Zoissette came back to the Waking Sands, a silly but weak grin on her face and holding her arm close to her. Making her way to one of the tables, she sat down heavily. Arenvald held up a hand to pause the conversation he was in, and looked over, concerned.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Just the latest run to try to clear out Halatali. Ever been? The place is aspected to fire and lightning and back. I’ve never seen flame sprites so furious. Lotta the times you see an elemental sprite, it just sort of hovers around, minds its own business.”
As she spoke, she gingerly placed her arm on the table and pulled up her sleeve, revealing an angry red burn splotch on her forearm. With her good hand, she tried to set her scholar’s grimoire on the table, and flip it open to a specific section.
“…just needed a conjurer or an arcanist, and I’m arguably one of the latter, just… gotta find the right geometry…”
“Or you could let me take a look,” a voice interjected.
Zoissette looked up from where she was sitting.
“Archon. Oh. Uh. Hi… Archon Y’shtola.”
Y’shtola was already reaching to gently hold Zoissette’s arm with one hand and extending her other hand near the burn.
“Y’shtola will do. This is quite the nasty burn. How did you say it happened?”
Zoissette cleared her throat and quietly mumbled something.
“I know they teach you how to speak up, up there in Ishgard.”
“Door-to-wall clearing out Halitali,” groaned Zoissette, looking pointedly away from Y’shtola and up at the ceiling.
The soothing magics worked their way into her arm.
Y’shtola just sighed. “Feckless adventurers.”
Zoissette smiled sheepishly. “Usually I’m more careful, but our conjurer thought they could keep up with me.” She took her arm back, and flexed her hand experimentally. “…thanks. Much better and faster than I would have managed alone.”
“I should like to think so. Be more careful out there.”
Arenvald clapped Zoissette on the shoulder, and gave her a big warm smile.
“Thanks.”
Arenvald wasn’t present the next time she came by, but Y’shtola was, leaning against the counter, talking with Urianger. Her conversation slowed as she watched Zoissette stumble in, one of her legs wrapped in bandages.
Y’shtola watched carefully as Zoissette set her grimoire carefully on the table top, and sat down gingerly, and began to remove the bandages. Zoissette was trying, and failing, to split her attention between the book and her bandage work, and was doing both poorly.
Y’shtola sighed, turning away from Urianger. “We will continue this later. It appears one of our charges has decided that charging foolhardy into danger is an acceptable pastime.”
“Do we not encourage that?” He asked.
Y’shtola shot him a glare as she sat down next to Zoissette.
“Alright, let me see it. What was it this time.”
“I can manage it.”
“I can tell.”
Zoissette looked at Y’shtola for a long moment, and then signed, and sat back to let Y’shtola do her work.
“Some sort of nasty creatures breeding in the Thousand Maws. Got sent in to clean it up.”
The muscles and blood vessels in Zoissette’s leg stitched themselves back together, and Y’shtola clucked her tongue. Zoissette just groaned.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t do it again.”
~~~
“You did it again.”
“I thought there might be something interesting in the temple.”
~~~
“I have other duties besides patching you up, you know.”
“Sorry. But I did find something interesting in the Wanderer’s Palace.”
“Was it a cure for your rashness?”
“Maybe. A Faerie construct. I have new geometries in my grimoire.”
“Hnfh. Maybe you’ll understand what it’s like being on the outside of the consequences of rash action.”
~~~
Zoissette was very still while Y’shtola shook her head, once again tending to the adventurer’s injuries.
“I should not be surprised by this anymore.”
“I appreciate it.”
“I wish you would appreciate care more often. You are one of us, you know. It would be a terrible shame to have to replace you on the day you overestimate your own admittedly puissant strength.”
“I will have you know my estimations are -very- reliable.”
“Then why do you keep winding up in my care?”
“…because I know I can push a little harder, knowing that I can rely on all of you to be there to catch me when I fall.”
Y’shtola looked up sharply at Zoissette’s face.
Zoissette’s face, however, was the practiced stone of Ishgardian stoicism.
After a moment, Y’shtola huffed, and turned her attention back to her healing magics.
Klynt looked around eagerly as she sat. She’d never been inside Mother Miounne’s personal office before. It was much like the woman herself; warm, welcoming, a touch more stone than the rest of Gridania. Miounne herself sat across the wide desk, a stack of papers near her elbow. “Welcome back to Gridania,” she said. “You have certainly flown farther afield than many of the little sprouts who leave these walls.”
Klynt grinned and rubbed her neck. “Lucky, s’all,” she replied. “Did you need something of the Scions, mum? Oliette said you wanted to meet with me.”
Miounne sighed through her nose and picked up the stack of papers. “Pained as I am to do this,” she said, her words heavy with genuine regret. “I must needs inform you that you’ve been remiss in your duties, Klynt.”
Klynt sat up, blinking. “”My… duties?” she hedged.
“To the Guild,” Miounne clarified. When Klynt continued to blink owlishly at her, her sigh was much less regretful. “Part of the Guild charter lays out your duties and dues. For such tasks as can be described as adventuring, that result in pay, leve or otherwise, the Guild is owed certain recompense, especially should such tasks be accomplished alongside others who carry the Guild’s sigil.”
“Recompense,” Klynt squeaked.
Miounne raised an eyebrow. “That is, a percentage cut.”
Klynt realized she was fingering the edge of the -very- nice traveling cloak she had commissioned from Jessie and dropped it like it burned. “How-” She coughed. “Ah. How much?”
~~~
The door to the Rising Stones flew open hard enough to bounce off of the stone wall behind it. Klynt stalked in like a woman possessed, looking around. “Where’s Zoissette?” she demanded.
Thancred, startled upright out of a lazy afternoon nap, looked around himself, for whatever threat Klynt was reacting to. “She’s… at the Waking Sands,” he said slowly. “What troubles you, Klynt?”
Klynt huffed irritably and spun on her heel towards the abused door. “We have to get married,” she snapped, slamming the door shut behind her.
“What?” Thancred and Tataru both asked, looking at each other.
~~~
“Zoissette!”
The door to the common room in the Waking Sands had much stiffer hinges and didn’t fly open nearly so satisfyingly. Zoissette looked up with a calmness that was near serene. “Hello, Klynt.”
“Zo. Zo, we have to get married.”
“And here I thought we misheard him,” Papalymo muttered, handing Urianger a palmful of gil.
“So Thancred warned me,” Zoissette said, tapping her ear. “Apparently. You should use your linkpearl more.”
“Those are for missions, not when I’m in a hurry,” Klynt countered. “Anyroad. -You- probably know that you have to pay back your earnings to the Guild, because you’re on top of that kind of thing, but I learned about it maybe five minutes ago.”
“Hm.” Zoissette tilted her head, considering. “Five minutes ago, you learned I was -here-. Linkpearl, remember?”
“Don’t you start,” Klynt warned, pointing at Zoissette. “I said ‘maybe’ as in ‘not exact’, so stop being pedantic to bait me into being pedantic.”
“And thou wishes for thy both to be wed,” Urianger remarked, holding his hands up in capitulation when Klynt glared at him.
“ANYroad,” Klynt’s shoulders sagged. “I. Kind of. Ah. Told Mother Miounne that I wasn’t paying my dues because I was… saving? For my wedding? And she offered to write it all off in exchange for an invite, so I have to actually -have- a wedding now, so please marry me pleasepleaseplease.”
Zoissette’s eyebrows were near her hairline. Bylti’s had disappeared somewhere beneath her bangs. “How much do you owe?!” Zoissette demanded.
“Oh, ha! Just a bit, you know.” Klynt’s winning, if slightly manic, smile faded as Zoissette continued to stare at her. “Just… a couple million gil.”
Urianger quietly handed Papalymo the gil back.
Zoissette very deliberately cleared her throat. “I am certain I misheard.”
“Have you -ever- paid dues?” Bylti asked.
Klynt deflated completely into a chair. “No,” she said, muffled by her hands over her face. “You didn’t mishear and no, I’ve never. Not even sure I -read- that part when I signed on. I am so verily -fucked-.”
Urianger frowned. “Tis a mighty sum,” he pointed out.
“Miounne charges interest,” Bylti explained. Everyone but Zoissette winced.
Zoissette looked very closely at Klynt’s face, and watched her for several long moments, rolling a tongue around in her cheek. “...I wonder if I can convince Erick that married couples should get a bit of a reduction in fees and extra time off. Certainly… hang on.”
“Wait, really?” said Klynt, looking up, looking hopeful for the first time since entering. “I mean, really really?”
Zoissette went over to the cabinet where she stored her things, and pulled out a book. Putting on a pair of glasses, she paged through her book, looking for something. “I am not sure about convincing Erick… but I and my family would receive some benefits in Ishgard with regards to taxing and tithes.”
She looked at Klynt over her glasses. “... you have been paying taxes to Limsa, I assume.”
Klynt started to slump, but rallied, clinging to the hope she felt. “Well, I mean, no. But I can call in some favors from the Maelstrom. And maybe they also offer benefits to married folk! And I’m sure I can cover that. I mean, if. You know.” She made a gesture with her hands, clasping them together with a big cheery grin, and waving her hands back and forth.
Zoissette shook her head, putting the book back.
Papalymo looked scandalised. “You two are not seriously, actually -considering- this!?”
Zoissette sighed. “My family… is not well off. This might actually be a large help for them. Ishgard rewards large families.”
Klynt somehow perked up even further.
Zoissette shrugged. “Also it’ll reduce how many questions I get about when I am going to be wed when I visit home.”
Klynt somehow perked up -even further-.
“You cannot be serious,” protested Papalymo.
“Oh, I’m very much not,” replied Zoissette.
Papalymo breathed out a sigh of relief, and Klynt looked crestfallen.
“I mean, I will agree to the matter, but I am absolutely refusing to be serious about it.”
Klynt crowed her victory, throwing her arms up and leaning far enough back that her and the chair toppled. Papalymo made a disgusted noise, and he and Urianger both handed gil to Bylti without further comment.
