FFXIV Write 2017 | Part 4: “Self-Editing”
Starring Rixia
The caravan rolling through the market got her attention. She still wasn’t used to seeing this sort of thing. Chocobos pulling carts through streets filled with walking ones. Big ones standing on the cart, throwing boxes to other big ones who caught them and carried them to a particular shopkeeper. She wasn’t used to this sight yet. It looked crazy, honestly. How did they coordinate so well? How did they know if there were children in the boxes or not?
“This one will take one bushel of yams, three of popotos and one of oranges please,” she smiled, tearing her eyes away from the strange sight long enough to address the produce procurement one. She hastily added. “Oh, and one of persimmon please?”
Rixy looked like a tanned Elezen with hair fading from green to a yellow-orange. Her leaves turned. She had bright, large eyes and a tattoo of a pastel green flower on her cheek. On this, like most, days she wore a pastel green maid’s outfit, with a ruby broach at her chest. She didn’t look like someone to take seriously.
The shopkeeper eyed her warily. The strange appearance and her odd manner of speech usually got that kind of look. Shopkeepers in Limsa knew her by now, she’d worked at too restaurants out there. The beast tribes where she sourced some rarer ingredients either knew her true nature, or didn’t know walking ones well enough to see her as an oddity. But this was an Ul’dahn market. She wasn’t known here yet.
After a long silence, she held up a slip of paper. “This one has money. Can pay.”
The merchant took the paper and looked it over with disbelief. It was a promissory note, certified by Ul’dah to be worth a certain amount of gil. It was slightly more than the amount he’d charge for the order she placed. Still, he looked at her skeptically. “I’ve heard about your kind,” he said dryly. “I’ll not be cheated.”
This made her blink. Cheated? She never cheated. “T-this one has money. This one checked with book-balance ones about the price, this one had a note made.”
“Illusions are what you people do,” he huffed and handed back the paper. “I’m not bein’ tricked into takin’ blank scrip for six bushel o’ produce.”
You people. She scrunched up her face. Sylphs. There was a small part of her who wanted to show this bastard that what her magic did was so much more than illusion, but she shoved that down. She was a walking one now. She had to act like a walking one. She had to convince him. “This one is confused.”
“What does a sylph need with-”
She didn’t listen to the rest of what he said. Instead there was a ringing in her ears. This was why she was a walking one. This was what she hated. She needed to fit in. She needed to be one of them. She couldn’t live in their world as a Sylph. She couldn’t be a cooking one.
“… an’ for that matter beastfolk ain’t allowed in Ul’dah. Now get lost before I call the Blades to make a salad.”
She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to electrocute this son of a bitch. She kept calm. “This one is an Elezen,” she said with forced patience. “This one grew up in Gridania. Was raised by Sylphy ones.” It wasn’t a lie, not really, it just wasn’t honest. “This one’s money is good. Please take?”
The man folded his arms and looked her over. He was looking for anything that gave away the lie.
A thousand calculations ran through her mind. Legs, and how they worked, and how people used them, and how they stood. Arms, and how she carried them. Walking one body language. Eye contact. Conviction. No wavering, no spinning, no dancing, no nervous habits. No petals or leaves. She’d done it more times than she could count. She’d never quite made it second nature, but she tried so hard so often.
Finally, with a concerted push, she landed the hardest part. “I really need this.”
He humphed and took the promissory note from her hand. “Where am I deliverin’ to?”
Getting used to Ul’dah was going to be her biggest challenge yet, if this man was right. If simply being who she was made her a criminal here. She’d need to work a lot harder, to stamp out more of what it meant to be Rixia in order to really sell Rixy. She was sure she could do it though.
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