Kaala’s gloved fingers move over the page, but her abstracted mind hardly registers what her eyes are seeing. It isn’t until she’s reached the end that she realizes she must have passed what she sought. What is it she’s looking for again? Which book is this? She flips it quickly, reading the cover. Oh. Client list.
There’s fog rolling over the floor, and her eyes feel puffy and eager for the rest her heavy limbs crave, but she pushes forward as always. “Is he in there, Miss?” An elezen asks, and the mists seem to roll back enough for the Keeper to give the woman a startled look. She smoothes her expression into a soft smile as if she hadn’t completely forgotten the tall woman’s presence. However, the dark, now-confused eyes of the other person reminds Kaala what the task is.
“Sure is.” She lies and slaps a random part of the book. Well, it’s probably not a lie, but who has the attention span to verify? Not her, not today! She slaps the book closed as the elezen leans over to peek. “Now then, you said your boss ordered two ‘Menage Bavarois’ and a dozen ‘Open Sesame Cookies.’” She shuffles around the space a moment, gathering them up, but when she reaches for the cookies, she hesitates. They’re right there, waiting, but there’s something a little off. “It looks like we ran out of ingredients for those.” She fibs. “How about some Cloud Mallows instead? He’s enjoyed those in the past. They’re a favorite at his parties.”
The elezen seems taken aback, and she peers through the window, pointing at the cookies. “Then what are those?” She asks. “The label say they’re what he wanted.”
Kaala shrugs. “What good are labels when they’re wrong?” She asks wistfully.
“But you placed the label. You’re the one who erred.” The woman insists.
“Am I?” Kaala thinks, perhaps a moment too long, arms crossing and a finger tapping her chin. “I suppose I did... All the more reason to understand that trusting the label is not the best idea at the moment.” She smiles and places two boxes of goodies tied up with twine onto the counter. “Have a great day!”
Kaala can never be described as debonair, and she doesn’t particularly want to be able to fit into the upper echelons of wealthy societies. Even so, she seems to have picked up the how-to of it all somewhere along the way, possibly during those years she lost to the fog. The Keeper knows table manners and how to speak like them. On good days, she understands how to play their manipulative games of ‘social politics.’ It’s unsettling, and something about it niggles fruitlessly in the depths of her mind. Even so, it’s so good for business to know the ins-and-outs.
Well, good depending on whom the client is. Sometimes, she’s found it better to play the foolish Keeper they might expect of her. Either way, she ends up with more gil than she charges those of lesser means, and the wealthy clients end up with a delightful party game at their next event or a fun concoction to remove a competitor. It doesn’t matter to her so long as they are very aware that they cannot buy her.
The weapon her brother could never get to her hold just right.
The ribbon at the back of her skirts just to spruce things up.
The reverent inclination of her head when the moon is full.
Her back when she is hard at work, unmindful of her future aches.
Her psyche when that oppressive fog threatens to lift.
Her visual distraction in her delirium, a cascade of colors.
Kaala has never studied the flora and fauna of oceans. She leaves that to the fishers. But every now and then, interesting creatures pop up, and she can’t help but to wonder if the benthos could benefit her alchemical concoctions. It seems to be a little less reliable than the land-dwelling things she’s already enamored with, but she’s spent hours in her laboratory trying to synthesize something hallucinogenic that was dredged up from the bottom of a lake.
For her, it’s more about the discovery than the success. However, a success could mean new products, new marketing, and funding further research. But after the tenth failure to produce anything of value, Kaala decides it’s time to go back to synthesizing what she knows.
From: @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast
My Pieces
Content: Death, Vague Suicidal Thoughts
They’re gone. Everyone is dead. When she closes her eyes, she can still see her life burning to ash in vibrant flames. Her face feels tender and puffy, and her throat still stings from the smoke she’s inhaled… or perhaps from screaming.
Part of her wishes she could have gone with her family. Then she would be safe and vibrant, a star to look over the world, to walk with Menphina and Kahlzec and the Hound. But she’s alive, and instead she can only try to take comfort in the idea that her people will watch over her.
“Kaala?” The man next to her asks softly, and when she peers at her face, she imagines his eyes are as haunted as hers. “We’re going home now.”
Her brow furrows. Home is gone. “My home. Your new home.” He tells her as if he knows her mind. She doesn’t say anything. Talking hurts for a multitude of reasons. Instead, she moves her head in a singular nod. She still has somewhere to go, someone to take care of her, and her family – dead though they are – can still help in their own way… she hopes.
After all this loss,
after all this pain,
you are still the last one standing.
Even when you don’t want to be;
especially when you don’t want to be.
How much does survival hurt?
Does it feel like you are drowning
with air in your lungs,
does it feel like you’re dying
with every diligent beat of your still-living heart?
Maybe you’re alive,
but this is not what you wanted.
And how much does survival cost, my love?
How much did you pay to be left standing here,
amidst the silence and the dust?
Did they even ask before they took it?
You are the last one standing,
and yet you still end up on your knees.
You are the last one living,
and yet still you bleed.
The children all sat around the Midlander, watching him eagerly as he told them about his life. He was a stranger, but Kaala liked him right away despite his strangeness. He never talked down to them, never treated them the way other Gridanians did. He observed their culture with curiosity and reverence, and he didn’t try to make them compete for his praise or talk down to them as if they were stupid.
She knew a lot of the grown-ups were wary of him, and while she couldn’t blame them, he already had a hold on the younglings. His charm was all in the novelty of his strangeness. Many of them had never been outside their village, had never met anyone who wasn’t a Keeper or a Laprine. How could they resist his stories of the city? Of his family?
“My illustrious wife has made all manner of potions and brews.” The hyur told them.
One of the children spoke up, “Like Kahlzec!”
At the same moment, another asked, “What’s a wife?”
The man chuckles. “Ah, yes. Just like Menphina’s Apothecary. And a wife is someone who agrees to bond herself to a man – who would be called her husband – in the eyes of the Twelve for the rest of their lives. They have children only with each other, and they love only each other.”
Many of the children, including Kaala, recoiled at that. “That sounds awful. Why would any woman want that?” One of the older girls asked.
The Midlander laughed. “To each their own, I suppose.”
“Tell me about her potions?” Kaala requested, trying to get back to the subject that interested her the most. The man’s grey eyes fixed on her thoughtfully before he opened his mouth to excitedly them all about his spouse’s abilities.
Kaala lies on the grass, peering up at the night sky through the separation in the canopy of trees around her. Stars shine brightly, unobscured by Menphina’s light as the moon is dark. On a blanket next to her are empty plates and bowls and eating utensils along with empty cups set up as if for others who have not yet joined her night-time outing.
And yet she waits, watching her ancestors twinkle down at her, feeling as if roots are growing from her body into the very earth while dew collects in her clothing, on her skin. She is becoming like a mushroom while she waits for the souls of the dead who have not passed on. Who else will remind them of the things they experienced in their lives, to remember that they lived, to remind them to look for the rabbits and to move on?
The Keeper doesn’t know that Zhayna still keeps the Dark Moon rituals, and truly, she isn’t sure if she’s doing them right herself. She was so young when they died, and she can’t remember who might have been guiding her after. As the only other Laprine left alive, Zhayna could have been taught by her parents. She seems to understand so much of their culture, but there are some things that feel off or different enough that Kaala can’t even feel the bones of what she thinks she recalls.
But it doesn’t matter, does it? She’s the only one left who was there, who saw and understood. So however she does them has to be the right way because it’s the only way left. And so she grows roots into the earth and tries to send signals through the aether to draw the uncorrupted dead nearby to this spot. Then they can dine on plates and sip from glasses and remember enough to find their way home to the other stars.
She has forgotten how to feel the fullness of emotions. There is a deficiency of energy, of life force. How had it felt to feel flustered, to experience fever-hot cheeks provoked by fury or mortification? How had it been to feel the fullness of infatuation and all that sentiment could bring forth?
Why is it that all she has left is the obsessive pursuit of alchemical proficiency? Why are the pitfalls of peril and the fervor of fear all that can summon her forth from the thick fog of indifference?
"Of all the feckless choices you've made over the years, this has to be one of the most mindless."
Kaala remembers these words or something like them coming from her biological mother. They weren't directed at her, but she certainly hid her child's form well enough to be privvy to the conversation. And peering through a slit in the well-worn tapestry allowed her to view a bit of the scene.
Her clan's Matriarch stood rigid but silent, exuding authority. Her voice was calm and quiet but contained an edge. "We need to fortify our alliance with Gridania. Allowing this hyur to live with us for the month will do that. He has status, connections-"
"The Messenger Priestesses have seen the ill omens surrounding his stay with us. Even if he is trustworthy, even if he can help that alliance, his presence is a danger to us." Kaala's mother interrupted.
"Do not interrupt me again, Ciel. These stories of omens are superstitious nonsense. We are a modern clan in a modern era, and we must embrace science and reality and reason. It is the only way forward, the only way to survive." The Matriarch responded, and Kaala heard the frustrated exhale of her mother and knew the woman's face must be a mask of fury.
"Denying our heritage to fit with Gridanian rule will wipe us out faster than trying to assimilate to their preferences. Our alliance with them may strengthen, but it won't erase their hatred of us. They will only see us as good, little beastmen who know their place, and they will continue to use any excuse, see any infraction, as reason to put us in our place. This is why so many have abandoned us. More will leave if you do not heed the counsel of the Messengers."
The Matriarch's voice was cold when she spoke next. "They won't leave without the children, and I will not allow them to steal away with our clan's future."
Even to Kaala, young though she was, the threat was clear. And that threat stayed her mother's tongue and doomed them all.
The first thing her mind latches onto is the smell on the air: petrichor. Then she feels the way heavy fabric clings to her. She opens her eyes and sees at a clouded, twilight sky right above her. She’s on her back, on the ground, in a meadow. She’s cold and damp, and there’s a low mist covering the ground around her. Where is she?
What is the last thing she remembers?
It seems so close, but every time she reaches for it, it feels like it’s pulled out of her reach, sliding deeper into the foggy depths of her mind. Everything is so far away. She is so far away.
From: @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast
My Pieces
Content: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Talks of Murder
“Let’s just say, for instance, that they weren’t Garlean, would you still want to kill them?” The booming voice of a tall roegadyn man asks Kaala. A Garlean Midlander struggles against their bonds to their right, but the two Eorzeans don’t even look at them while their fate is discussed.
She pauses only a moment. “In this imaginary scenario, are they still tempered?”
He nods, and the Keeper pauses to think on this information. “No,” she says, “but I heard of technology that the Scions are using to reverse the brainwashing. I would deliver a tempered Eorzean to them.”
He sighs. “Then why don’t we turn this Garlean over to them and let the Scions untemper them?”
“Why waste the time and resources when we can just put him out of his misery right here? Why risk this person being obsolved of their war crimes by pretending they only did what they were brainwashed into doing? They didn’t stop being a Garlean just because they were tempered, and their people are the ones who did this to themselves. They’re better off dead.” She informs him.
“You know, if they’re untampered, they can stand trial for their crimes. Can’t do that if they’re dead.” The man tries to make this sound enticing, but Kaala stands firm. She’s having a moment of strong clarity, and her heart is beating far too hard in her chest. Why does she keep coming across these people who are sympathetic to the plight of mass murders and war criminals?
“Another waste of resources. One fewer Garlean in the world makes for a marginally better world.” She says. “You don’t have to be a part of this. You can walk away, or I can drug you, let you feign innocence.” She doesn’t fear him though one of his hands alone looks large enough to crush her. And yet, they both know that his hesitation would be his downfall if the two were brought to blows against one another.
“I don’t want any of those options.” He says softly. It’s clear he isn’t sure what to do.
“I know.” She tells him before throwing a handful of glittering powder at him, an aetherically enchanted breeze carrying it to his surprised face. It takes only seconds before he falls unconscious, his heavy form vibrating the ground as he falls. “So I’ve taken the choice from you.”
This is her life in shambles,
Ambling through foggy pathways.
Someday she’ll be ready,
Steady beating of her heart
Starting another day.
Today isn’t the one for deduction.
Destruction is all she has for now.
Vows won’t make a difference.
Ignorance is bliss.
Kaala cranes her neck, trying to get a better vantage point. Something little in the underbrush, and it's too big to be a rabbit. In the blink of an eye, a glow appears, growing larger though it never quite becomes brighter in the darkness of the wood.
Instead, she can see a form emerging. It's a bird, she thinks, with a long, graceful neck. Atop its head is a set of antlers, and it's tail looks almost like a miqo'te's. It emits a faint glow, and whenever insects draw near, it snaps them up in it's sharp beak.
Kaala sits back on her haunches, eyes wide but brow furrowed. Is she high?
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