#lorh winnow

[violetlypurple]

Lorh Winnow & Pidgeon Sorrel

@grandcompany & @pidgeon-sorrel

[pidgeon-sorrel]

Pidgeon Sorrel x Evangeline Cross ( @the-warrior-and-the-mage ) x Lorh Winnow ( @grandcompany )

[just-the-mage]

☀️ SUN - are they a morning person? what is the first thing they do in the morning?

Evangeline woke up first. She was a bit surprised-usually Pidgeon was up before her, off into the forest to forage and pick flowers. She slowly disentangled herself from the two slumbering viera, only to see Pidgeon extracting herself from bed at the same time. They made eye contact, and both giggled, making sure that Lorh was flanked with pillows (and had received a kiss on the forehead from each of them) before escaping into the morning. Eva changed into her workout gear, a sports bra, a tank top, spandex shorts, and comfortable tennis shoes, and swept Pidgeon into a kiss before the veena slipped out the door. Evangeline followed not long after, a waterskin dangling from her hip, stretching for her morning workout. She took a quick lap around the house, getting her heart rate up, and then took off at a jog through the woods, leading herself on a winding path that she had trodden so frequently it was starting to look as if it had been intentionally tamped down for hikers. She passed the river, her halfway mark, and stopped to stretch again.

Taking slow, measured draughts of the waterskin at her hip, she poured a bit of it over her head, letting herself cool off for a moment before she continued. By the time she reached the house again, she was sweating again, but not so much so that she couldn't finish the rest of her routine. Three malms was still a fine distance for her morning run, though it had been years since she started her routine. Next were push-ups, crunches, pull-ups, and lunges, all of which she handled with relative ease. She stretched again, and wiped at her face with the bottom of her tank top. She followed this with her free-weight routine, casually lifting her dumbbells as she leaned against the side of the house. Two hundred squats later, she was done for the morning. Without much of a second thought, she shed her clothes, stepping underneath the outdoor shower that her girlfriends had been kind enough to help her install, and started rinsing off, pulling the small wooden door shut behind her with a muscular arm. Evangeline let the cool water run over her, quenching her abnormally warm skin, which nearly steamed at its touch. She scrubbed herself down, soaping up and rinsing off, running fingers along her well-defined, corded muscles, and allowing herself to relax a bit.

A few moments later, she stepped inside, wrapped in a towel, her hair still a bit damp, and cracked seven eggs into a pan, right about to start the fire when she heard: "Mmmph." From over towards the bed. She smiled, stepping over to check on Lorh, and as she bent over the bundle of sleepy viera, a pair of hands shot out from under the covers, pulling her into the bed with a yelp. "D-darling, I was trying to make breakfast!" Evangeline giggled, trying to pull away gently, but not really trying too hard. "Nnope. Bed." Lorh replied, and Evangeline lightly sighed, defeated. She wrapped herself around her lover, wondering if Pidgeon might make them breakfast when she got back...

Thank you for the ask, @sirenofdusk!

[grandcompany]

[lorhwinnow]

Small Temptations

It wasn't that the office was dimly lit, though what light did penetrate the wax paper covering that had been glued to the windows was meager indeed. No, what made the space so damnably difficult to work in was the way the low lantern swayed every time the shop above them got a new customer, sending shadows from the joints of the glass skittering over the pages of tiny print that made up the manifests and ledgers spread out over Lorh's desk.

As the door above her slammed, and the lamp spun its careening dance for the sixth time in the last half-bell Lorh groaned and reached for her cigarette case. That Master Drummons didn't care if she smoked on the job was one of the very limited perks of the position. As the match flared to life Lorh drew in a long pull of the fragrant tobacco and bent back over the manifest she'd been reading.

Her finger ran over the page, seeking out the tiny mark she'd made to indicate which row she'd stopped on. The tightly packed Doman characters crowding down the page, while beside it the same manifest ran horizontally, its Eorzian letters scrawled in a tidy, but cramped hand. Twelve casks of pickling ginger had been ordered by the merchant that had hired Durmmon's Auditing and Insurance Company. And there in the ship's manifest were twelve casks. Lorh's pen ticked a mark by that line and moved on. Five barrels of smoked mackerel. Her finger found the matching line written out in Doman and hesitated over the character scrawled under that column. The ship was carrying six barrels. Lorh smiled as she made a note, highlighting the discrepancy.

She paused for a moment over the line, and took a drag from her cigarette, soothed by the smell and taste of the fragrant tobacco. Her eyes fell back on the manifests and the tiny difference in numbers between the two. Such a small thing. A barrel of fish, and more than asked for was rarely a problem. The accounting house would note it, but as often as not nothing would be done about it.

And of course, that was exactly what most smugglers like herself were counting on. No one wanted to look for a hidden compartment at the bottom of 150 ponze of fish. How many missives and satchels of coin and coffers of rare goods had she hidden among stinking barrels of slimy fish? Too many to count. The more offensive or distasteful the cargo the better hiding place it made. She’d once gotten a 3 yalm tall statue through customs in Kugane by transporting in a narrow boat carrying a shipment of night soil. Smuggling, as it turned out, was often a dirty job in a very literal sense. It was all about knowing how to fly beneath the notice of officials, and while bribery and the occasional dead-of-night skulkery was needed, usually simple inconvenience did the bulk of the work for her.

Even now as she tapped the ash off her cigarette and moved onto the next line she had a suspicion that was exactly what would happen here. Worst case scenario there would be some additional fees or taxes taken, for ultimately that was the entire purpose of her job, to ferret out attempts to circumvent taxes or dock worker’s fees. An odd barrel of fish added up to almost naught among all that, and sending someone down to check on it would cost more gil than it’d earn. So the barrel would be noted, and handled entirely on paper, leaving whoever had placed it there, if indeed it had been on purpose, free to continue with their business.

Lorh took a deep breath and blew out a cloud of blue smoke. The temptation to go down to the docks herself, to look for the barrel with the odd mark, or the bent ribbing, or bit of graffiti was intensely strong. Who knew what she’d find there? Perhaps it would just be fish. Perhaps it would be enough treasure to make her job at the auditor’s shop obsolete. Perhaps it would be medicine, or reports from far-off spies, or ceruleum canisters, or any manner of other fabulous secretive things.

The thrill of even thinking of it set her heart pounding in her chest, and left the taste of the tobacco on her tongue feeling stale. Her eyes lifted from the page and looked around the cramped shop, with its rows of shelves and drawers containing ream after ream of paper. The desks where her fellows were busy scrawling away at similar manifests, comparing goods from all manner of far away places as they flowed into Eorzea’s great shipping hub. Suddenly Lorh felt an edge of panic creeping at the back of her throat and she bent her head back to her work.

Her eyes fell magnetically to the ship’s registry number, the dock where it had set in, the warehouse that was associated with its shipyard. All easy to trace. She knew how to find it, if she wanted. It would be simple. So easy. Too easy.

A shadow fell across her desk as the tall, slender frame of an elezen moved between her and the lamp, “Something the matter, Winnow?”

“Just a bit of a hand cramp,” Lorh lied easily as she looked up at the manager’s passive face. “I’ll be back to it in a moment.”

The elezen paused and set her fingers lightly on the top of Lorh’s manifests, glancing down her long nose and over a pair of silver rimmed spectacles. Then she smiled thinly, “Take your tea if you want to, dear.” With that she swept away, back to sit at her tall counter like some sort of drab vulture. Lorh knew enough by now to look past the woman’s words and capture the meaning of her tone. She stubbed the cigarette out and pushed the fluttering feelings of curiosity away as she picked up the next line.

Eight hundred yalms of hempen cordage. Seventy casks of persimmon wine. Fifteen bales of raw cotton. And on, and on, and on, but beneath it all the hot ember of desire burned in Lorh’s breast, smoldering like a spark above dry powder.

[pidgeon-sorrel]

Pidgeon Sorrel x Lorh Winnow ( @grandcompany )