#ffxivwrite2020 ffxivwrite

[erstwhile25]

Prompt #5: Matter of Fact.

Characters: Mazie and Laloquer. 

“Yer jokin.” Mazie muttered around a mouthful of redfish and cream.  Laloquer watched the slightly marvelous engineering feat of her jaw working up and down, while her very pink tongue maneuvered the bite about her mouth. This allowed for only a minimal amount of fishbits and sour cream to dribble onto her shirt as she expelled vernacular.  

“Jokes.” he commented as dryly as a Thanlan wind “are comprised of a lead in, a body, and a punchline.  Everyone laughs, sometimes they throw rotten detritus.”  

“I KNOW that.” She swallowed and growled at him.  All in all, she had a very impressive growl, it came from her belly and reverberated in her chest.  It was a growl you could feel while sitting across from her at a table, which Laloquer was at the moment.  Ser Rosen however had been growled at by kings, by barbarous Bludhowlers, and by very small dogs with the barest streaks of sanity.  He showed her what he thought of her contribution by blinking over the edge of his reading spectacles, licking his finger, and turning a page in his leatherbound copy of The Economy of Alchemy: Literally Boom or Bust.

It had the desired effect of reminding her To Whom she was talking, Mazie was the first to break eye contact.  She hid the threat of a blush on her cheeks by wiping the mess from her mouth onto her sleeve, Laloquer tried his level best to keep from wincing.  Sighing, he laid his book aside, and stood up on his chair to offer her his own napkin.  “Then know that when I offered to teach you manners, I wasn’t making a joke at your expense.  I was offering you my services.”  Mazie looked at the piece of silken cloth with the same love and appreciation one might offer a leech on their groin.  

“The feck would I do with manners?”

Pursing his lips and bristling his mustache, Laloquer reached into the depths of his person for patience. “Well, and stop me if I lose you on this particularly rickety track of thought...you could use them.”

“What the feck fer?”

Laloquer reached deeper.  He left the napkin down by her plate, hoping that it’s proximity might actually at least give RISE to some concept of table manners in her subconscious.  “Well...for one, so that you might be able share a dinner table with someone other than a pack of wild boars.”

She paused, but whether it was simply to consider his words or to tear off a hunk of bread with her teeth was a matter between her and the gods.  The young woman did however look thoughtful behind another round of impressive mastication.  She waggled what was left of the loaf in her hand at him.  “Seriously though, who’s goin t’invite me t’some high falutin dinner party?  I ent no-one, jest some deckhand on a ship.”

“As good an excuse as any I suppose.” snorted the lalafell and sat back in his seat, opening his book back up and diving back into his reading. 

“Oy now, that ent fair!” at least she swallowed first this time so her protest could be heard.

He snapped the book shut and glared at her.  “Fair has nothing to do with it.  There are plenty who cower behind what they can’t do, or what they’ll never have, I just never took you for one of them.”  If anger had been heat, Laloquer suspected her glare would have flash fried him in his seat right there.  Instead, with the forcefulness one would expect of taking an axe to wood, she grabbed the napkin at her plate side, and stuffed it into neck of her shirt, staring daggers at Ser Rosen all the while.  With an effort of will, he kept back his smile and set his book aside.  “Actually...that goes in your lap.”

[dainty-baneberry]

Prompt #7: Nonagenarian

The tantalizing smell of brown sugar, butter, nutmeg and brandy soaked dried fruit wafted gently through Mor Dhona. It hit the delicate, pixie like nose of a white haired Elezen teenager, whose head instantly shot up in recognition. “Couldn't be....” Alisaie Leveilluer observed, giving a refined sniff of the perfumed air. It was wholly the wrong time of year for a Princess Pudding, a treat generally reserved for Starlight in Gridania. “It certainly does smell like it... but who would....?” Alphinaud, white haired as his twin sister observed in confusion. They got an answer most promptly as a yellow clad lalafellian woman sped past them as quickly as her little legs would carrying her muttering. “Dainty, Dainty, Dainty, Dainty, Dainty” Hot on Krile's heels was Thancred, his grey eyes a light with the same delight Krile's voice had conveyed. The twins instantly dropped their things and took off running after their fellow Scions. Dainty's cooking was the stuff of legend among the Scions. She was rarely graced with the time to linger in the kitchen, nor did she often have the inclination but when she did it often became a free for all of slaps and elbows among the Scions to get themselves a coveted slice of pie, or cake, or nut bake, or roast or whatever Dainty had cooked. Thancred, in particular, who had been stranded in the First the longest was about ready to commit murder for a piece of whatever he could smell. He didn't care it was only just gone Moonfire Faire, and Princess Pudding was best served hot, with a steaming cup of cocoa in winter. He just wanted it. In his mouth, right now. The sound of racing footfalls alerted G'raha Tia and F'lahmin that they were about to have company where they sat on the Balcony of Rowena's House of Splendors in Mor Dohna, looking out over Revenants Toll.

“Where?” Thancred demanding, head moving side to side and eyes roving across the currently bare table in front of the miqo'te pair. Alisaie ducked under his arm, determined to get to the pudding first but was firmly checked by F'lahmin's stern, motherly Look; “Not served yet, so sit nicely.” They quickly did so, the quartet of Scions taking up places near to and next to G'raha Tia and F'lahmin.

Alisaie practically vibrated out of her skin with delight as Dainty came strolling onto the balcony from within the House of Splendor's kitchens. She carried a platter neatly on one hand and a small ceramic jug in the other. The pretty Au Ra wore an uncharacteristically bright smile on her usually stoic, scaled features that suggested that she had been drinking. “Here you are then, as requested; Princess Pudding.” Dainty announced smugly, setting the platter and steaming confection down in front of G'raha Tia. It was fresh from the oven, only just cooled enough to be removed from its mold and instantly the unmistakable scent of it fully slapped G'raha Tia in the face. As the Crystal Exarch the miqo'te man had been denied the Eorzean Starlight specialty for far, far too long. There was no such thing as Starlight on the First. Nor a Gridania, or even a Princess Pudding. For almost a full century he had been left with only his memories of the Seasonal Treat. When Dainty had offered to make him a cake or some such, to welcome him as one of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, it had been no effort on G'raha's part to name the dried fruit and almond filled pudding. “It smells amaz.... oh... really Dainty, was that necessary?” G'raha asked with a small fluff of his bright red tail upon seeing that Dainty had stuck a large iced cookie in the top of the pudding. It read “Welcome to our newest Nonagenarian!” in white royal icing.

Dainty smirked, amused at her own devilry. “Who cares what it says. Take the cookie out before she drinks the brandy.” Alisaie insisted loudly from beside G'raha Tia. G'raha looked up, seeing that Dainty did indeed have a jug of warm brandy to pour over the pudding as tradition. Suitably scolded G'raha removed the cookie. “Are you going to eat that?” Krile instantly asked, blue eyes regarding the cookie hopefully. It appeared to be shortbread and she did love her sweets. “I might almost think you the greatest cook in all the realm alongside being the greatest Warrior by such a reaction such as this, Dainty.” G'raha observed, gesturing to the eagerly waiting Scions who appeared to have been summoned from the wood work like rodents at the smell. He politely handing Krile the cookie that, incorrectly, proclaimed him to be a nonagenarian. In truth with his future soul rejoined to his present one he was technically a centenarian, although given how many sips of the brandy Dainty had taken while she was cooking he could not blame her for fudging her numbers a little. “But she is.” Alisaie insisted as Dainty gently lavished the pudding with the brandy. “The only person to ever score a full perfect 10 in the Dellemont D'or! The woman who surpassed the Legend Himself, Master Dellemont!” “Ah. I see.” G'raha Tia suddenly regretted giving Krile the cookie and although his fellow Baldesian Student had kindly split it with F'lahmin the two women had made short work of it. G'raha Tia regarded the way Thancred was clutching a fork as if his very life depending upon it. G'raha's feline ears wiggled with delight to share a joke with Scions. “I suppose I should earn myself no friends if I ate the entire pudding myself then.” “You might earn yourself a couple enemies for life.” Alphinaud warned, gesturing at Alisaie and Thancred. “And a nasty headache tomorrow. Dainty never does go lightly with the wine in her recipes. Never-mind the warm brandy.” F'lahmin cautioned gently. “Right. Well...” G'raha chuckled lightly, a shy little smile on his mouth. “The best pleasures are always best shared, after all. Might someone pass me a serving knife?”

[dainty-baneberry]

Prompt #4: Clinch

(The Rising Sands. A Realm Reborn) They were bound to come to blows eventually. Minfilia's soft entreaties and Urianger's attempts to deflect be damned. There was simply too much resentment on either side and both were entirely too pig-headed to sit down and resolve their issues with an adult conversation. Thancred absolutely believed that Dainty had disrespected Minfilia and continued to do so and he would no longer stand for it. Dainty absolutely believed that Thancred was a hypocrite with an anti-authority streak twice as long as her own. She was well sick of his sneers and pouts over an imaginary crime.

If he wasn't going to shut his mouth then Dainty would shut it for him. Especially when Minfilia herself did not feel insulted or disrespected by Dainty's sarcastic sense of humor or stoicism. So what if Dainty did not look particularly pleased about the tasks Minfilia set at her door. Or rolled her eyes behind her tankard when yet another of the Scions plans involved Dainty being sent on an arduous journey. Dainty never failed to complete those tasks, and those journeys with a bloody minded determination that, in Minfilia's opinion, spoke deeply of just how much Dainty did respect the orders of the Antecedent and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.

“Should we step in?” Moenbryda suggested. The Sea Wolf Roegadyn woman was well tall enough to heft the hyuran Thancred by the collar with one arm and the auri Dainty by the hem with the other so that they could not reach one another to trade blows. Dainty had started it, throwing an empty bottle at Thancred's head after yet another tart comment about her drinking when she had “work to do” Thancred's clenched fists as he glared at her and Dainty's taunting smirk spoke of violence. The Rogue and the Warrior were perilously close to erupting into a fist fight if something wasn't done. Urianger glanced left and right to see that Minfilia was currently absent and the shook his head; “Nay. Neither wilt be satisfied till one or other of them hath set thine other on their haunches.” “Idiot pair of mongrel dogs.” Moenbryda snorted but Urianger was correct. No amount of time, or talking, or distance would resolve anything between the contentious pair.

Dainty, ever the provocateur, threw the first punch. Thancred took a menacing step towards her and she responded with a body shot to prove she would not be intimidated. It missed, Thancred's reflexes being good enough to dance back in time for no connection to be made. He had always assumed his speed as a Rogue would more than compensate for Dainty's strength as a Warrior. Especially when both were without their weapons. What Dainty could do with an axe, and her Blessing of Light, Thancred knew he could not touch. Nor would he attempt to. She was something wholly unseen when it came to fighting on that level. But a scrapping, bare knuckle bar fight between unarmed combatants was a different kind of fight and one that Thancred was well versed in. He had been in more bar fights than he could count at this point in his life, many times triggering them himself as a method to gain trust with a mark by seeming to have their back in a scrape. It was a sound theory but leaking like a sieve from one major point. Had Dainty ever cared to share much of her private life with the Scions Thancred might of known that Dainty had spent the past 5 years since the Calamity wrestling with a very large Roegadyn adopted brother. Much like Laughing Couerl Thancred was significantly larger than the appropriately named Dainty. And her tactics worked on either man equally as well. In a burst of speed she ducked umder Thancred's return fire punch to grapple him around the ribs. This was done to eliminate his advantage of having much longer arms and range. For several moments they danced around, both unable to effectively punch or kick thanks to the close quarters but still doing what they could to hit and injure. Dainty got Thancred decisively with an elbow to the side, fighting dirty but it allowed her a second of opportunity to put him into a proper clinch hold as opposed to her original clumsy grapple. That was all she needed, sinking fingers into the flesh of his arm and shoulder enough that her nails drew blood. With a nasty snarl Dainty wrenched Thancred off his feet and threw him mercilessly to the wooden floorboards. Brutally she followed this up with a kick to his ribs that fully sent Thancred sprawling. “Oi!” Moenbryda jumped in, over riding Urianger's words to seize Dainty by one arm. “You've won, Dainty! Enough!” Kicking a man when he was down was in no way fair or sporting. “I am merely trying to show Thancred what my disrespect really looks like.” Dainty growled between her teeth, the orange limbal rings of her dark magenta eyes almost fully glowing. She looked about ready to shake off Moen's grip of her arm and continue the fight but instead remained in place, glaring at the silver haired Thancred as he rose unsteadily to his feet, holding his kicked ribs with one hand. Dainty said nothing more, as was her usual way. Her point had been made, her victory taken in a clinch she simply yanked her arm from Moenbryda's and summarily walked away to find another drink. Leaving Moen and Urianger to patch up Thancred if needed.

[dainty-baneberry]

Prompt #3: Muster

Urianger looked at the currently blue Au Ra sitting nonchalantly in the Wandering Stairs and eating an apple as if she had not a care in the world. “Well, t'is as Ryne said. Dainty is blue.” Alisaie observed needlessly also beholding the Au Ra. At just 4 bells after sunrise it was a little too early for the Crystarium bar to start serving alcohol but it surprised neither Alisaie nor Urianger that they found Dainty there nonetheless. The only time she ever sat still was when there was alcohol involved, or she took an unwilling exhaustion nap. “Now if thine could muster thy will to careth.” Urianger added in dark, and somewhat disapproving tones. Dainty's lack of concern regarding major alterations to her person was generally known in the Scions, even if they all oft thought her carelessness was highly problematic. Dainty, raised her apple to her mouth with one hand and with the other mustered up a gesture for Urianger's tone of voice that implied he ought to remove himself from her presence and do something perverse. “Charming.” The Elezen man frowned. Dainty grinned humorlessly. She failed to see why he was having such a snit about it. She didn’t need to be babied, or gawked at. She was the one that was blue and, as best they could tell, the fact that she was was entirely her doing.

[dainty-baneberry]

Prompt #1: Crux

Ardbert was right.

That was the crux of the issue. And it was only an issue because Dainty hated it when Ardbert was right.  To Dainty's left, a tome helpfully splayed open to a specific page, Ryne was eagerly looking at the chalk white drahn for a response. "... you're doing this to yourself."  Ardberts words remained in Dainty's mind as she turned her white eyes to the passage that Ryne was pointing to. It had taken a long time, and a significant amount of help from Morren at the Cabinet of Curiosity but Ryne believed she  finally had an answer for why Dainty resembled a Sin Eater when her aether was wholly balanced and robustly healthy. Many, many years in the past, according to the passage they had found, some drahn had had chameleon-like abilities to change colours. It was an unusual ability and quite rare and with so many killed in the Flood any who had had the ability were long gone, as were any who might have remembered them. Dainty, it would seem, was one of these rare individuals. Or perhaps all drahn  possessed the ability under the right aetherical circumstances, and Dainty's recent issues with her aether had unlocked the skill within her. It was impossible to say for sure, all Ryne knew was that it may finally explain Dainty's appearance when nothing else could. Ryne looked from the page to Dainty and back again several times, willing the Warrior if Darkness to respond and agree with her. Ryne had ever felt horrendously guilty for the flash of light that had altered Dainty's form. Even if everyone from the Exarch to Y'Shtola had insisted it was not Rynes fault.  Her reaction to being startled by Dainty's practical joke had been wholly appropriate. As little as Dainty liked it this did seem to be a legitimate explanation to her current predicament. According to the passage the chameleon like ability was triggered by emotions. Dainty had ever been stoic, and disliked being made to suffer her own emotions. Her refusal to face her own fear of death, as Ardbert had so decisively pointed out, had resulted in a drastic outward manifestation. Ryne's flash of light had made her feel, very briefly, how she had when the light corruption had almost overcome her. And her body had followed suit to resemble the very thing she would have become. A Sin Eater.  "If you could just... think real hard about feeling normal... you should change back." Ryne suggested hopefully, and with a confidence that she did not feel. If she was right about Dainty being a colour changing drahn then it really wasn't her fault that Dainty was stuck looking like a Sin Eater and she might just be able to forgive herself.  She wished Thancred were there, or Urianger. Anyone that might reassure her that Dainty's blank countenance was not masking anger. The drahn was so stoic. Ryne never could tell what she was thinking or planning at any particular moment in time. But they were all busy, as were the other Scions, trying to deal with Elidibus and the ever elapsing connection to their bodies in the Source.  "Mmmmm." Dainty observed tonelessly.  What she wanted to say was "what the fuck does normal feel like." but didn't fancy a Thancred lecture for cursing in front of Ryne.  Normal, Dainty silently contemplated the word as she closed her eyes. She was eager to shed her Sin Eater like form and was willing to give Ryne's theory credence if it would restore her tan skin and magenta and orange eyes. She was admittedly very vain and wanted her looks back. Her mind went instantly to the blue skies and seas of Limsa Lominsa.  Bright sunny weather was often observed to be normal for the port city so often that it was a running joke between the residents.  Thoughts of blue skies inevitably turned Dainty's thoughts to a well favoured pair of sky blue eyes and the man they belonged to.  She grinned silently. "Uuhm... " Ryne garbled, her own eyes widened as her theory was proven. A glow manifest around Dainty. Not dissimilar from the flash of light that had heralded Dainty's change fro, flesh tone to white but much slower to form.  It brightened first at her sternum before becoming so bright that Ryne had to look away and it left Ryne blinking at the searing after image "Dainty....?" "Mmm." Dainty replied again. She opened her eyes to regard Ryne but purposefully did not look at herself. For a few moments she almost didn't dare too although her peripheral vision told her her hair was still white.  "I'm not white anymore, am I?" Dainty wasn't sure what normal felt like but she knew it didn't feel like that had. "No, Dainty." Ryne shook her head with a little cringe. The Scions were going to be so mad at her when they saw Dainty. Ryne instantly assumed that she would be held to task for what had occurred this time.  "I'm not normal, am I." Dainty pressed. "Not... uhm... not unless your normal is...uh....blue...."