#cheche dotharl

[aidan-hawke]

a commission from @ferkashi of cheche and aidan. soft! im soft for this -- please give ferkashi your money, they're a delight to work with and very communicative.

[lyndztanica]

[honoura]

benthos

cw: implied nudity

Her fingers entwine in his hair, and every scratch of nail on scalp just makes him sink into the tub. You can always scratch your own head with your own fingers of course. It's never the same though -- Cheche's nails are longer and her fingers smaller. Plus, very simply put, he missed having her around.

Here where no errands or tasks or duties exist; just the two of them in a bathtub. No gulf of separation called the Flats. No apprenticeships, no patients, nothing to smell but soap and the oil she uses on her scales. She asks to wash his hair and it feels like heaven. It might very well be.

"Is that good for you?"

"You have nice hands."

She laughs to that while undoing a knot. He's heard stories of mermaids before. As she kisses the top of his head, he wonders: How many sailors leapt overboard for a few moments of cradled in an embrace like this? Sensible at all? Not a whit. Sentimental?

Highly, he decides, as her tail curls around him.

"Deciding to drown me are you?" he asks, ends of his hair gracing the water.

"Is it working?" she asks, while she meticulously scrubs.

Long ago, he hums, and surrenders to the waves.

[thatsadorbsyo]

Lucas - Threads

((this post references the events of the fall, a mission in the heartless ffxiv roleplay campaign. quoted sections were written by @way-to-the-future. cw: character death. art credit: papa ibra tall, seamstress of the stars, wool tapestry, 1970s.))

“I admire how much warmth you give. Like a furnace. Like you've got a blaze rolling at your heart, and you let it all out through your skin. I see it in your eyes, the way they glow when the lamplight hits it just right.”

I’ve got nothing but white static in my head when I try to remember the Rovers’ faces, and if that isn’t creepy as fuck, I don’t know what is. I can’t recall a single thing about them. No noses, no mouths, not a sliver of kohl smudged under an eye or a lock of hair curling out from under a helmet. It’s easier to hate them when I can’t see any facets of their identity, but I don’t wanna fall prey to this lazy fallacy, either. There must have been real men under all that armor. One of many, sure, but individuals all -- just like I had been, once upon a time. So why don’t I remember?

My memory is unfortunately selfish and selective. It picks up the threads of the things closest to my heart and weaves the best story it can with the loose ends. So here’s the stupid little details that stuck with me, where more pertinent information might have been written instead:

I can still tell you with absolute clarity the exact gem tones of the light reflecting off of Cheche’s upturned face, when the Allagan facility erupted in spells and gunfire all around us. Sapphire blues, emerald greens, and amethyst purples against her shining black scales at every obsidian facet, like a raven feather catching the light.

I can map with exacting precision the arc of Castor’s white braid when he whipped his head around at the commotion, taking the tactical measure of our situation the way only a forged-in-the-blood knight like him can. Even after turning away from him, I could still feel the bulwark of Castor behind me, a solid presence that I didn’t need to see to be able to sense, like an extension of my arm, a phantom limb.

To turn around and suddenly find them both gone, ushered down a different corridor in all the clusterfuck of our allies splintering when the Rovers betrayed us?

It felt like amputation.

If I could, I would keep them both in my heart, keep them like puppets suspended by vermilion strings that extend from their every joint to the cavernous arches of my beating muscle. With threads that absorb the shock of my mortal body and every twin hammer of blood, so that all my loves can feel is the gentle warmth of my fire, the spark of creation that burns in me to keep them, cradle them, shelter them close and alive.

Keep them, and I guess, in so doing, preserve them exactly as I want them to be. Is that fair? It doesn’t seem so, does it? I may love them, but they aren’t mine. They aren’t toys or dolls; not mine to keep. See, Castor has taught me that to love someone is to swap my puppeteer’s strings for the Spinner’s threads, and let them weave their own way through my story. Cheche has shown me that the beauty in anything -- in anyone -- is that they might evaporate at any moment. But if I let them, they both might even decide, all on their own, to stay with me for as long as they can. A stronger path, freely chosen and written in royal blue and bright fern green, threading in a perfect braid around my brilliant gold.

No, I couldn’t keep them -- and in the moment of amputation, it didn’t fucking matter anyway, because they’d already gone beyond my reach. My heart was alone, but still it burned for them; burned fit to melt straight through the iced Malbolge of all the hells, a judgement which I still believed must have been waiting for me just beyond the next door of this Allagan tomb, to welcome me to the justice that I'm owed for my crimes. This door, or the next door. The next one.

Amputation wouldn’t stop me. Hell wouldn’t stop me. I would have burned through that whole building like a live coal, if that was what it had taken to find the exit and bring us all back home.

“It's hardly poetic, love. I'm just telling you exactly how you are. How anyone could see you. Even if they weren't a poet. Maybe even if they didn't care for you like I do. Just, if they - stopped to watch you.”

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I had a brother once, before I torched the evidence of the life I used to live. Augustin looked so much like me even when we were young, but moreso now than ever before. We have the same bronze eyes, the same nose; I’ve grown into the size of our chin with time. He’s a beefier motherfucker than I am, and he’d always preferred braids, but even still you’d be hard pressed to tell us apart if you stood us back to back. Where do you think is he now?

Does he wonder what’s become of my punk ass? Surely the reports tell the truth about how I left. They wouldn’t keep secrets, not from a... fuck, he’s probably a Centurio now, isn’t he?

Shit... I bet he is. He always wanted to follow Mom’s path, even though every day that passes causes me to doubt her just a little bit more. I’ve learned too much about family not to begin questioning her motives for doing what she did, but I guess that’s neither here nor there.

But it was Augustin who first taught me how to shoot, you know? He took me behind our home and put a gunblade in my hands, adjusting my twiggy little twelve-turn limbs into the approximate shape of proper posture even when the weight of it threatened to topple me over like a top-heavy weed. He drilled firearm etiquette into me until I could recite its tenets by memory. For such a little bitch, he molded me into a decent shot.

I haven’t felt that kind of brotherly guidance in a long time, but I think I felt Augustin’s ghost behind me when I stood shoulder to shoulder with Sister Lux in that facility, fighting our way out.

Do you remember that door, the one I had thought stood between me and the hells? It was really just another hungry bulkhead between us and freedom; a sun and moon puzzle that should have been, might have been harder to solve if I couldn’t feel the juxtaposition of her fire right next to me. Sun and moon. Astral and umbral. It was so simple; this was a test. I had let my aether lay fallow, and in order to progress I had to reach inside and drag all the burning potential straight out of my mouth. Furious, destructive, so obscenely fucking alive.

Hungry, that’s the key word. The door had to feed -- on us. I don’t know how, or why, but somehow she and I put our hands to the door at the same time and knew exactly what to do. It was time for me to shit or get off the proverbial pot, and all she had to do was correct my posture a little bit, just like old times in the backyard with my brother and a weapon I didn’t know how to hold.

I picked up my brass and ruby cudgel, and she told me how to feel the fire of my aether and let it simmer in controlled brilliance, and how to sit back and watch, patient and observant, as an umbral reckoning blazed all the way up into my nose, through my nostrils, eventually bubbling out in an oozing black ichor like tar. Until we were both painted with blood and the door finally gave way after growing fat on our offerings. Freedom, and not a moment too soon.

It’s funny. It’s funny in that way where I have to laugh to keep from considering all of the circumstantial leaps that had to happen to get me there, in that moment, with that exact mentor and the tools available to me. Did you know that I bought my thaumaturge focus the same day -- at the same damn merchant stall -- that I bought the bracelet that Lux still wears? The cudgel was a leap of faith (I thought maybe, someday, I would use it), and the bracelet was a tithe for her attention, but I gotta fucking wonder if that wasn’t the Spinner herself cinching an amethyst purple thread, until two distant ends of a rich black fabric pleated and bunched together, suddenly close, in a moment of coordinated function.

Like this had been the plan all along.

“They treat you differently because of it. Everyone on this ship - they know they can talk to you, Lucas. That you'll hear them.”

I started this mission as an empty vessel, asking everyone I came across to pour their faith into me so that I might taste it and gradually build a competence in teasing apart the flavors of the gods. The truth is that I was searching for the one most likely to offer me forgiveness, or at the very least the god who might hand me a penitence that I felt like I could swallow. I thought I deserved it, you see. That’s how all this started. On bad days, I still do.

Asking about faith isn’t just a window to the spiritual soul -- it’s also a mainline straight into the source of everyone’s irreconcilable fucking damage. Picking your god is a perilous choice, but mostly because it ultimately determines what kind of personality malfunction you’re going to have down the road. I already know why I’m awful: Delusions of grandeur and megalomania, with a curious tendency to self-flagellate. I’m the smartest, most impressive architect you’ll ever meet. I’m the greasiest, grimiest hunk of motor oil in the gutter.

The only way to reach the middle road between glorifying and hating myself, I’ve found, is to count the threads that wrap themselves around my ribs when I recount the conversations that I’ve had on the Salemtaza’s Voyage.

Here’s a taste: I’ve got Caelrin in deep ochre around my midriff where my abs are just starting to take shape. Ignera sits in flaming orange around the hollow of my throat, slapping my hand away every time I try to choke on my own self-loathing. Captain Kharn wraps in garnet around my face, shielding me from unwanted eyes when I don’t feel quite how I should in my skin. W'kana and W'buki in yellow and black, swaddling me so tight around the chest I fear for my next fucking breath. Reinette, a gentle evening blue curling in petals around my fingertips. Rizzo, a shining onyx black stitching up my lungs telling me to breathe, just breathe, don’t stop breathing until it gets easier.

More even than that. Staelufre in neon magenta, Fugetsu in an unknowable shade of grey, Killian in sunset orange, Strelec in obscuring maroon, Hikari in daisy yellow, Camille in cloudy crimson, Jancis in healing olive, Lune in jumpsuit orange, Jeanne in oil-slick purple, Hanako in fresh lavender, even Kat, yeah, even her, in that same royal blue as Castor.

Nathaniel threading in loops around every one of my fingers in a dazzling gold that fades into the electric yellow of potent aethersand.

I could go on. I could list twice as many names and colors as I already have, and I must ask myself: How do I carry them all? How could I possibly hold them all, without attaching them directly to my meat, my bones, this hideous and imprecise flesh that rightly should be cogs and metal? All that thread would just gum up the whole works, wouldn’t it? Maybe it’s better that I am man, then, and not machine.

For all my flaws, I can still stretch my arms and accommodate all these dangling ends.

“They see it in you, in the way you carry yourself. You're curious. Empathetic. You want to understand people, not just love them or hate them or think nothing of them at all.”

Sui tried to warn me about all this, back at the pumpkin patch at Cloudtop. It was raining, weighing down all my sashes on my brand new armor, and Sui had laughed when the skies parted to reveal the sun setting in a field of rose gold and the softest lavender. It seems like she and I can never properly talk if we aren’t both looking at the sky, like this is the only way we can perceive each other. Never head on -- only in the periphery. Or maybe it’s just easier to talk about certain things when you aren’t looking someone in the eye. Maybe it’s that.

She was so startled by the questions I needed to ask her, like she hadn’t thought it was possible that anyone had been watching her reaction to Nathaniel’s speech, like she didn’t think anyone would have noticed that she was upset. Is she so used to passing under the radar?

But I’ll give her credit. Sui tried to warn me that my friends would die. I watched the sunset fizzle out on the horizon from its soft pastels into a creeping ceruleum and a deeper indigo while she told me every horror that had befallen her family before, and what she knew would happen to us again. Sui could feel the same threads of fate starting to twine around our edges, and she wanted me to be prepared. I listened. I let those fibers stitch themselves into my lungs in the golden rose of a cloudless twilight sky.

I just never thought it would come down on us so quickly, and with such brutal force. I’ve never had to pray for another person before, and out of nowhere I found it necessary to summon the script to beg for twelve of my friends’ lives.

The truth is that I never learned how, and I’ve been too afraid to seek the answer. I know how to make wishes; I know how to toss gold coins into a running fountain and watch the sunlight flicker off the scattered mess of them along the bottom of the pool. But I don’t know how to pray.

I know who I would ask. It was Tieve who introduced me to Gridania, and if Sui and I speak most openly under a yawning sky, you might say that Tieve and I communicate best among the trees, under a cathedral of roots. The memory of the hearer’s chapel is stitched in bark brown and moss green bracelets around my wrists, reminding me that while I may have been invited to someone’s sacred space, I have to mind my boundaries, too. I am not the infallible creator of my own conceit, but nor am I outcast from Spoken kindness and community. To know temperance is to know yourself, to dig into the well of your Spoken dignity and grant the same to others.

I still have this embroidered Gridanian sachet of wood chips and herbs that she gave me, telling me it was for luck, and I didn’t know back then how much I would come to rely on Nymeia for hope. That I would need to believe that she’s writing me into a greater tapestry, that I need that grandeur to feel like my dumbass mistakes have meaning and purpose. And even with Tieve beyond my reach, it occurred to me that she might have already given me everything I needed to weave my own prayer. A level head. A god. A talisman.

I’m just fumbling through this. We all are, but I made my own prayer by pulling that sachet out of my pocket and spinning it over and over in my hands as I remembered the names of those our enemies had taken from us. Who better to beg than the god of fate? Keep their lines anchored to me. Keep them in the tapestry. Keep them safe.

“It's the most noble thing about you. It's - It's more than just what you do, it's who you are. It's what I love about you.”

I recite their names:

Aidan, the hound with apologetic eyes who slinks around the edges the crowd until someone notices him, at which point he deflects attention from himself with a self-deprecating joke straight out of my own fucking toolbox. He could be a brother to me, if he let himself be; if he told me the truth about who he is and where he’s been. I can smell it on him. The stench of ceruleum doesn’t fade as quickly as any of us would like, but I wait for him to tell me on his own terms. Aidan weaves around the periphery of my eyelids in a shadowy kohl black.

Izar, the mercurial seer who obscures themselves in riddles like a smug sphinx playing at being a whimsical faerie. They have never passed up the opportunity to toy with me like a blind white kitten with an oversized brown moth, but the teeth of their humor has never once felt like a cage to me. They are kind, and curious, and helpful even as they delight in your confusion. They dangle at my elbow in marble white, furiously tickling my arm like a loose hair caught in a sleeve.

Adhi, the wandering sage of Dalmasca who the gods had to gift with such big fuzzy ears so that she could better capture every single story that ever came her way. I don’t know how to even begin to thank her for what she’s done for me; she’s returned things to me that by all means should have been my birthright but were taken from me before I was even aware that they were being stolen. Her thread spirals in a shell around my ear in an entire spectrum of colors, one for every tale she carries with her.

Still, there’s more: Tieve, the witch of the wolves (mossy green); Percy, the son of a shadow (cobalt blue); Bride, the bashful goldsmith (periwinkle blue); Swozbhar, the towering cook (mint green); Valeriaux, the scarred philanthropist (leather brown); Silya and Livia, the sunniest Fists I’ve ever met (pale pink and soft teal); Farid, the most visibly haunted man I know (muted purple); and Iron Deer, the entrepreneurial engineer (metallic steel) -- all of them familiar faces, all of them colleagues, all of them threaded through the chambers of the same priceless Heart that gives our mission purpose.

The same Heart that we traded away just to get them back.

You know what? Fuck it. I’ll string them all to my own heart. I’ll suspend them all in cocoons deep in the burning hearth of me -- I will fight my way out of this facility that wants desperately to become our tomb -- until those that still live can crawl back out, fragile but alive and free to keep fighting for whatever comes next.

But one of them is gone, beyond the veil and permanently out of my reach. Just like Sui tried to warn me about, and all of Tieve’s lucky charms were not enough to protect me from this single ungentle truth. The Spinner does not stop the march of destruction -- she merely directs it. She cuts the threads of our fallen friends when they begin to fray and weaves new ones in their place; a different color, a fresh fate.

One of them is gone, their thread knotted off in a sudden stop on the tapestry of our story. But who?

Who did we lose?

“I've seen it. I've heard it. I've bloody felt it. Everyone I speak to says the same. Every one of them knows what a great heart you have.”

Percy and I first met at that bonfire by the chocobo stables. I was shivering, fresh off the fucking ship and completely unprepared for the weather, and he stood next to me and promised me everything I could ever possibly want, if only I made a promise in return to be a loyal friend to the Family. I was so desperate for a place to belong, I would have signed anything, done anything -- what had mattered was that he would have me. In this brave new world, I had people looking out for me. A place to call home. Structure. An institutionalized, freshly liberated fuckhead like me desperately needed structure.

So what if it came with a little price? The list of my sins is long, and breaking and entering is pretty far down at the bottom. Bar brawls are inconsequential, when you’ve already essentially aided and abetted war crimes. So, I’m wanted by both House Desrosiers and House Beaumarchais for stealing a thing or two from their daughters’ manse. So fucking what. Percy and I -- There are bonds that can only be forged at three in the morning, sitting on a crows’ perch halfway across the city under the moonlight, doing pre-job surveillance on some fart-sniffing nobles through their window. I’m not saying we kissed. I’m not saying we didn’t, either.

This is what I’m thinking about, when I look down at Percy’s lifeless face, drained of the rosy pink that always sat on his cheeks during those cold-ass stakeouts, huddled together at the shoulders for warmth. If I touched him now, he would be so cold, so unnaturally fucking cold, so I don’t. I can’t bring myself to touch him; to do anything but stare with my mouth half-open and a sob dying somewhere between my sternum and my throat, turning into just another burning pit to fizzle and die in my stomach.

Except it doesn’t have the good sense to die. It turns to steam, turns to pressure, backs up the entire clockwork machine that keeps me chugging along, and it must be vented or else I’m going to fucking explode, but I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. It stutters inside me like a hitched gear. The whine seems to come from my chest, high-pitched, like a kettle about to scream. Is that me? Am I screaming? I don’t know myself. I am not me, in this moment. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who is on the cot below me, whose silver close-cropped hair sits on this head, whose too-round spectacles reflect the light in the room too thoroughly for me to be able to see if their dead fucking eyes are open or closed. I don’t know which is more terrifying.

I leave. I run. My boots scream against the floor of the ship, clap against the dirt outside, and I don’t stop running until I can drop to my knees and bellow to the impassive clouds. This is my fault. Judgement rings in my head in a cacophony of voices. My fault. My fault he’s dead.

What am I doing here? What have I done?

Percy’s line, cobalt blue, is so cleanly snipped from my fabric that all I can do is finger the empty spot where it might have kept going. Maybe one day we could have found compromise; a future where the three of us could get along without jealousy, without miscommunication or hurt feelings. I’ll never fucking know.

I have always thought of myself in big terms. I am man, I am machine, I am god. I’m the architect of my own form, and I have crafted myself in my own image. Nothing makes me feel more powerful than looking in the mirror and seeing my face look back at me; the face that I sculpted, the body that I shaped. The people that I’ve been in the past are not dead, but rather they have been stitched into my organs. The girl that I was lives in my marrow and feeds my blood, and I am never alone in the cathedral of my body. I am holy. I am enduring. I will move beyond the ghosts at my heels and continue forging a forward path, with those I love woven into the never-ending project that I call my self.

But even a god looks puny as shit, crying into the dirt over a fallen friend. I need to feel this. I need how small this makes me, how insignificant I am in this moment. I gotta remember how crippled it makes me feel. This humility -- it needs to be sown into me, too. So I don’t make the same mistake again. It’s the least I can do.

I can’t forget. I won’t forget his face.

“What a precious, precious thing we've gained.”

[jancisstuff]

Midlanding

[scholar-thief]

[ RP LOG ]

Momori meets Cheche Dotharl. They collect clay. @cheche-dotharl

Momori can be seen leaving her tent, her arms full with a large sack that bulged in awkward places. She could scarcely see over her luggage, but despite that, she still strode on with a brisk pace.

Cheche is standing in place, though there's a pause as she hears someone approach. Her hands stop from her work, carving some sort of bone, as her gold eyes shift downwards as if to follow Momori's trajectory. She doesn't move out of the way for now, however, head head curiously tilted.

Momori collides into the au ra! The bag hits the floor, and several curious objects roll out from it. A small spade, several apples, and countless glass vials. Momori lies dazed on the floor, and looks up. Another expeditioner? And...what a way to make an introduction. She mumbles a few curses under her breath.

Cheche 's lips part very slightly, eyes blinking. Oh. "-- sorry. Are you all right?" She reaches, then looks a little surprised. Then keeps reaching. Keeps reaching and... ah. There she is. Momori is picked up and set on her feet and dusted before the xaela bends down, patting the ground as if to search for the various things she heard fall to the ground.

Momori lifts a finger to her neck, and nods at Cheche. “Hearts still pounding, so I should be good. Can’t say the same about my ego, though…You’re Cheche, right?” Momori shakes a vial from out of her sleeve, and begins to unceremoniously shove the bag’s contents back in with her foot.

Cheche is gentle in comparison, picking up as much as she could before offering the items one at a time. An apple here, a vial there... "Ah, then my apologies again about the ego. Yes, I am Cheche. And whom may I be speaking to...?"

Momori: “Momori. Charmed.” She brandishes the small gardening spade as though wielding a dagger, and tosses it gracefully in the air, catching it behind her back...then shoves it into the bag with a sigh. “Was about to go collect some clay samples from Voor Sian Siran, but…” She looks at the hulking mess of a bag. “...don’t suppose you have some free time to help out a weak and pitiful lalafell?”

Cheche nods. "-- a pleasure," she agrees easily. She offers a smile then, shaking her head. "I would not mind doing so, though I am still somewhat unfamiliar with this area. Too big with too many cliffs. If you lead the way, you have my hands at your disposal."

Momori gratefully hands the bag over to Cheche. “As long as you carry that, I’d be happy to lead on. Your very own seeing eye lalafell, heehee!” Momori’s face, usually stoic, shows Cheche a mischievous grin. Somehow, /somewhere/ she finds the situation humorous. “Let’s be off then! Suns dropping low, wouldn’t want to get caught out in the dark. You know what happens...in the dark.”

Cheche holds out her hand, accepting the bag offered. As everything, she carefully slings it over her shoulder to carry it, crossed over to the other side of her existent bag. "What does happen in the dark?" Her question is genuine, eyes upon Momori as if to follow her movements.

Momori: “Oh, just some tall tales I’ve heard from the locals. There’s a rotund, spirit, oh so jolly, decked in red and white. And, well....Let’s just hope you haven’t been up to anything naughty recently.” Momori gives Cheche an ominous look, her gaze steely and cold. Then proceeds to continue hiking towards their destination.

Cheche looks thoughtful to that, steps slow but keeping up easily with the shorter lalafell. "-- no, I have not heard of such a spirit," she muses. "Where does it hail from? What defines what is naughty? What happens to those that are?" Her questions are entirely honest, a rhythmic twitch of her tail as if she's paying attention.

Momori: “A land far, far separated from our own. From a place known only as...the North pole.” Momori leads the two of them around some gastronis, giving the wildlife a wide berth, just in case. “Naughty, well, like telling lies, or pulling pranks. Is that the sort of stuff you get into, Cheche?”

Cheche looks thoughtful again, her eyes picking up briefly to stare skywards. "-- no, I have not heard of such a place. What brings such a spirit so far away from home? It is rare for them to stray so far from where they hail." Her tail twitches again before she looks down back to Momori, shaking her head. "I do not think so. Do you?"

Momori: “An insatiable appetite for naughty souls, of course. Under the cover of darkness, unfortunate victims are simply whisked away, with but a lump of coal left at where they once stood…” Momori pauses for dramatic effect, and glances back at Cheche. “If not for your sake, then for mine, we should avoid the night.” She cracks a smile, not directly answering the au ra’s question, nor giving away any indication that she had made up the entire tale on the spot.

Cheche seems to take Momori's story very seriously, fingers gently drumming upon her lips. "-- well, if we find ourselves under the threat of such a spirit, I will do what I can to keep you safe. But you are right-- it best be that we do not venture late at night then. Or at least, if there is no choice, not to do so alone."

Cheche: "I forgot to ask," she belatedly mentions. "-- what do you need clay samples for?"

Momori nods, a little amused at how seriously Cheche is taking her story. She wonders if this is how all tall tales start.

Momori: “Oh, it’s for a project I’ve been working on. Ancient Sil’dih pottery that’s been shattered to near a thousand pieces. There’s a very particular clay around here that’s a good glue and stabilizing agent. That is, if we can find it, whilst avoiding the feisty wildlife.”

Cheche hums, thoughtful again. "-- shattered pottery. I am sorry to hear that. You are trying to fix it?" She doesn't seem to mind venturing into the water, it coming up to her ankles. "Would you rather I keep an eye out for the wildlife? Or... if there is a way to know how to recognize the right clay, I could help you seek it out."

Momori looks around, observing the shell-like patterns submerged underneath the water...which, by the way, nearly came all the way up to her waist. “Yep. There could be a pattern, or paintings on the outside of the pot. Worth studying, or at least conserving so later generations can enjoy it.” She then turns to Cheche and pokes the bag.

Momori: “The clay we’re looking for is almost pitch black, but we’ll have to dig around for it. I brought a bunch of apples to tame the wildlife, so let's start by tossing them places away from our digsite?”

Cheche shows a mild smile to that. "Of course. It is a noble effort." To Momori's description there's a brief 'ah', though she nods soon enough to her directions. "I have a knife. Would it be better for us to cut pieces and throw them, or put them away whole?"

Momori nods. “Cut it up, so we can have a few slices of our own. As nutritious as slop is, I haven’t had something sweet in a long time..I heard there were honey cakes, but by the time I dropped by, there weren’t even crumbs left.”

Cheche looks apologetic to that. "Ah, yes. They disappeared quite quickly, yes..." She looks for a little hunting knife, clearly hand-crafted from some sort of bone rather than metal forged. One of the apples are cut, and with each peace she'd lower it down to Momori's hands before pulling off another one.

Momori is quite pleased. Gear, carried. Apples, cut. This au ra was very helpful to have around! She chomped on her slice and eyed the strange knife that Cheche held in her hands. “Curious little blade you got there. Hand carved?”

Cheche nods, cutting up the rest of the apples to place around. "Ah, yes. Where I hail from, everything we own is made by our own hands. It is our way of life, after all." There's a pause. "Would you like another piece?"

Momori nods, and grabs another piece of apple. She then gives Cheche her best impression of puppy dog eyes, though when merged with her resting bitch face, Momori just looks kind of....strange. “Could I take a look at the blade?”

Cheche 's expression doesn't quite change, still staring towards Momori as if to regard her. "Ah, yes. Of course." She offers the blade, making sure as not to point the sharper end towards the lalafell. "Would you like me to set the apples out while you do?"

Momori is already deeply engrossed in observing the blade. Her eyes light up in a way that they haven't before. She snaps back to attention. “Huh? Oh, yes. Toss the apples around.”

Cheche does that indeed. Momori would find that she's not accurate AT ALL, but at least it doesn't matter as much as long as they're scattered. The blade is simple but seems to do its job, mostly half of it flattened and sharpened at one side. The hilt is decorated, carved with foreign patterns that likely have worn down with time.

Momori: “These patterns...I can’t say I know much of Othgardian culture. Do they symbolize something? Tell a story, or picture a god?” Momori stares at Cheche with a bright intensity. The lalafell demeanor has shifted, dramatically. Her once flat gaze is now lit up with passion that is almost overwhelming.

Cheche looks back to Momori, the tip of her tail rising slightly with attention. "Ah. Well. They all mean different things, yes." She lowers herself by bending her knees, more of her longer tail submerged in the water. Her hand carefully touches Momori's arm, searching its way to the dagger to locate the hilt. She points to each pattern with her finger, explaining the different animals that they represent.

Momori eagerly listens to Cheche’s explanation, gobbling up the information with increased fervor. It wasn’t often she could learn about such a foreign culture, straight from the source. Only the feeling of water in her boots snapped her out of the trance - that’s right, the clay! Momori forced herself to peel her attention away from the dagger. “I would love to have you tell me more. But! My feet are starting to feel pruned, and the clay isn’t going to dig itself out.”

Cheche chuckles a litttle to that, straightening up. "Of course. Clay." She accepts the dagger back, plucking it up carefully before returning it to its leather sheathe. It's placed back to her belongings. "So, how does one go about collecting such? Do I simply... dig?"

Momori: “Dig, dig, dig! With this, though.” Momori pulls the gardening spade from the bag. She then looks down at the water, and her brow furrows. “Ugh, it’s going to be messy digging with water slooshing everywhere. I didn’t think of that.”

Cheche accepts the spade, examining it with her hands. She feels it carefully, looking confused for a moment. "-- ah. Is this a dagger?" Her head tilts to Momori, then looks downwards. "If you do not wish to, I could do it."

Momori: “Unless you were trying to kill someone slowly and inefficiently, I wouldn’t use that as a dagger. Though, it is an interesting idea...could have some use during...hmm...” Momori thinks to herself, seriously considering the idea of using a gardening spade in a clearly terrible way. “Anyway, please, go ahead! Just stab the soft ground with it and start making a hole. Meanwhile, I’ll try to figure out a way to drain the water.”

Cheche does just that, squatting down proper to poke at the ground. She does so quite literally, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and... not getting anywhere. At least she's got the spirit, her expression firm with concentration.

(Momori) HMM (Momori) is. is she just. stabbing??! the same spot?!? (Cheche) yes (Momori) PLES..... im cry (Cheche) the ground got what it deserved (Momori) 911 id like to report a murder (Cheche) GOT WHAT IT DESERVED!!!!!!

Momori wanders off and eyes a large limpet, attached to stone that peeked up from the water. Using her dagger, she slices around it and forces it off. With the mollusk’s flesh discarded, its shell made a decent enough container to lug water in. She comes back to find Cheche just. Stabbing! Stabbing away. There’a blossom of brown dirt in the water at where this is happening.

Momori: “..............How’s the hole coming along?”

Cheche just... keeps stabbing. The mud is really getting what it had coming for it. "-- ah. I am unsure if it is... working?" Her head tilts. "I could try using my hands. Or am I wielding it incorrectly?"

Momori doesn’t know what to say at first. It’s kind of entertaining to watch Cheche stab the dirt like a crazed murderer, but on the other hand, she needed clay! Letting this continue would probably just result in a mud hole. “Try pushing the spade towards yourself, and then scooping the dirt away. And if that doesn’t work, yes, use your hands.”

Cheche stares with newfound focus, trying as she's told. She's... somewhat successful! Her tail flicks upwards with her newfound knowledge, likely sending some water flying behind her. "-- ah, I see. You called this object a spade?" She tries a few more times, tail plopping to the water with a mild splash before flicking from side to side.

Momori blinks. Does Cheche not know what a spade is? Momori bends over, using her limpet bucket to scoop some water away from the hole that is steadily being dug. “Spade. It’s used for digging, gardening…” Momori can’t help herself. A tell-tale grin spreads on her lips. “...and for eating. Yes. A useful tool to have around!”

Cheche hums. "I see. A tool that is used in a multitude of ways..." She seems to believe Momori, clearly fascinated at the object. "I can see how it would be helpful, yes. It is very effective. Do you often use such a tool?"

Momori: “All the time. Perhaps when we’re back at camp, I can show you it’s other uses.” Momori pours away some brown water, and then peers into the hole. Something black, and markedly more dense, lies underneath a few ilms of dirt. “Hm! I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”

Cheche 's expression brightens, or has it? Compared to before, maybe. "You would? Ah, of course." She turns her attention back, digging a little quicker. They have clay to obtain!!

(Momori) hehe the two of them using....g...gardening spades at dinner time (Cheche) truly a romantic dinner (Cheche) wine involved (Momori) such fancy (Cheche) thank god (Momori) wine, gruel, and spades (Cheche) THANK GOD (Momori) FINALLY...some good food (Cheche) scoops the clay up to eat (Momori) HUFFS (Momori) NO!! (Momori) the forbidden sauce (Cheche) delicious (Momori) bloody good eating

Momori grabs a glass vial and fills it to the brim with the black clay, and a bit of water. There’s plenty of clay being dug out by Cheche, in mounds all around the original hole. By visiting these piles, Momori quickly fills all the vials. Messy, but a job well done! She looks to the camera, deadpan. “Nice.”

Cheche straightens up at the confirmation, having to stretch a little from spending so long squatted down. She's entirely COVERED with clay and mud, but it doesn't seem to bother her. "Did you manage to get what you needed?"

Momori stares at Cheche and laughs. “Hah! Thal’s balls...do you know where Cheche is? All I see is a mudman in front of me.”

Cheche chuckles, brushing some of the mud off to wash off with the water. "Never seen her. But if you do, please let me know." She nods to Momori. "Did you need anything else?"

Momori: “That’s all for today. You’ve been a big help, I should take you along for all my work…” She gives Cheche a thumbs up. Off in the distance, a gross slorping noise can be heard, as the local water slugs gorge themselves on the apple slices. The sun is just beginning to dip beneath the horizon. “We should get moving, while the fauna are still distracted by our bait. And before, well, the spirit comes around to harvest my soul.”

Cheche smiles. "Gotten into much mischief, then? I would be eager to get washed, myself. It has been a pleasure working with you, Momori." She nods again. "There is little for me to offer, but if you have the need of my assistance, you only need ask." After a brisk motion, she sets out to follow the lalafell back to camp... likely to learn of the "correct" use of spades and who knows what else.

[tomesandsuch]

💭

“Ah, bright-eyed child... Wisdom beyond your years, a gift of the Steppe, to produce those so familiar with what comes after. Do yourself a favor and do not grow arrogant with age, or I shall be so terribly, terribly disappointed in you. Now look what you’ve gone and done. You’ve made this old creature act all soft.” 

For every 💭 I receive, I will write one thought my Muse has had about yours.

[erogeist]

Lizard power pose

@cheche-dotharl