#I'M SORRY MARI I TOOK FOREVER TO REPLY TO YOUR BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED ASK

[leidemechanic]

@arachnexdragoon | cont. 

Aranea had just been returning from some field work - a red giant nest dangerously close to the citadel, a place where these creatures usually didn’t gather in larger groups, but their behaviors were… Erratic, so to say. They had lost a lot of the scientists who could actually try to explain what the fuck was going on with the daemons, and Aranea was just used to fight the occasional one during nighttime when she flew over Lucians roads.

Now it was almost a standard gig every couple of days - and while she didn’t mind the daemons, she was worried about the state of her carrier and the inertia controller of her armor. It was the bit that allowed her to do her trademark jumps and remain airborne as Noctis used to - and there was only one man capable of mending Niflheim-made tech these days: Cid Sophiar.

Cindy’s voice attracted her attention though - she smiled at the girl and at the way her men followed the mechanic’s figure too - well, Cindy was famously married to her work, but it didn’t stop every single (straight) male friend she had from being interested. Nodding, she started to unclasp the breastplate off, removing the harder (and more dangerous) pieces of her armor since she was at a safe place now.

“Just finished for today, so not busy. Just think I smell like burnt wood thanks to these giant flaming swords,” she grinned at Cindy, leaving her gear on the nearest empty spot on the ground and stretching her arms a bit - it felt good to be relieved of all that weight. “Also Cid’s taking a look at my stuff, so I’m not really going anywhere. What you have in mind?”

It was hard not to notice the feeling of being stared at as she worked or walked by - something that she had been used to and very much encouraged when it brought gil and customers to Hammerhead. Now?  Now it no longer mattered. Things were tougher than before: the light extinguished and daemons becoming more frequent than one would like. The world was a little scarier than before. 

Despite it all, Cindy did her best to keep up appearances. Someone had to flash a welcoming smile now and again when an exhausted hunter rolled inside the gates of the outpost with their battle-scarred trucks. Yet for a while now, her mind was elsewhere; work brought to a steady crawl while her gaze flitted across the faces of the worn and weary. They did so much for everyone and though, she didn’t need to, she very much felt she owed them all for what they did. 

It was the reason why she brought herself to Aranea with all smiles, chuckling at the dragoon’s statement while she removed her armor and set it aside. “That bad, huh? The shower’s back up an’ runnin’  should ya need it.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, gesturing to the garage before her smile fell at the mention of her grandfather. He was going to find out sooner rather than later what his granddaughter had planned, but she pressed on with the idea regardless. 

“I want ya to teach me to fight...” Cindy paused, shaking her head before correcting herself. “No, not fight. Just... enough to protect m’self and others in case of emergencies, y’know?”