘im how he had a workin’ aethertransformer before Garlond hisself set a single foot inside Skysteel Manufactory.”

“D-did I say aethertransformer?” stammered J’ahza, “I meant--”

“Ask ‘im why ‘J’avet Alazh’ sounds summuch like Vavette Alazzier, the Elezen lass he was pinin’ for during that entire trip to Dragonhead.”

Both J’ahza Nunh and Shishi Saikasaki looked uncomfortable, though obviously for different reasons. The rest of the lunch break passed without anyone talking. Peregrin was just starting to feel she overdid it when the work whistle sung its two-note song. Relieved, the trio went back to their respective projects at the Ironworks’ garage. 

Unfortunately, this put Peregrin and J’ahza on either side of the same firewall. Peregrin was content to work in silence for a few minutes, but the weight of workplace awkwardness caught up with her faster than she expected. Besides, she could hear the stringbean Seeker struggling not to sniffle and all she could see of him were his wilted ears over the top edge of the barrier. After a moment of that sorry sight, she set her spanner down.

“Hey-” they both began, each sheepishly waiting for the other to continue. It was Peregrin who spoke first.  

“Look, I didn’t mean to humble ya quite so hard, just… I’ve heard that story a few too many times, I think,” she paused, “And ‘J’avet’? Thal’s balls, J’ahza, couldya be more obvious? Just walk it back a spell or two.”

Peregrin could see the miqo’te’s ears perk, then wilt all over again. 

“I’m sorry, Perry, I just…” J’ahza exhaled, “...that version just makes so much more sense, y’know? And I thought it’d be cool if I filled out the cast a bit.”

Even distracted by the heart-to-heart, Peregrin could hear the miqo’te working on his half of the firewall. The scrape-twist-scrape of the spanner reminded her to pick hers up. Soon they were working in tandem, the well-oiled machine that was Garlond Ironworks. They didn’t speak while they worked, though Peregrin couldn’t hear any more muffled sniffling. By the time the last iron plate was adhered to the ceruleum breach-structure of the firewall, things were as they always were. 

As abruptly as the work whistle had blown, the last whistle of the workday sounded. That meant spanners down. The pair were joined near the garage exit by several other employees of Garlond Ironworks, but Peregrin and J’ahza were among the first out the gate. They went their separate ways after that, she toward the Ironworks dorm, J’azha toward Ul’dah. Peregrin stopped before too much distance was put between them. She hesitated, then called out to the miqo’te: “By the way, I liked that version! Just get ya godsdamned manufacture dates right.” 

J’ahza made a gesture he’d obviously learned from someone down in steelcutting. Peregrin wondered exactly how long he’d been waiting to use it. She returned it casually, earning a look of alarm from J’ahza, who obviously thought his relationship with steelcutting was special. Victory in hand, she turned back toward the path to the dorms and grinned. Her little miqo’te friend was going to be fine.

--

Thunder, then ringing. The most pervasive ringing he’s ever heard. Numbness from the thumb to the wrist. Suddenly, his arm feels too heavy. His fingers won’t stay clenched. Cordite burns his nose. Smoke burns his eyes. Something heavy hits the ground at his feet and he doesn’t see it or hear it, but he feels it. A few paces away someone crumples to the sand. Someone important. Despite smoke and tears, despite the darkness creeping in at the corners of his eyes, he sees the mortally wounded J’aya Nunh as clear as day. When J’aya falls J’ahza isn’t long behind. He’s on his hands and knees, weeping like a babe. The crudely made pistol lays where it fell, beneath him and spent of any danger. 

“I’m suuuhhh… I’m... sorry,” wails J’ahza Tia-cum-Nunh, “J’aya, I’m s-so sorry, I didn’t...”

He can feel hot sand sticking to his wet cheeks, then he can feel nothing. The first mercy of the Sue thhot day is J’ahza’s inability to remain conscious. 

[clawabiding]

Valentine Caron

“Be quick, Isabeau. I can’t be here long.”

I held my breath and offered her my injured limb. I hoped my nervousness would be mistaken for pain as she peeled away the old bandage, drawing one soiled strip from my hand at a time. Make no mistake, it did hurt, but not nearly so much as it should. She turned my exposed hand over in her gloved fingers and frowned. I watched her face for signs of alarm, ready to act if I saw so much as a flicker of something beyond concern, but all I could perceive was a dedicated doctor, as handsome and benign as Ishgard had to offer.

“You’re wearing the glove?” she asked.

I nodded.

“And the salve -- you’re using the salve?” she continued.

I nodded again, “Twice a day, three times if I’m to be outside longer than not. Have I ever balked at an order, Isabeau?”

She smiled, but her eyes did not leave the blackened skin of my hand, “I have never known you to, but the recovery says otherwise.”

“Perhaps it’s time we looked to new measures, then.”

She finally looked up. The furrow of her brow made her eyes look older, but she wore an expression from her youth. I hadn’t seen that sort of confusion on her face in years, not since we were pulled from our patrols in the Hinterlands. She looked older, yes, but in that moment, all I could see was the girl she was.

“Amputation?” she asked, forcing her voice to be clinical, but I could feel her fingers tense through the thin cloth of her gloves. I laughed, expecting my mirth to drive the fear from her, but she held tight to her grimness.

“No, Isabeau, not amputation,” I assured her, flexing my fingers what little I could that she might see the damage wasn’t so bad. I could hear skin cracking, but if she heard it she made no sign she noticed, “Would you have me hold my lance with a hook?”  

“What, then? What measures?” she asked, clipped, but she sounded a fair bit calmer.

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. “The Gates are thrown wide, aren’t they? Old alliances are renewed, our travel unrestricted? I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but you’re just…”

“Mind what comes out of that mouth next, Ser Caron,” she warned.

“...just a very talented medic. You had your chance, but perhaps it isn’t salves and elixirs that will patch my hand back together. Gridania has--”

“Gridania! Those people are spirit-worshiping savages, Valentine!”

“--has healers of a different sort. Might be they have remedies for drakesfire that we don’t. What choice do we have?”

“Amputation!” she spat.

“Isabeau.” I chided, “They’re our friends now, and they were ever our kin. What could it hurt, besides our pride? Shall we await the chirurgeons’ return from the front?”

Isabeau was silent. She didn’t want to admit a deficiency, and it was my fault I put her in a position to do so. Now, I had to offer the salve.

“Isabeau, you don’t have the time to spend on me. You’re needed here and every minute spent trying to fix what refuses to heal, another poor sod in the Brume -- well within your talents to save -- is at risk. They need you, they cannot up and off to Gridania. This is about my obligation to the lance and your obligation to Ishgard.”

Silence followed, but I could see her thinking. A different furrow of the brow, distinct from the confusion earlier. No longer my healer, no longer the girl from the Hinterlands, I saw the soldier in her.

“Fine, but you’re taking the salve with you. Let’s have one more look before you put the glove back on…”

I should have stopped her, but I had assumed the danger was over. I let her go over my hand again, this time with the tools of her trade. She cleaned it up, ran cool water over the worst of it, packed a sweet-smelling ointment between my fingers and, finally, wrapped it back in linen. As she layered fabric across my knuckles she paused.

My stomach turned over.

“What’s this?” she asked, already drawing back the linen of a middle knuckle. Something gleamed in the carnage, something smooth and black, “Debris?”

But even as she said it, I saw something like a shadow pass over her face. I could watch the thoughts skitter across her features in real time. Confusion. Alarm. Suspicion. I snatched my hand back, my eyes unwilling to meet hers. I finished her pristine wrapping with crude speed and rose to my feet.

“Valentine?” she asked, but I barely heard her. I was preparing myself, something that came much easier than I expected.

I caught Isabeau by the throat with char-black fingers. She grasped at my wrist, but she clearly didn’t expect the newfound strength in my wounded hand. I wish I could say that I eventually found her gaze, but something in me denied us both what may have been a turning point. I focused on her instruments, crusted in flaked bits of my burnt skin.

“It’s nothing,” I whispered, as her balled fists met my chest and side with increasingly weaker blows, “Just something I need to take care of, Isabeau. My obligation to Ishgard.”

I was out the door before she slumped to the ground, and I hard marched through the Pillars to where they docked the airships. I was cutting it close, and that panic numbed me to what I’d done. I would have time on the journey to think about my actions, but not yet.

I put had barely taken the ticket out of my coat pocket when I saw her.

A young Elezen, no older than I was when I first picked up the lance. Hair dark like a thundercloud and eyes too old for her face, as handsome and benign as Ishgard had to offer.  One of the knights too green to be on the front, but old enough to make the people of Ishgard feel safe. Isabeau Riconeois’ daughter.

“Calette,” I said, forcing my voice to be firm. She looked up at me and smiled a smile I was wholly unworthy of.

“Ser Caron,” she began, sounding so much like her mother my veins froze at the sound of it, “What are you--”

“There is no time, Riconeois! Get home and you may find you aren’t too late.”

Whatever got into my voice scared her, and she was too young to betray my urgency for her assigned post. She trusted me.

“Ser Caron, my station--”

“Go!” I shouted, and she ran. Running may not have mattered, but for the moment it set my pounding heart a little at ease.

Moments later, the airship left dock and I sat comfortably on one of its cushioned benches. My concern for Isabeau as sated as it would get, I put my mind to the future and to Gridania. Nothing told me I would find what I was looking for in the Shroud, but I’d already scraped the underside of every stone in Coerthas. I told myself for the millionth time that it had to be somewhere, and my hand grew hot in its glove.

“Soon,” I swore, “These sacrifices will not have been in vain.”

[clawabiding]

X’yaza Tia

X’yaza shifted uncomfortably on the saddle, earning him a literal side-eye from the chocobo. He hated the leggy birds at the best of times: too smart, too tall, too strong. Also, no one should have an aetherically-talented mount, that was obscene. Given that these were far from the ‘best of times’ he had even less patience for a surly horsebird. The agitated chocobo narrowed its eye, as if it had both heard and didn’t care for X’yaza’s thoughts on the matter. If Yaza didn’t know better, he could have sworn the bird was walking stiffly on purpose, exacerbating the discomfort to his backside.

X’yaza tried his bonds for the hundredth time since being picked up near old Nym. The leather around his wrists sung an ugly little song but there was no appreciable movement from the manacles. They had at least bound his hands in front so he could steady himself against the pommel of the chocobo’s saddle, but the cuffs around his ankles were another story. They were heavy; had to weigh a good ten ponze each. They were pulling him down against the unsupple hide of the seat, like his captors were attempting to (very slowly) wishbone his pelvis over the course of the journey to Limsa Lominsa. The more he thought about it, the more agonizing the seated posture became and he tried shifting his posture again.

“WARK!” protested the bird, startling X’yaza so fiercely he lost all train of thought.

“You know, my kin have been known to eat your kind,” growled X’yaza, which felt silly immediately. Even if the bird did know what he was saying, which did seem more and more likely, the miqo’te was in no position to make good on any threats. 

“Koo-kweh,” replied the bird, fearless and unimpressed. 

From the head of the small formation of chocobo, the lead rider turned around in his seat. Clad in leather and the distinct yellow of the Yellowjacket, there was no mistaking what the pale hyur did for a living. Nor what the other three bird-mounted figures (two women, both Sea Wolves, one hyur male) did. Yellow all the way down. That is, except for Y’zara, who wore the polished red of his impractical “traveling” mail from foot to throat. There was muddy black boot mark on the breastplate about the same size as the lead man’s boot. Exactly the same size, in fact.  

“Hey, quiet down!” said the man in the lead, “Got no problem pullin’ that fat tongue outta your head.”

X’yaza pushed his tongue around in his mouth, momentarily distracted and self-conscious. Did he have a fat tongue? Vanity thy name is Tia. Clearly satisfied by the miqo’te’s sudden silence, the lead man turned forward. Almost as soon as he did, X’yaza remembered what he was thinking about.

“Ser Jacket? Before I’m silenced, do you mind explaining something to me?” 

“I got this, Rigbill,” said one of the two Sea Wolves. X’yaza couldn’t remember her name, but it was something like ...Swishfish? Close enough. She tugged the reigns of her chocobo and fell back to flank X’yaza’s beleaguered mount.  

“He said shut your face, crook!” barked Swishfish, slapping X’yaza across his bare cheek. And not gently. His head jerked to the side as if stricken with a club and he tasted copper. At least Swishfish had leather gloves on, not the steely gauntlets of her boss, but still. X’yaza shut up until the Sea Wolf returned to her position in the meager formation.

“Why…” began the bound miqo’te, making the decision to get his concerns out quickly to avoid the most facial injury, “...didn’t you incarcerate me at Aleport? Or Swiftperch? Seems Limsa is a proper distance to take one looter, don’t you think?”

This time both Sea Wolves slowed, putting one on either side of X’yaza. They were waiting for the okay to strike him, he knew, but to his surprise Rigbill turned around again. This time he was grinning. Four of the teeth X’yaza could see were dull and metallic, probably lead. 

“Oh, that’s easy enough to answer. You know of Master Lacurico, scofflaw?”

Now, it was X’yaza’s turn to grin, “I might’ve heard the name…” 

“Well, maybe you did and maybe you didn’t, but he pays well for able-bodied martial types. My commander has a pretty good gig sellin’ him, uhh… what’d we call em, Thissero?” 

A mousy man in uneven spectacles, the second hyur, looked up for the first time since X’yaza had been caught and blinked the drowsiness from his eyes. The huyr’s brown-tan chocobo looked as lethargic as its rider. 

“Labor-capable Detainees…” said Thissero without hesitation, before yawning and closing his eyes once more.

“Selling him Labor-capable sorts,” finished Rigbill, “Like you.”

“And these capable criminals are compensated fairly for this labor?” asked X’yaza.

Everyone but Thissero laughed. Thissero startled awake, grinned, and closed his once again. X’yaza himself was nodding in understanding. 

“And this is legal in Limsa Lominsa, despite the very clear prohabition against slavery?”

“With the right paperwork,” sing-songed the Sea Wolf without a name -- Fyshmish, X’yaza decided -- much to the amusement of those compatriots that remained awake. X’yaza waited for the chuckles to pass, his own grin missing from his face.  

“Alright. Does this count, Montresor?” asked X’yaza. 

“These guys are gross,“ said Montresor, whose voice came from nothing and nowhere, “Teach them a lesson! K--!”

X’yaza’s bindings shimmered and split! First the feet, then the cuffs, all while he waited patiently on the uncomfortable saddle. Scraps of leather and chain peppered the hard-packed dirt under his chocobo’s claws. The audible POP of leather mad Swishfish’s mount rear and Fyshmish struggled to hold the reigns of hers. 

“KUHHH--!”

A shimmer in the air panicked Thissero’s passive mount. Thissero himself jerked awake just in time to wrap his arms around his startled steed’s neck. They went to the ground spectacularly, becoming a shrieking, warking obstacle that the distracted Fyshmish couldn’t quite avoid. Fortunately, Swishfish was regaining control of hers when her fellow roegadyn ate complete shit. She wheeled her steed toward X’yaza, struggling to pull a shortspear free.

“--KUPO!”

A small, white ball of fluffy, puffy aerial rat manifested less than two yalms in front of Swishfish -- much to the surprise of both Swishfish and this newly-extant moogle. Oddly, it had an acute right angle bent into the antenna leading to its pom. Odder still, it had both of its little arms wrapped around the hilt of an impractically long sword it was obviously struggling to keep from dragging on the ground. 

The crash was an unexpected result of the moogle’s sudden appearance, but not an unwelcome one. Chocobo, Sea Wolf, moogle, and shortspear went down in a wild skid that left talon-marks in the hard earth as long as roegadyn forearm. The sword, as red and absurd as X’yaza’s brightly colored armor, flew through the air in a wide arc. X’yaza snapped it out of the sky before his own chocobo’s patience ended.

“WARK!” said the chocobo.

“Yeah,” said X’yaza, resigned to what came next, “Wark indeed.”

That X’yaza landed on his feet is a testament to the ownership of a well-balanced tail. That the scared chocobo’s mad sprint to freedom didn’t catch his crimson sollerets on the saddle and drag him through plains, well, that was a miracle. 

In the seconds-long duration of this whole event, Rigbill had managed to: bring his mount to halt, see his companions thrown to the ground by their own steeds, and draw a plain but functional sword. Seeing X’yaza’s approach with a much bigger, much more ostentatious sword concerned him enough to put the spurs to his horsebird. 

“Monty?” sighed the miqo’te.

“One sec…” groaned the bent-pom moogle, waddling free of the mess of unconscious roegadyn and chocobo feathers. It wiggled its crooked little pom with purpose. 

Something shimmered in the small space between Rigbill’s chest and his chocobo’s neck. The invisible force hit the hyur in the chest so hard he lost the grip on both sword and reins and landed on his back in the dry grass. Loyal to no man, his steed kept going, leaving Rigbill breathless and at the mercy the approaching miqo’te. Something heavy and indistinct sat on the hyur’s chest. 

“Fortuna, good of you to join us…” and just like that, a moogle twice the size of the first appeared on Rigbill with its oddly muscular arms crossed over its burly little chest. It had a skullcap on that pinned its pom mostly over one eye. 

“Was that good, boss? I didn’t have much time to plan, Monty just woke me up!” said the child-like voice of the large moogle. 

“It was perfect, Fortuna,” praised X’yaza, remembering to be gentle with the big, sensitive sack of kuponuts. He walked as menacingly toward Rigbill as two-ish yalms of miqo’te could reasonably be asked to walk. The massive sword did help.

X’yaza stood with his feet on either side of Rigbill’s head and stared down into the man’s face. He let the tip of his wine-red blade rest persuasively against Rigbill throat.

“Now,” began X’yaza as a twisty black smog rose from the sword in elaborate tendrils, “Let’s have another chat about Lacurico Curico.”

[clawabiding]

Getting to know the Character: Darja Azora

► Name ➔ “Darja of Queen Zora, first of my name, son of Duplicarius Lazyo eon Azora.”

► Are you single ➔ “Yes, I haven’t had much time for relationships.”

► Are you happy ➔ “I can see the path to something like happiness, but it’ll be a spell before I can walk it. Part of me fears I will only ever know joy in conflict.”

► Are you angry? ➔ “My father always said anger was the child of fear. I’m still trying to get my head around loss, then maybe I can try fear and anger.”

► Are your parents still married ➔ “My father met his end at the point of a Pilus’ blade.”

NINE FACTS

► Birth Place ➔ “Drajosani on the southern tip of Ilsabard, currently a redoubt for the naval blockade.”

► Hair Color ➔ “White, like my grandfather.”

► Eye Color ➔ “Blue, like my mother.”

► Birthday ➔ “26th Sun of the 1st Astral Moon.”

► Mood ➔ “Tired. It has been a long journey.”

► Gender ➔ “Helion.”

► Summer or winter ➔ “Winter. I am fond of the rain.”

► Morning or afternoon ➔ “I will wake early for the rest of my life, however long that may be. You can thank my Decurio for that habit, if nothing else.”

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

► Are you in love ➔ “With my Queen Zora, despite certain choices she’s made in my people’s name.”

► Do you believe in love at first sight ➔ “Preposterous, but… it’s nice to think about, isn’t it?”

► Who ended your last relationship ➔ “My Decurio, when they moved me to the Ghimlyt front.”

► Have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ “No, I am careful to explain my actions. If a heart is broken, it’s because they didn’t listen.”

► Have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ “No. Not since my abrupt independence.”

► Have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ “Not unless there is a very brave Eorzean in this caravan.”

► Have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ “No, I have always been careful with my heart. Perhaps too careful.”

SIX CHOICES

► Love or lust ➔ “Outside the fantasy of love, I’m not sure I have experienced it. Lust is a common companion, but the red lanterns are so prevalent in Eorzea that I doubt I will ever struggle to find an outlet for lust. It’s nothing like a war camp, where you stew in your desires until you find a fellow Legionarius with the inclination and schedule to find mutual relief.”

► Lemonade or iced tea ➔ “Absurd. Who ices tea?”

► Cats or Dogs ➔ “Excuse me?”

► A few best friends or many regular friends ➔ “Many regular friends; that’s the ideal. I’d settle for one or two right this moment.”

► Wild night out or romantic night in ➔ “My Decurio used to say ‘there is no poultice like revelry’ and I tend to agree with her.”

► Day or night ➔ “Night. Twilight, specifically.”

FIVE HAVE YOU EVERS

► Been caught sneaking out ➔ “I hope not. It would not end well for me.”

► Fallen down/up the stairs ➔ “Maybe as a graceless cub.”

► Wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ “Yes.”

► Wanted to disappear ➔ “I’m trying as we speak. Let us hope Eorzea is as cosmopolitan as they say.”

FOUR PREFERENCES

► Smile or eyes ➔ “Eyes are the only way you can see a person’s spirit.”

► Shorter or Taller ➔ “Taller? Than me? Ha.”

► Intelligence or Attraction ➔ “Attraction. Intelligence is often a matter of communication. Enough time with a person and they will show you.”

► Hook-up or Relationship ➔ “The former. I don’t have time for the latter.”

FAMILY

► Do you and your family get along ➔ “My father was my best friend.”

► Would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔ “I have a soldier’s life.”

► Have you ever ran away from home ➔ “Yes.”

► Have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ “No, though I suspect a quick court martial and firing squad should I be caught.”

FRIENDS

► Do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ “Not until recently. Now hate is what it will take to stand against them, should Garlemald make another incursion into Gyr Abania.”

► Do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ “Right now the closest thing I have to a friend is the nameless, sleeping roegadyn I’m sharing a wagon with.”

► Who is your best friend ➔ “My father, until I accept that I will never see him again.”

► Who knows everything about you ➔ “Pilus Cendrus rem Eiphus.”

[clawabiding]

Darja Azora

Conscience is a sword hanging above a soldier’s head. The thread that holds it there is conviction. A soldier dies when that thread frays or the sword grows too heavy, but should the thread become a rope, or the sword a stick, conscience has no power. A soldier without conscience is an animal.

Pilus Cendrus rem Eiphus would have the thread become a chain. A chain that not only encircles the hilt of the sword but the neck of the soldier, leashing his animals to war. Queen Zora would have any sword aimed at her soldiers dulled, not to further the cause of the chain, but to protect the head beneath the blade.  

If this is true, then Lazyo eon Azora’s sword is a zweihander. A greatblade heavy enough to strain the links of rem Eiphus’ chain. He can always feel the tip of it clipping the tops of his greying ears, he can always taste the fumes of its molten steel blade on his aging tongue, and when he hoists his gunblade in weary claws he can hear the groan of the chain struggling not to snap. And if that greatsword has dulled under the compassion of his queen, it makes up for it in ceruleum heat and magitek weight.

Lazyo knows tomorrow  is the day his sword breaks the chain. His orders are a prophecy to that effect. When even the animals of his unit flinch at the heinousness of it, he knows without doubt that no chain could possibly restrain his blade. At breakfast, he plans his day around it. At formation, he recites his plan in his head until it fills the gaps between thoughts. At Lazyo’s last meal, it’s no longer a plan. He’s lived it in his head so many times it’s as simple as following through. It’s already done. All that’s left is for his queen to mourn.

When he rests that night, he does so away from the Castrum barracks. Like he knew he would, he finds himself lying in the Gyr Abanian dirt beneath the steel port window of the Domus Peregrinus. He lays there, listening to the young Ala Mhigan men laugh their clipped laughs of captivity and sing the few traditional songs they can sing without bringing the eques down on them for rebellion. In the morning, many of these men will find themselves promoted to Legionarius with all due haste. They will have no time to celebrate. They will march and they will die in their homeland to the swords and arrows of their kin, buried in unmarked imperial graves without their fancy new surnames. 

But Lazyo isn’t really thinking of them. They’ve been the companions of his thoughts all day. Lazyo is thinking of his son. 

Amidst the uneasy release of the would-be infantry is a different voice. A deeper, rumbling voice almost as deep and almost as rumbly as Lazyo’s. His boy tries his hand at an Ala Mhigan song and the young hrothgar’s companions tease him encouragingly. Lazyo knows the song and voice. Hurry Down the Lochs doesn’t carry quite as well from a hrothgar throat, but it still makes the old man smile.

“Darja,” whispers Lazyo into the rapidly cooling night, “I leave you my blade, heavy and sure. It will strain your thread for certain, but my son is no animal.”

Lazyo’s voice cracks, surprisingly even him. “You will not be chained.”

--

Darja Azora wakes to the sound of his name on the wind. He has woken that way every night he’s spent in Gridania, as if the nearness to Gyr Abania is also nearness to another time. He can’t wait to be away from here, despite the weird wonder of the Shroud itself. He’d rather certain memories lay still until he has what he needs to face them head-on. Namely distance, but being able to hold Tugarin confidently in his hand certainly wouldn’t hurt. 

Tomorrow, the caravan leaves for Revenant’s Toll in Mor Dhona, where he will meet the man who can teach him the secrets of the gunblade Tugarin. The thought gives him some comfort, even if the whisper on the wind refuses to let him sleep. Not for the first time, Darja wonders if this is the right path. But like his father knew that fateful morning, Darja knows he will follow through. Soon enough, the voice in his head makes room for the notes of a song and Darja Azora drifts to sleep humming the chorus of a lullaby he barely remembers. 

Hurry down the Lochs,

Carry down a key,

Ferry of the night to the night brings thee.

[clawabiding]

Hakon Katlasch

(CW: violence, boners, some nsfw content)

Breathe, he told himself. Breathe!

At a certain point, shock and trauma reduce the body’s ability to perform its basic autonomic functions. Respiration is the first to go, but it’s the pyramid of failures to follow that stills the aether and invites death. Most often, something vital to life breaks in the living body long before this point, some mechanism key to existence is pulped or mulched or crushed or split and it isn’t a matter of an overwhelmed system grinding to a halt, it’s an abrupt stop. An immediate end. The conscious mind simply has to catch up. 

It was a blessing and a curse that Hakon, built as he was, could take a tremendous amount of battery before he lost consciousness. It let him survive these moments through rote and practice, dedicating what little awareness remained in his beating-swollen brain to the manual control of his lungs and respiratory system. Even as darkness welled up around his mind, threatening to swallow up all that remained, he could will every last fiber of himself toward a singular goal: breathe.

And breathe he did, slowly pumping the bruised bellows of his lungs until the fire of mind grew hot enough to tell him where he was. Thanalan. Ul’dah. Near the Gate of the Sultana. An alley. The floor of said alley. As memory came crawling back, nursed to life by the cooling cobbles beneath his tortured muzzle and swaddled in the chilly evening air, something molten and furious welled up the Hrothgar’s belly. 

Anger is good kindling. It starts a flame, can even sustain it for a short while, but fury burns hot and burns out and you’re left with ash and ash alone. Fury got the Hrothgar halfway to his feet before the blanket of pain, all tangled with the spurs agony, fell across his shoulders and he sagged to one knee. Consciousness flagged and might’ve, were he not so used to the liminal place between awareness and darkness, brought him back down to the cobbles. Instead, he wavered and waited, hand braced against something hard and splintered, either post or box, he was without the faculties to know which. 

Eventually, his eyes acknowledged the low light of nearby street lamps. Dizziness and lethargy made his blurry vision swim and his aching head throb, adding to the list of maladies he was trying desperately to inventory. When these spells ended, he drew himself up and took a few moments where the most pressing matter was simply remaining upright. Then, after a brief inspection of the worst of his injuries and the conclusion there wasn’t anything so broken it wouldn’t heal on its own, he limped his way to the greater thoroughfare. 

It wasn’t late enough that streets of Ul’dah were quiet. This far from the Exchange and the Adventurer’s Guild limited the number of merchants and their wily marks, bawds and their eager johns, but not the number of people on their way to become this or exactly that. Hakon knew he looked awful because even the busy evening folk were gawking at his mangled state. He made the decision to move toward the Steps of Thal and the Gladiator’s Guild, where such rough and tumble sights were not so uncommon. 

Passing a young woman clad in something Thavnairian -- and inappropriately breezy for the chilly evening -- the Hrothgar briefly lamented the slim chances of unpaid companionship in his disarray. When his business was done, perhaps he’d have time and gil for the sort of massage that would slake the many needs of his battered form. Something healing, with steamed towels and hot mouths more inspired by his gil than squeamish about his sorry appearance. The thought made him frown.

Between the daydream and his nearness to the Coliseum, he couldn’t help but remember a time when his fights, win or lose, ended with a talented chirurgeon and a throng of fans curious to see a Hrothgar up close. At the time, the “fans” of his losing matches were of a notably lesser quality than those of his triumphs, but still satisfying, and his healers less proficient, but still skilled, and never were the losses as sorry as waking alone in a cold alley, on the brink of nothingness. How brazen and proud he was back then, reluctant to partake of beautiful luxuries if they were anything less than perfect. Memories slid to the foreground of these thoughts: a miqo’te with lashes so long they tickled his stomach; a hyur with dark and oiled skin and hair like queen’s mane; a roegadyn -- a Sea Wolf, she called herself -- with dimples as deep as the scars on her knuckles and an all-too-fascinating accent.  

Now, in addition to his ever increasing list of maladies, he was hard enough to make the subligar creak when he walked. He entertained thoughts of abandoning his current plan and scraping together the coin for a quick romp behind the Quicksand. It would clear his head and his pipes, but it would certainly sap him of what remained of the evening’s conviction. A day of rest might give his assailant time to relocate. That wouldn’t do. Hakon kept on his path until the Gladiator’s Guild and the Coliseum were behind him, forgotten as slowly as his memories of fame. 

Half an hour later, Hakon stood in the saloon-style doorway of the mostly-empty dive, scanning the few faces who’d chose a place like Dry Sagolii over a more respectable tavern. It didn’t take long to find his prey, who sat among his Hellsguard peers with his back to the door. Their raucous laughter brought a spike of intensity to Hakon’s slowly fading headache, which was the perfect onus to get this started.

The Dry Sagolii was a small place and it took barely three strides to cross from the door to the table where the Hellsguard sat. The two seated in front of his prey were just taking notice of Hakon when he planted a hand hard on Bold Caldera’s shoulder. Caldera was broad and heavy set with little hair on his head and a lot of hair on his face. Despite being as pink as the sky over a setting sun, the color immediately drained from the roegadyn.

“Cald,” rumbled Hakon, his voice as dry as the desert where the bar took its name, “Tell your friends to fly, we need to have words. Business.”

At this, the first of the pair, a tall woman -- taller than Hakon -- with a scar that reached across her nose, stood from her seat with every intention of finishing whatever job had started turning Hakon inside-out. The second roegadyn wasn’t long to follow, and both Hellsguard had enough watery ale in their systems to ignore the pointed look from the Sagolii’s hyur barback. But Bold Caldera quickly raised his hands in an effort to calm his fiery companions.

“Mouse, Nest…” said Caldera, voice clipped and sloshed with ale, “...it’s fine. Just leftover biz. Go, uh, I dunno... get some air.” And after a moment, when the two still hesitated, “Get whatever, but get it now.”

And then it was just Bold Caldera and Hakon Katlasch at the small table, with one weary barback looking on from a distance. By that point, Hakon’s hand had tightened to the point of nails digging pointedly into the bald roegadyn’s leather jerkin. It took a moment to pluck his claws from the hide, and another to seat himself in Honest Mouse’s chair. It gave Caldera a chance to regain some composure, but the worry never quite left his eyes and Hakon’s eyes never quite left Caldera. Two seconds of lingering silence passed between them and Caldera broke it first.

“Katlasch,” Caldera said, hands splayed palm-up on the table top, “I guess took it too far, huh?”

Caldera tried to be disarming but his grin had the charm of something wet and fetid. Hakon Katlasch continued to survey the Roegadyn with unsettlingly swollen eyes, their lids bulging around the meat of the iris in a way that made the Hrothgar look like he were perpetually squinting. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing a line of splittle and blood across a muzzle of white fur, but didn’t speak.

“Business, right? Just business. Gil in your hand and you make me look good. You did your part, obviously, and I--” Bold Caldera paused to fish a small, jingling bag of coin from a shirt one size too big for even his large torso. Bound with a wagoneer’s knot, the kind you had to cut instead of untie, it had clearly been set aside for something. “--did mine.”

For this, thought Hakon, feeling a loose tooth with his tongue. 

The bag slid across the table, ending its path just in front of the seated Hrothgar. Hakon hoisted it, tested its heft, and quickly deposited it somewhere on his person. He still didn’t speak, letting the Hellsguard continue the conversation he and Hakon shouldn’t be having. 

“I know I fucked up, I know it, but I’d never won a fight like that, I’d never been such a godsdamned hero in front of the other Valiants. I was high on it, Katlasch,” sweat and spittle made Caldera’s excitement all the more palpable, “I spent the rest of the afternoon with my hand up Mouse’s shirt.”

“You stole from us,” Hakon finally spoke, cutting him off before Bold Caldera’s story went somewhere he couldn’t easily forget, “If you wanted to break me you should have paid to break me. You should have stopped when you got the show you paid for. You should have stopped, but you didn’t. You are a debtor.”

“And I’ll pay you back, I’m good for it,” tried Bold Caldera, but the Hrothgar interrupted.

“No, not indebted to me, Caldera,” said Hakon, a broken smile broad on his face, “Indebted to them.”

“But I will gladly handle tipping the scales back into place.”

--

Breathe, thought Hakon, though he didn’t really expect Bold Caldera would do so. He wasn’t much of a fighter, despite what the Valiants now believed. Caldera wouldn’t know how to tell his lungs to work, his heart to beat, his mind to stir. He would let go like too many wounded men let go. 

The Valiants would honor Bold Caldera above his station if they honored him at all, and that meant Hakon’s part in the transaction remained complete. He would sleep well tonight, beneath the Traders’ merciless eye, but not yet. Tonight was a triumph. And triumph meant he would be picky about his healers and his whores.