#rommie's diary

[kisskissrommie]

Thirteenth Sun of the Second Astral Moon

It’s been a strange week. Or maybe even sextnight at this point. Let me start at the end: I’m the new day-to-day Proprietress at the Bandee Pakshee. Yeah. So here’s how that whole situation came about. 

Two weeks ago, we had some clients hire A’sharah and I for a spa day. This included my longtime regular Rex, Sharah’s girlfriend Myra and Laz. Pedicures, massages, it was the whole nines. Xau and a newer employee Suiren came by as well, and the group of us joined Vandal upstairs for a nice chit-chat and catpile. Catpiles are great. 

I got this call on that one particular linkshell that some people in La Noscea were hurt, so I took Xau up to the Nymian ruins and met up with Madison and Anhe from Sword and Spear. Great folks, really! The situation we saw was... strange. A dragon gorged on aether had run amok. I know dragons, that’s not normal. Madison promised to keep me in the loop on the investigations, but it was Anhe I hit it off with. 

Anhe is adorable and she and I have a lot in common. A week later, at the Grindstone, I ran into her again and invited her to come back to the Pakshee. Sharah made it through her first round, and though Anhe was busy with her mentor that night, she said she’d visit as we parted ways. The Sharah cheering section, usual suspects though they be, came back to the Pakshee for catnip and conversation.

That’s where a simmering conflict between Mhee and Sharah stopped simmering. Mhee seemed to disapprove of the gentle and casual camaraderie of the catpile and she and Sharah exchanged heated words. I tried to settle them and think it was me that got the fight to at least not continue take place in front of guests like my beloved Rheya, but the fight just exploded again the following day.

Worse still, Mheena’s partner brought children to the Pakshee, which managed to upset virtually everyone except Uzzy himself. 

By yesterday, Mheena’s leadership and Sharah’s anger had been marks on the company in front of everyone from Spa Day, maybe even Anhe, as well as Rheya. I wasn’t going to let this conflict continue. I had to get them both to settle down.

All together, there weren’t many resources left to me. Sharah had become set on a path to cause a power-struggle and she wasn’t exactly wrong. Mheena had not been ready for the position thrust upon her, and it was showing in her burnout and occasional disregard for her own rules. But I wanted Mheena to grow and reshape into the leader we needed, not to fracture the company with a very public struggle over leadership. 

We called for Zuzu.

Zuzu - Z’zhumi Umi - is the founder of the company, and while daily operations haven’t really been in her hands for some time, she remains the person able to come in and make sweeping changes. I think Sharah and I both expected that Zuzu would either elevate Sharah to leadership or, my preference, get Mheena’s act together and find out what was at the heart of her troubles. 

I know Mhee felt in over her head, but she didn’t seem willing to reach out. I’d hoped Zuzu could fix that. 

I wasn’t expecting Mhee to leave. And I hope, one day, she sees her way home to us. I get it, though. She’d taken too much on herself and gotten burned by it. I’d been there. I tried to share that lesson with her. 

So, with her stepping down to pursue her personal affairs in a lower-stress environment, who would lead us? Well, apparently me. 

Look, all I want in live is to train courtesans, to make sure they’re safe and happy and well cared for. That’s the extent of my ambition. But, to accomplish that task, I was needed here. Zuzu heard about my efforts to find diplomatic resolutions to the conflict, she knows about my connections and relative fame as a performer. 

I just wonder if it’s right to have an Ishgardian pale as the snow wax lyrical about Sagolii culture. I still can’t pronounce ‘salaam’ right. I can’t be the face of the place. But I can run it. I believe that much about myself. And I trust the members and other managers here to be dependable.

This wasn’t how I thought yesterday would go, but I’ll see it through tomorrow.

((OOC NOTE: This journal entry covers the IC reasoning and rationale about Rommie taking over the leadership of the Pakshee. This is NOT an OOC explanation of what transpired and it should be noted that Pakshee parts on good terms with Mheena and wishes her the best.)) (( @bandeepakshee @eorzeasfinest @dmlynx @milady-momo @sord-ffxiv @acronycal-ffxiv ))

[kisskissrommie]

Eleventh Sun of the First Umbral Moon

This week’s been a busy one. 

I got a new job, invested in a new relationship, the gears of change are turning for me. And, per usual, it came to a head at Thaliak’s Embrace. I need to aptly give those people a hug. I think, for the first time in forever I am starting to feel like myself again. 

I am the gentlewoman thief again. That’s what ‘home’ really is to me. 

First thing’s first, I formally left the Keeper’s Kiss. I am employed by Bandee Pakshee now, I’m hoping to become their Madame and do what I learned to do at the Kiss - to tend to and care after courtesans. Pakshee is a gem in the rough of ‘pillowhouses’ in Ul’dah. And, well... I can’t be a part of Keeper’s Kiss anymore. The painful memories are too fresh and the good memories are too distant. 

The Pakshee is pretty small at the moment, but I’m optimistic. I imagine if U’bastis started her own company, it’d be a lot like this one - hookah, Sagoli aesthetic, it serves almost exclusively Sandworm. Seriously, my only gripe about this place is having to head over to Equinox to get Rixy’s cooking. Can I buy them a kitchen? Can I hire them a chef? 

I get it, I’m the Ishgardian in the desert. Summer is going to be awful. Still, I’d rather like to inspire a little Northern touches to this place. Nothing too fancy. A bit of dodo on the menu. You know, the creature comforts. 

The other major event from this week was Rheya. My Rheya Sunshine. 

She told me last night that I had only ever seen a flickering candle and a house fire. She told me I was finally able to see a campfire for what it was. And after spending a Valentione’s festival date with her, I do see it. I see that I don’t need to be swept out to sea by someone to be in love with them.

Andy taught me that there were many different facets to love. That the love I had for my daughter was so deep and so vast and yet without the turbulence I had learned from Kotone. It wasn’t a sprint, or a tidal wave, or a hurricane - my love for Andy was the very soil. Stable and nurturing. And my love for Rheya is as liberating as flight and as boundless as the sky. All those things and more are love, and all those things and more have place in a person’s life. 

It seems a strange sort of bookend to my last year that Thaliak’s Embrace was where I first really bonded with Rheya, and now is where I took her into my arms as a girlfriend for the first time. And I know we’re both unsteady sometimes and we both will, at times, wonder if we are worth the other’s investiture. I also know that we’ll remind one another that we are so valued. 

Between the Pakshee and Rheya, I see my life slowly emerging from the wild and the winds. Yes, I lost my ‘wife’ to bitterness and sorrow. Yes, I lost my daughter to illness and death. Yes, I lost my job to the burden of painful memory. But slowly, amid all that loss, I am beginning to find myself anew. 

Stars and stones, when did I get so trite.   

(( @rheyatayuun @bandeepakshee @thaliaksembrace ))

[kisskissrommie]

Twenty-Eighth Sun of the First Astral Moon

Here we are again.

Someone tried to tell me tonight that I wasn’t alone. That I just thought I was. That the sooner I realized they weren’t all fawning over Kotone and lining up to kick me for hurting her the sooner I’d heal.

He was exactly half full of shit. 

Ren was right about some things. I’ve isolated myself. I’m bitter now about having to carry my pain and my sorrow over Kotone and Andy by myself, especially seeing her constantly surrounded by adoring fans, people who would bend the horizon into a heart for her. She’s constantly trailing people who love her like a wake, and no one loves me. I stand alone in my suffering. At least a part of that, though I don’t believe it’s as much as Ren seems to think, is because I send them away. 

How many times have people actually come to check on me and my first words were ‘Look after Kotone’ or ‘Kotone needs you’? Dozens at least. And then, I tell myself I am unloved. I am alone. Am I? Maybe no one will dote on me or fawn over me like they do Kotone... someone else told me tonight that that’s the curse of looking strong, no one knows when you feel weak. But there were people. People who did try. People who I sent to join her throngs of adoring fans, people I told that she mattered more than me. 

She does. That’s not the point. 

The point is, how can I fault them for just being who I want them to be? I ask them to tend to her, to look after her, and then feel alone and frustrated that no one looks after me? Of course they don’t. I’ve asked them to go elsewhere. 

The thing Renaux was dead wrong about was healing. I really don’t know if there’s a way to come back from where I am right now. Andy, Kotone... the two most important people in my life, and one of them died and the other I ruined so badly that she’d be better off if I was dead. I’ve all but given up my job at this point, I haven’t taken a client in three moons at least. I can barely leave my apartment. I can barely face the world.

If I can ever be okay again, it isn’t the magic bonds of coworkership that’ll fix me. It isn’t the Elysium. The Elysium was a home for me once, it was a family for me once. Now it’s a building. Work. The place where I might see Kotone. Now it’s a place I don’t want to be. And even if I repair those friendships I’ve left to atrophy, and even if I come back to them, who am I? Am I the person who joined them a year ago? Or am I some broken thing, something that can’t be strong anymore? Something they’re better without?

At the end, the point is simple; I don’t think I will ever be me again. I don’t think they would want to endure what I’ve become. And even if it does happen, and I do find my way back from the edge, I don’t think it’ll happen any time soon.

I lost everything I loved. And, in so doing, I lost everything about myself that anyone else could love. 

That’s the state of things. That’s what I am now.

So no, it isn’t just a matter of coming back to the Elysium and leaving notes around the office and stealing people’s shoes and eating food made by a fucking Sylph and everything being normal again. Nothing is ever going to be normal again. I need to redefine normal. 

(( @shroudwayman ))

[kisskissrommie]

Tenth Sun of the Sixth Astral Moon

Once upon a time I said I wanted to see justice done though the heavens fall. And then the heavens fell. 

I was ready to give up a lot to put an end to Nikolas Synclair and the nightmare that has hung over me and my love since that Gardener girl first disappeared. I was sure I was ready to give up whatever it took. I wasn’t expecting to give up Kotone. But here we are. 

And now I’m alone. And in a matter of days the world will know Kotone Synclair.

The ink from the pen just trailed off the paper. Whatever else was going to be written when Rommie sat down to her diary couldn’t be. 

Kotone Synclair.

Those words just broke their writer. 

(( @kotone-shimayasu @nikmaybeahcerealkiller ))

[kisskissrommie]

Twenty-Sixth Sun of the Fifth Astral Moon

The entry was written in code, a complicated cipher Rommie hadn’t used since her days with the Brume Rats, appearing as gibberish of letters and numbers beneath the date. Below is the entry, decoded. 

Never thought I’d be writing like this again. Pax, if you ever see this, at least you’ll know. Gabriel, Hector, Doyle... whoever found this, I really could use you right now. Shit’s spiraled and I’m not sure even I know what I’m doing at this point. 

Kotone left me. That’s fine. I want her to know who she is anyway. But that started all this rolling. You guys never got to meet her, but you’d have thought her just another mark. Naive, cute, not particularly attached to anything. Perfect for easy pickings. I mean, she doesn’t have much, but she’s also not going to catch you when you’re taking it, so... but you’d have missed something special by casting her off like that. She’s like this delicate ripple on the ocean, she looks small and not threatening but she can grow into a wave, and wash away a lot of sins. That’s what she’s done for me. Who she is to me. And that, ironically, is why I’ve sinned bad enough to encode this for you guys. 

For about the same reason you’d have robbed her and forgotten about her, she got herself mixed up in something. I should’ve seen it, but I was too busy trying to push her to live her life that I caught what the score was too late. Maybe this cushy job has made me soft. Or dumb. Maybe I’m a mark now too. But either way a son of a bitch named Nik Synclair got his talons in her. Name ring a bell? He’s been on all those fliers from Gridania. 

If I’m dead or in gaol when you read this and he’s not - kill him. Kill him now.

I can’t say for sure if Nik killed that Gardener girl the Alliance is abuzz about, but I can say he’s the kind of creepy psychopath that absolutely could. Maelstrom has him pegged as the killer and, since they can’t prove it, wants to arrest Kotone for the crime. Maybe it’s to pressure him or I into cooperating more with their investigation, maybe they actually think Kotone did it, or maybe they just want someone hung and don’t much care as to who. My money is on the last bit. I can’t let that happen.

I got about a day of sleep - it was needed. I was on fumes after running around speaking to everyone and working different angles of the case. The next thing I’m doing, after writing this, is going to a place I called ‘creepy clandestine academy’ in a previous entry. You’ll find it in the Beds. Ninth Ward. Place’s called Shinoka. There’s a big guy I call Chief who I think is head of security? If I’m gone, the password’s Xel. That’s where I’m going to try and get Kotone to safety. The owner - or something - he has a thing for her. I’m sure he’ll protect her until the other moon falls if I say she’s in trouble. See to her. You’ve got my accounts, you know where the off-the-books money is. It’s hers. 

There’s another matter of business. Nik himself. The idiot came to Elysium last ni on Lightningday night. I broke his face. Deserved, even if he didn’t kill Gardener. He got Kotone involved. He muddied her waters. Fucker even had sex with her if he’s to be believed. Stuck crazy in my girl. That ain’t right.  He’s being held by a group called Black Lotus. They’re level with our kind. Drop my name with them and if it doesn’t work drop the name Kasumi. They’re holding him in very suitable accommodations for a shitstain like him. 

I said I’d let him go if I can prove he didn’t do it. I meant it. But if I’m in gaol or dead, I can’t rightly prove that, can I? Have him dealt with. 

I still don’t do wetwork. It’s not like that. But going on two days of no sleep and a whole lot of righteous anger, I almost killed him right on the lawn. I didn’t. Murder’s bad for business, even if it’s justified. But I know you never minded slitting a throat of someone who earned it, Pax. And Hector can break a neck faster than I can blink. To say nothing of the fact that Lotus has some nice slow ways to end a life. I trust you to clean up.

And you’re my family. I love you.

And I love Kotone. Tell her that.

Let’s see where this takes me from here, yeah?

( @nikmaybeahcerealkiller @csi-eorzea @kotone-shimayasu @blacklotus-ffxiv @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast )

[kisskissrommie]

Twenty-Sixth Sun of the Fourth Umbral Moon

Throwing gil at problems is the favorite way to solve them for the monied interests world over. Don’t misunderstand, philanthropy is a noble mission, but philanthropy on its own won’t ever change anything. Philanthropy is how you ease the problems caused by broken systems without fixing what’s broke. That said, I’ve never turned down a chance to help kids like I was years back, and so when Iris (@lominsianlily) offered to hire Rixy (@notasylph) and I to make food for Dufresne Bellworks’ (@dufresne-bellworks) charity event in the Brume, of course we took her up on it. At cost. 

Rixy set up in House Blanchimont’s kitchen and we borrowed some of Kiss’ catering supplies. All in all, Rixy did a pretty decent job making quick foods that were beyond the measure of stuff I ate as a Brume rat. Mostly Mqio’bobs and baked popotos, but made with that Rixia quality that almost makes me believe in gods again. And a decent gal who apparently knows Iris, someone named... Rex (@rexnorh), I think, helped me unload the cart when I got it to the Brume.

For the most part, it was a good evening. Got to know and help some kids (@brumeorphan) and keep an eye on the nobles to make sure they didn’t decide to lose their temper and beat the shite out of a Brumer. All was good until a little troublemaker fell off the scaffolding outside the Knight and nearly made a new crack in the road. I managed to catch her (and the well-dressed Elezen next to me got all the credit, how’s that for reform?) and tried to give her some sagely wisdom. Hopefully seeing that it doesn’t have to end in the slums for them is inspiring? I don’t really know. Honestly, if they follow how I got out, I’m not sure I’m being much a force for good.

But I did try to help her rob a toymaker. 

Okay, not a force for good then. Got it. Still, there’s not a lot of room for ‘good’ back there. I felt right just bringing some smiles and some food to them. And I’m not sure how much there is I can do besides that, it’s left to the people who can actually do something really. Like Iris. I’m stuck with the philanthropy. I wouldn’t move back to Ishgard for all the tea in Doma, but sometimes I’m sad that I’ve lost the ability to really make change because of that.

[kisskissrommie]

Twentieth Sun of the Fourth Umbral Moon

T’was a wild night at the Thaliak’s Eye (@thaliakseye) festival. Kotone (@kotone-shimayasu) and I attended on our date and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the festivities. All the other issues set aside, we had a great time eating shaved ice, being followed around by a bomb and getting charms for luck and fortune. And we were two of the few winners of the test of strength. I only regret not catching her a goldfish.

Beyond merely the attractions of the evening, though, we wound up whisked off on a small adventure. Our dear friend Rheya (@rheyatayuun) had an unpleasant spell worked on her hands that she needed unweaving and she turned to Kotone as someone capable of the task. The affliction apparently was caused by a cretin who believes himself to be Thal’s chosen one. Rheya was rather intoxicated when recounting the story, though...

On our way to a place Kotone knew to address the issue, we came across one of my courtesans, Miko (@boku-no-miko) having some manner of altercation with Jun (@alleycatkingpin) and Tei (@teirra-xiv). I don’t know at the moment the exact details, but it sounded like it was a shady backwoods deal involving a million-gil yukata? The things people choose to get themselves worked up over... my yukata is fairly nice and I paid a fraction of that. Still, I am relieve the matter did not, as I had feared, come to blows. I would’ve been compelled to intervene because my courtesans were involved and that would not have ended well. 

Eventually a small party of us, including the bomb that everyone joked thought I was its mother, wound up at what I can only define as a clandestine school. It was lavish beyond reason and well-staffed. Guarded by password, wards and a giant mute Seawolf who, as I don’t know his name, I have taken to calling ‘chief’. The school had the facilities needed to tend to Rheya’s injuries, though I got into an... argument with one of its staff. In that I would like to punch her in the face, steal her most cherished possession and possibly stab her non-fatally for good measure. Not only was she cruel to Kotone, but she decided to call us ‘whores’. Being as I am in fact a very highly paid courtesan, I didn’t take kindly to that mislabeling. 

A good theme for the night’s events after the party was that if someone screws with my people, I will not react with kindness. Regardless of the circumstances, of which Kotone assured me there were plenty. 

To my knowledge, Kotone is still at Clandestine Academy recovering from overexertion of the magical nature - slightly disappointing as the entire evening was a prelude to overexertion of the physical nature instead. The bomb followed me home and, apparently, eats muffins. I was guessing oil, but I know nothing of bomb anatomy so I suppose I oughtn’t be surprised. Also, the bomb likes Certo (@the-false-ser-toes), which also oughtn’t be a surprise because, as he pointed out, they are both volatile and cause collateral damage. 

I turn my attention now to a few matters of business for the near future, and to Kotone’s recovery. 

[kisskissrommie]

Twelfth Sun of the Third Astral Moon

I haven’t written in my diary for a moon now. I wish I could say it was simple neglect, but honestly there hasn’t been much to say until the last several days. Life has been more quiet and comfortable than I enjoy, truth to tell, and I worry it has dulled my edge, in more ways than merely the state of my daggers. 

Things did grow more interesting when Lady Blanchimont bid me return to Ishgard. To put it at its simplest, she saved the life of someone of importance to me and asked me to help stoke the fire of Ishgard’s revolution. Not so much in exchange, though I don’t think for a moment that her intention was anything but. Even the most admirable nobles are still corrupted by their power. At least Iris seems aware of it.

And then, on Earthsday, I was poisoned. Which was interesting. The original theory I had, that it was an attempt to disrupt the Cliffs show last night, seems supported by the fact that the fifth bard on the bill. Savo is well-known for drinking wine at Respite Cabarets and it was wine that was poisoned with silencing draught. It seems at least reasonable to draw the conclusions I’ve come to, although they be mostly circumstantial in nature. 

Despite a missing performer, the Night at the Cliffs went off splendidly. A little rebellion, a little sex, a little literal fire and a lot of shock and awe marked the themes of the night, as well as copious Marcellain ego-stroking. As much as I like him, I hate him. He’s the worst of celebrity - self-involved, convinced the public needs him, and that the stage is a trial he must endure for his public. He’s got the fire of a good person at his core, I think, but I want to slap the shit out of him for the antics he’s associated with his persona and the beliefs he seems to hold about the nature of an entertainer. 

After the show I was given the ability to commission clothing from a tailor and Kagon gave me a weird dark crystal to hold on to for safekeeping. I am tempted to pawn the crystal to Lady Iris for her study, but Kagon seems reluctant on that point. Regardless, I’m satisfied with how this show has turned out and am excited about the next.