#miqo'terp

[songbird-of-the-rain]

Stupid boys being stupid boys. :x 

[sagoliisaffron]

Ding level 70 Monk! I am playing around with faces right now for her model but will be switching back and forth until I choose which one to go with. I am bothered with the in-game markings not matching what she has in my head... but THIS MONK SET HAS ME SO HYPE IT DOESN’T MATTER. ♥ I had to share.

[songbird-of-the-rain]

-*Little Mermaid intensifies*- Being a dork, doing doodles of a boy in a slightly different aesthetic.

[songbird-of-the-rain]

Tales from the Forgotten Era

Because I’m an absolute sucker for worldbuilding and storytelling, and drink my own kool-aid like some sort of sad heathen, I started writing nonsense tangentially related to my main RP character, Eru’a, and the history of his ancestors, largely focused upon his Great, Great, Great, so many generations back, grandfather - a miqo’te named Aelua, his right hand man, Kahja, and their adventures during the great miqo’te migration of the Fifth era. 

Now I know what you’re thinking: But we don’t know anything about the fifth era, so how on earth are you going to write anything about it? 

To that, I offer a hedonistic giggle, curl my fingers inward, and maniacally declare that in an age of lost information, the possibilities are endless, and it’s all in good fun anyway or something, so I really don’t think the fantastic staff at Square-Enix is going to mind if I indulge in a pocket adventure and extrapolate that into bad novella proportions.

Still, for the all of two people who accidentally opened my blog and landed on this page, I hope there’s some enjoyment to be had from my nonsense endeavors when they find their way here.

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The barren fields of the great ice plains stretched a thousand malms in each direction. No matter which way one were to look, the endless sea of blinding white stared back with a dreary emptiness. It was beautiful in a way, poetic, he thought as his feet crunched against the hardened snow. Would that it offered more of a view than buried trees and long forgotten memories of a world spoken of in fairy tales.

Kahja adjusted the collar of his thick coat, drawing it tighter about his neck. Even if he'd grown into a young man amidst the howling winds, the feeling of chill nipping against bare flesh never proved comfortable. In truth, he loathed the long walks he took in the open air. Like wisping water ripples, the wind wove throughout his hair and battered the woolen feline ears nestled upon his scalp. Snow clung to his body, right to the very tip of his long tail. He supposed it was a blessing that his people were gifted with such assets, for without them, he was certain he and his would have faced a similar fate to those forgotten souls at the start of what had come to be known as the Fifth Umbral Calamity.

The gods could be kind, even if they had seen fit to scorn the mortal realm and bury it beneath the frost.

With a flick of his lengthy tail against the ivory powder, Kahja began the trek up the hillside, patting his boot against the ground once, and then twice, to be certain the ground were stable. The heaviness of his breath pooled before his face like dense fog, leaving behind puffs of clouds the further he trekked.

"Aelua!", he called over the gentle breeze when he reached the top of the hill's curve. His ears perked forward and he waited, listening intently to the silence about him. When no response came, he cursed, spitting a heated drop of saliva upon the ground before lashing his tail from one side to the next.

"Gods damned manic.", he grumbled. "Can't simply stay put like he's asked to do. Watch the hunt. No. Always galivanting off like some---"

As Kahja turned to descend the hilltop and continue along his journey, his feet slipped upon a patch of loose ground. His feet fumbled with the powder, and, giving a yowl one could not hope to describe, he promptly slid along the edge of the hill until he tumbled feet over head from top to the very bottom. The mist of snow plumed up in a puff, twirling about the gentle breeze before it deigned to carry it on and into the endless empty.

"That's certainly one way to make your presence known.", a voice lilted within his ringing ears. Soft and gentle as it was, Kahja could not help but turn himself towards it in an attempt to lay eyes upon its bearer. Lyrical and crisp as it was, it carried with it a certain quality that somehow both soothed and boiled the blood within his very veins.

Not unlike the face it accompanied.

Standing before him was a miniscule young man, much like himself. Like all miqo'te, brilliant feline ears coated in fur pointed and perked towards him, and a tail so long it settled upon the ground sat before his face, tickling the tip of his nose with each strand of obsidian hair. Kahja shoved it away and blinked the snow from his eyes until his vision had grown clear enough to focus upon a pair of mismatched ones, azure as the blue glacier and black as the night herself.

"Aelua." Kahja breathed a weary sigh. Each of his hands pressed down against the ground, seeking out the solid points so that he might hope to place his weight upon them. "Stars grant me strength, have you any idea the trouble you've caused tonight? And now you show up here, as if---"

"I seem to recall hearing you calling for me, not the other way around." The young man, Aelua, smiled. Nimble fingers brushed a few strands of long hair from his face before he offered a hand to the fallen man before him, waiting patiently for it to be taken. Once it had been, he leaned back with all of his weight, straining to drag the other up and onto their feet. "As for the trouble, you'll accept my apologies, won't you?"

Kahja staggered two steps forward, until he were balanced. The ears upon his head levelled out, finding themselves lost amidst his own choppy hair. He narrowed his eyes at Aelua, then promptly proceeded to brush the loose bits of snow away from the dark fur and heavy cloth of his clothing. "Even if I accept them, Yahana might not, you know... We lost two bits of game to the beasties without a pair of eyes on the store and she's more red faced than the second moon."

Aelua's thin lips quirked into a grimace. He hummed a low note while brushing a bit more snow from Kahja's garments, staring listlessly at the air.

A long moment of silence passed between the two men, broken only by the whisper of the gale. It was not until the quiet became uncomfortable that Kahja spoke to shoo it on its way:

"Did it happen again?" He trilled a bit of air upon his lips and ran his hands throughout his choppy hair.

Aelua offered a small nod in turn, then tore his eyes away to look back over his shoulder. The ears upon his head followed suit, turning slowly before settling on a point in the far distance. With a shake of his head, he returned his gaze to Kahja and feigned a weary smile. "I heard it. I swear I did. If I hadn't, I'd not have left the game unattended. You know that, don't you?"

Kahja rolled his head back, pointing his nose towards the sky. His brown eyes closed, shrouding the world in comfortable darkness.

"You don't believe me."

Aelua's voice sang within his ears. His eyes promptly opened, returning to gloss over his companion and then the area about them. Without a word at first, he closed a bulky hand about Aelua's shoulder, urging him to walk forward and towards the trail of shallow footsteps he'd left behind upon his initial journey into the empty wastes.

"I don't know.", Kahja answered simply. "But you can't go wandering off like this. Not without saying anything."

"And if I said something, they'd not believe a word of it, you know that!"

Kahja shook his head, knocking away flecks of snow that clung to him with arrogant persistence. "Nevermind it, now. What's done is done, and I need to bring you back before the Sixth Umbral Calamity befalls us all." With a puff of air from his nose, he huffed and continued onward, occasionally shoving his companion as if to ensure the pace did not slow to a crawl. He was cold, after all, and the less time he needed to spend in the open breeze, the happier he knew he would be. Nevertheless, as their stride slowly began, he took a moment of pause to watch Aelua trudge forward. "Tell me about it tonight, would you? What you heard?"

A brightness sang within Aelua's eyes when he looked back towards the other. Thin lips curled into a wry smile and he nodded his head once, then twice, for good measure. "Home, then. And hopefully Yahana won't be too cross about the game."

[sagoliisaffron]

Gift art for @mustard-face! Thank you for letting me use your character to shake the rust off. :> Hope you like it! 

OOC blog @najikat FFXIV blog @sagoliisaffron

[sagoliisaffron]

K’ajia Ahadi - Saffron & Sotol

For one week each year, gorgeous purple flowers bloom in only a few places around the Eorzea. What remains of K'ajias tribe wade into the purple seas to harvest the blooms by hand and then pick their stamens to sell as saffron. The harvest process is tedious, but these high-maintenance flowers are also very selective about the climates that they grow in and the yields are very hit or miss. Each flower - or saffron crocus - produces about three stamens, which must be picked by hand. About 150 flowers are needed to produce a gram of saffron and saffron can sell for between 2,000 to 10,000 Gil per pound. K'ajia assists in the sale as well as transport and collection of the Saffron, allowing herself and those involved to reap the rewards.

While Saffron can be a risky trade depending on one short week a year of harvest, Sotol as well as the Desert Spoon itself has become a more steady trade option to fill in the gaps near year-round for her people. Sotol is a distilled spirit made from the Dasylirion wheeleri, Asparagaceae (commonly known as Desert Spoon), a plant that grows through North and South Eastern Thanalan. It is known as the regional drink and popularized among the common-folk. There are few commercial examples available; a large amount of current stock within the great city of Uld'ah having passed through the hands of the Hipparion tribe and/or the Refugees of Little Ala Mhigo they have allied themselves with. The flowering stem of Sotol is one of the best materials for making a friction fire, as it is straight, light in weight, and strong. As it is straight, the stem requiring little to no straightening prior to use, it is still commonly used as a lance and spear among her tribe, the latter with an attached stone or metal point. The base of a cooked Sotol stem may be eaten rather like an artichoke leaf (by scraping across the front teeth). This remnant, called a "quid", resembles a spoon and can be used as one.

The Desert Spoon takes approximately 15 years to mature and yields only one bottle of Sotol per plant, which means the requirement of multiple harvest plants turning over and maturing in a staggered fashion in order to be reliable. The lost of one harvest can be detrimental-- something the Hipparion tribe is all too familiar with and accounts for with large underground root cellars. Desert Spoon typically grows on rocky slopes. Unlike agave, which flowers only once in its lifetime, Desert Spoon produces a single flower stalk every few years. Once the plant matures, it is harvested. The outer leaves are removed to reveal the center core, which is taken back or sold to a distillery. The core can then be cooked and/or steamed, shredded, fermented, and distilled.

Sotol Age Classifications:

■ Plata

Un-aged, straight from distillation to the bottle.

■  Reposado (rested)

Aged several months to a year.

■  Añejo

Aged for at least one year. ---- More to come! ---- (This is a WIP and working super hard to make it an original financial and historical platform for her and her split-off of the Hipparion Tribe. Her history isn’t connected or associated to any other player-based ideas or headcanons  of the K(Koo)/Hipparion Tribe or any of it’s other many split-offs in Eorzea. :> Please don’t copy or relate your character to the history of my OC or her split-off Hipparion(Koo) Tribe without permission! Just wanted to share K’ajias way of life and a taste of the culture in which she was raised. ♥ Art by Infern - No active account. ;o;)

[sagoliisaffron]

My commission is done! I have a few different versions by @ladyeilkahn! One has really pretty Saffron flowers behind it! Once I watermark it with her name I will post those up! :> Super happy with this. I don’t think I’ve ever commissioned someone without having to ask for 500 edits besides some of my good art friends who know me well. This was a very pleasant experience in that aspect and she really grasped this characters feel/attitude and design aesthetic. ♥