For FFXIVWrite Day 6, “ring”. Frydlona/[ShB spoilers], pre-Endwalker, spoilers through patch 5.5, ~700 words. Late due to some nonsense at work, but still within the Week One amnesty period! I might expand it later, but this was a real “get it done in two days or else two years” thing.
A promise that is also a hope.
Frydlona almost always carries a sketchbook for her design ideas. For a project, she’ll rip the pages out and keep them in a case, and what’s left is just thoughts she’s had, things that might be fun or challenging to make, things that might turn into a project if she needs them to.
She sketches all kinds of things, often ones she’ll never get around to making. A crown made out of the lavender blooms of Lakeland; vambraces and pauldrons gilded and carved with flames to be worn with an embroidered black cloak; a workbench with drawers nested inside drawers; a gown with a trailing skirt like seafoam; a rocking chair with flowers that look like they’re growing out of cracks in the wood itself, alchemically preserved.
A ring, wrought like a white mage’s cane, with leaves curling around a rough-cut gem.
She scribbles it out the first time she catches herself drawing it. She doesn’t need to make such a thing.
*
They’ve been reeling from one crisis to another, with hardly time for breath, and now the threat of the Final Days hangs overhead. It’s too fast, and Frydlona knows it; fear is a dangerous spice for emotion. People think they fall in love during wartime, and if they’re lucky enough to live, they have to live with whatever choices they made.
All in all, she’s known Raha for less than two years, and some of that was years ago. They’ve done none of this properly, or reasonably; they’ve raced forward in freefall, and it frightens her how much she doesn’t want to stop.
*
Some nights she wakes up with nightmares, and some nights Raha does. Either way it keeps her awake after, staring into the darkness overhead and trying to let the solid warmth of him in her arms settle her.
She thinks about the sea of stars, the sunless sea—the glitter and blaze of uncountable points of light, the swoop of Thaliak’s river through the darkness—and wonders. She couldn’t cut diamonds small enough, not and keep their facets and their sparkle, but powdered hematite, maybe… no.
*
She sketches a ring with metal curled like a breaking wave, wrapping over a pearl—she could find a pearl, and the challenge of finding a good enough one would be half the point—and another engraved with palm leaves and massive flowers, the kind of things that grow around Cliffhide. Another ring with vines and leaves: sun-warmed La Noscean grapes, a tiny cluster of cabochon amethysts, and an orange in the form of an orange garnet.
Her glaives don’t make a good design for a ring—too jagged, smooth them as she might—and no more does Mor Dhona. Raha had given her a pair of Allagan earrings he’d found in the Tower, but she’s never been comfortable with the harsh lines of Allagan metalwork. Besides, that’s him, not her.
She keeps coming back to the cane, though. Gerolt made her some lovely weapons while she was working with the Bozjan Resistance, and she’s always liked adding natural elements to jewelry. She could make it beautiful, and it would certainly have meaning, more than just that it was where she’d come from—it would be where they’re going, together, from here on.
But it’s too soon, she reminds herself, even as she adds the final leaf to the sketch. The gemstone buds from the wood itself, framed by leaves and accented by opening blossoms.
A white stone, unaspected, for the center. She’s tempted to use opal, but conjurers tend toward clear crystals; diamond might be more easily understood. Aquamarine for the buds, for the sunlit ocean she grew up with after all. Rose gold for the bark and electrum for the leaves…
*
It’s still too soon, Frydlona tells herself, even once she’s set the last gem in place. The metal is blood-warm in her hand.
She wraps it, carefully, and puts it in a box, and wedges the box deep into one of her pockets, and then buttons the pocket closed. She’ll just keep it with her, so that as soon as it isn’t too soon she’ll have it ready.
For Wondrous Tails of FFXIV, “toys” (from the NSFW prompt list). Set during Stormblood, but mostly only by crafting mats; ~3000 words (?!?). This is a fic about crafting but it is specifically about crafting sex toys; also contains canon-typical sexual harassment from Gigi the goldsmithing mammet and spoilers for drk jobquests through 50.
Some of the commissions the crafting guilds take are stranger than others.
“Oh dear!” Serendipity says, frowning at the piece of paper Jemime has just handed her.
“Is ThErE a PrObLeM?” It should be impossible for a mammet to sound excited about a potential problem, but Gigi manages it. Frydlona keeps one eye on him and the other on Serendipity.
“We have five commissions from important merchant families.”
For some reason, she seems to think this is a bad thing. Frydlona is definitely missing something here. “What’s wrong with that?”
Serendipity hesitates, tugging at one of her twintails. “Well…oh dear. They’re nearly all rather complicated, and I wasn’t expecting this many, and one of them is delicate. Do you think you could help me with two of them?”
“Of course,” Frydlona says, confused. “What do you mean, delicate?” She hopes it’s not gold leaf. She hates working with gold leaf, which sticks to her fingers but flies away if she exhales too near it.
Serendipity looks at Gigi, then hands Frydlona the list.
“OhOhO! aNoThEr MaMmEt FoR pErSoNaL pLeAsUrE, cRaFtEd FoR a NaRrOw-MiNdEd FoOl WhO cAnNoT aPpReCiAtE a MoRe—”
Frydlona picks Gigi up with her other hand and puts him in an empty supply drawer.
“Please be careful with him,” Serendipity says, but she doesn’t make any move to take Gigi back out. A few muffled words drift out to their ears.
One of the requests is in fact for a Mammet Pleasurer #008D, a thing Frydlona shouldn’t be surprised you can just buy in Ul’dah but finds she is anyway. Another is for a wall-mounted chronometer that will not only display the day’s weather but predict the morrow’s. There’s a request for a music box that will let the listener choose between three different songs, and for a different music box to be topped with a clockwork ballroom scene featuring at least four couples in a round dance. The fifth calls for a tiara, earrings, necklace, bracelets, and rings, all with matching pearls.
“Which of these do you want to assign me?” Frydlona asks. The pearl set looks easy if the pearls can be found, and Aistan can probably help with that. It’s all the clockwork that will be a problem, and there are some apprentices and maybe even journeymen she’s not sure Serendipity wants to assign the Mammet Pleasurer #008D to.
“—OpPoRtUnItY—” Gigi insists faintly.
Serendipity takes the list back, her frown deepening. “You haven’t worked much on barometers, have you?”
Frydlona has to shake her head.
“I should have you do that at some point, but I don’t think… The time is so short. I think…oh, I think I’ll have Nanaren take charge of the chronometer, and W’arhll the parure.” She looks worriedly up at Frydlona. “You have done some mammet repairs in the past—would you be willing to work on the special mammet as well as one of the music boxes?”
Frydlona nods, considering. “If someone else knows the dance for the second music box, I don’t—it would be quicker if they could do that one.”
“Oh good,” Serendipity says, beaming. “I’ll get you the schematics for the other two, then.”
Gigi kicks the drawer open. “An OuTrAgE! yOu CoWaRdLy InCoMpEtEnTs! YoU fEaR mY rEjEcTiOn Of YoUr InAdEqUaTe BoTtOm AnD yOuR gArGaNtUaN hEiGhT!”
“Yes,” Frydlona says. “That’s it exactly.”
Serendipity turns back around with her hands full of papers. “Oh dear! Gigi, did you hurt yourself?”
The Mammet Pleasurer #008D turns out to be a simple enough design and not just a convenient thing to have around, once Frydlona actually gets a look at the schematic, though she is a little worried about how delicate the gears that work the vibrating arm are. It’s possible another metal would hold up better than mythril—she’d like to try it with durium, if she had more time, but that would call for stronger belts, and…hm. Best to stick with the original schematic.
The core is very simple, closer to the modified cores the Ironworks has used for a few of their magitek experiments or even the ones found in wind-up toys, which is probably why Serendipity trusted her with the commission at all. It’s for the best for more than one reason, Frydlona thinks. Some people might want a Gigi, but a lot of people certainly wouldn’t, and Gigi has strong enough preferences of his own to consider as well.
“Now hold on.” Frydlona taps the final rivet into place. “You don’t know who ordered this or why. You don’t have to jump to the worst possible conclusion about them.”
“EhEhEhE. dO i NoT?”
“You really don’t,” Frydlona says, and starts polishing the metal to a satiny finish. She hopes it’s helpful to its commissioner. There have been times she wouldn’t have minded having something like it herself, but even if there hadn’t been, it’s just manners.
Geva is more direct, which isn’t surprising.
“Ever made a set of restraints for recreational use?” she asks out of nowhere while Frydlona is preparing alumen.
One of the apprentices knocks over an entire tray of tools. There’s an awful crash, and the slow sound of an awl continuing to roll across the floor. Geva doesn’t blink, let alone turn. “Pick it all up,” she says. “Now. Frydlona?”
Frydlona puts her alembic aside. “I’ve never made a set of restraints for any use.”
“That’s going to change,” Geva says. “This commission is going to put your skills to good use, and it’s not something Fen-Yll wants advertised as theirs nor something I want to have to explain why I didn’t put the Fen-Yll name on. You’re more than competent to do it well and you don’t work for Fen-Yll. Now, what leather would you use?”
What a question. Frydlona tries to think—she’s heard about people tying each other up in bed (or out of it), in tavern chatter in Limsa where it sounded interesting and in novels where it mostly read like the people getting tied up weren’t having enough fun to make it worth the effort. None of that helps, and the roomful of apprentices and journeymen watching Geva’s test makes her reluctant to admit she has no idea. She’d hoped they were past this by now.
Geva is watching her, arms folded.
“What scale are they being made to?” Frydlona remembers to ask.
“Good. The client has requested they be scaled to fit a midlander Hyur.”
The leather will need to be flexible enough to make fairly narrow loops that will hold up to strain, then. Frydlona would have recommended gyuki at once if they were being made to fit a Lalafell, but she does have quite a few more options for a Hyur, even a midlander. “And the budget?”
Geva nods. “As you can imagine from anyone who didn’t just hope to commission Fen-Yll, but would have, finance is no object.”
Frydlona considers it, still unsure. Everyone else in the guild is still watching intently, probably glad Geva isn’t asking them. She doesn’t know, and she’s not willing to try to bluff. “It depends on what the client wants. Hippogryph leather would be an easy and practical option that doesn’t sacrifice raw quality. If the client is most concerned with how it looks, coeurl skins make leather with a striking pattern, or chimera hide takes dyes especially well even after curing. Gyuki leather from Othard is very supple.” The client might want something less yielding, though. “Most of the saurian leathers are tougher. I’d say procoptodon if they want that and they’d guarantee the material costs, pteinosaur or pterodactyl if they wouldn’t.”
“Excellent,” Geva says. There’s a surprised murmur from the apprentices, and even a few of the journeymen look impressed. “And what other materials?”
“It still depends on what the client wants,” Frydlona says, much more confident in her uncertainty now that she knows what Geva is doing. There probably is a commission, and it probably even is for restraints, but Geva is using it to teach the apprentices, knowing that the initial question would get their attention. She thinks about her gathering wristbands and the way they used to irritate her skin when her work gloves hit them wrong until she started lining them. “Some kind of padding, unless they want the leather to leave marks. Maybe a soft cloth like silk over something else, maybe fur. Rings if they’d like to attach the restraints to something else. Maybe they want some jewels worked into the design.”
“Perfect.”
All the journeymen look shocked now. One of the apprentices is gaping.
Geva turns back to them and says, “Who can tell me what—Hob, close your mouth before I decide you’re offering your tonsils for tanning—who can tell me what you’ve learned here?”
Another murmur. Finally one of the journeymen puts her hand up. “Keep the client’s needs in mind?”
“And budget,” the young man next to her says. “Master Leatherworker Merlgeimwyn mentioned that twice, one time even after you said they could afford Fen-Yll.”
Geva nods to them both.
“And the properties of the leather,” says another journeyman.
“That’s the client’s needs!” the young woman who’d answered first protests.
While they argue about that, Geva walks over to Frydlona’s workbench. “I have the commission information here,” she says. “Good thinking on those questions—they’re all answered in there.”
Frydlona had not wanted to have to guess. “Good.”
“There’s good money in this, you know. It’d be better with a name to recognize, but if you’re ever looking for the easiest way to make gil as a leatherworker…”
Frydlona shakes her head.
Geva raises an eyebrow. “Too good for it?”
“I don’t want to have to check my clients that carefully.” Frydlona looks down at the notes—wrist measurements, ankle measurements. Chain—she can make that herself, rather than ask the guild suppliers. Dark leather, not black; neutral padding dyed to match. Moderate flexibility, nothing out of the way. “I trust you did, but I wouldn’t want to have to trust a stranger means well with these.”
She’s not sure she’s ever seen Geva look that taken aback before. “I—did, but thank you. And don’t let this lot hear you say that!”
“Your secret is safe,” Frydlona says, and gets up to start sorting through samples.
She has made dildos before.
The first time had been when a stammering Brithael had practically shoved a pretty client at the nearest smith in his shop, who happened to be Frydlona. Q’zanza was one of the easier customers Frydlona had worked with, and her request was fairly straightforward. She had a clear idea of the dimensions she wanted, and a fairly simple shape in mind.
Steel was easy to work with, too. Frydlona had been able to work up a wax model to be sure Q’zanza was happy with the design before casting it. Wax and clay were easy to model; showing a client exactly what they’d get was always good. Q’zanza had paid at once and in full, and come back for more standard blacksmithing jobs.
The second time had also been more or less an accident, at least as far as it being Frydlona’s job went. Corgg had asked her to see what was up with a suspicious-acting Elezen in lancer’s armor loitering near the shop. When Frydlona had gone out to talk to him he’d stammered something about a sensitive commission.
“Beatin doesn’t bite, you know,” she’d said.
“I can’t listen to him talking about how someone has to be the wood!”
Once he’d explained the commission, she’d had to admit he had a point. It might be a little uncomfortable to think about the carpenter being that involved in the finished product.
Still, again, the dildo itself hadn’t been hard to make, and although Ursulin wasn’t as clear with his ideas as Q’zanza had been, she’d at least been able to work out what he wanted by showing him sketches and measurements. Wood wasn’t like wax—she had had to be absolutely sure of every shaving she carved off—but she’d picked out a nice mahogany with a lovely grain that didn’t catch on her knife, and it turned out nicely enough, especially once she lacquered it.
She was proud of it when she finished, and Ursulin had seemed pleased too. It had been harder than the first, but she’d had more experience crafting things to order since then too. Some of the conjurers’ canes that Beatin had had her make were much harder to get right.
This, though…
“I simply don’t have time for such frivolity,” Severian snaps.
He looks like he’s been sleeping, at least. Well, mostly sleeping. He doesn’t look like he’s gone so long without sleep that he’s been seeing things again, anyway, which is probably as good as it gets for Severian.
“But what do they want?” Frydlona looks around the guild in case anyone else wants to help, but as far as she can tell nobody is listening.
Severian makes an impatient gesture. “Glassware.”
They have definitely made glassware before. The room is full of glittering beakers, vials, retorts, bottles… “For…parties?” Frydlona tries. “Or cosmetics?” It can’t be that different making a perfume bottle than a bottle to hold a potion or salve, can it?
“Does it matter?”
“Well, it’s a commission.” Frydlona glances at his workbench, but there are so many papers there that she can’t hope to make sense of which one this is. The topmost sheet seems to be mostly sketches of plants. “So if you need someone to make it, and you want me to make it, I need to know what it is, or I can’t.”
Severian makes a disgusted noise. “I suppose. It’s a waste of your time when you could be working on serious projects, though. You’ll gain no useful skills from crafting a phallus, and it won’t benefit—”
Frydlona holds up a hand. “I’m sorry. You said glass?”
He did say glass. It doesn’t matter that the client’s specifications are detailed and clear, he absolutely did say glass. The thought that it might break is a fair bit terrifying to Frydlona, even though she knows it probably wouldn’t be her fault if it did. If it were, if there were a fault in the glass—
The client wants it shaped like a series of stacked spheres, which doesn’t make her less nervous. She’ll want to use a few fire shards as well as the lightning crystals, to give a steady heat that will help melt each of the spheres together, but…
She abandons another test project.
“You shouldn’t be wasting your time on this either,” Severian says from behind her. “I must have a more incompetent apprentice somewhere.” He’s looking down at the scattering of spheres across her workspace.
Frydlona can smash them down and re-melt them, of course, but it’s still…well, he’s right. It is a waste. “If there’s someone who can do this better, please. But if there isn’t…” She shrugs.
“This is hardly an urgent necessity. It’s a toy.”
She starts sweeping the glass spheres into the lined bag for clean glass waste. “People like to do things that make them feel good. For some people that’s food or music or wine, but you’re not saying we should shut down every tavern in Ul’dah. Some people travel, or play games, or get a baby animal, or watch a match at the Coliseum. Some people have sex. People can’t just… People need their frivolities.”
“You don’t,” Severian says.
Frydlona opens her mouth to reply. Stops. Tries again. “I…I don’t what?”
“Get distracted. You’re reliable, even with all the…” He gestures. “All of that fighting business you keep having to do. The wars. When I send you a request you fill it, you keep improving at your craft, and the realm still seems to be in one piece so you must be doing your part there as well.”
“I do things that make me feel good,” Frydlona protests.
Fray, who usually leaves Frydlona alone while she’s making things, says, “Do you?”
’Shut up,’ Frydlona tells her. She’s fairly sure she didn’t say it out loud; she’s not sure Severian would notice if she did.
The glass is still not fusing well enough for her to be satisfied. To Severian she adds, “I’m going to try this again with some aethersand and see if it sticks better.”
He looks thoughtful—just what she’d hoped by making it about her process instead of his commission. “Aethersand…that could be interesting. Try everbright first; the residual energies of the lava should serve as an additional binding force. Have you tried incorporating dark matter?”
She hasn’t, but now that he mentions it… “Good idea.”
It takes another few days’ work before she has something that meets the client’s specifications and that she thinks will hold, but by the time she does Severian is pleased with the glassworking techniques they’ve had to adapt. Everyone else is just pleased that the job is done.
“Adopt a kitten,” Fray says afterward, leaning against the wall in Frydlona’s room at the Quicksand and not helping her pack. “Go have sex. Come to the godsdamned beach. Something!”
“I have meetings.” Frydlona folds a pearly-white cape and packs it on top of the gleaming gold of one of her armored tabards. “Alliance things. Maybe after that.”
“It’s been ‘maybe after that’ since—”
“Maybe,” Frydlona says, spacing out each word, “after that.” She ties her bag firmly closed and goes to pay her bill.
