#a'linhbo xiv

[fendyr-xiv]

"Hey! wyd rn?"

"NM! Just gonna beat up this loser in his UlTiMaTe WeApOn"

[fistsoflightning]

30 - at odds

abstracted: past tense of abstract; difficult to understand. Mostly Zaya-centric, with a little Zaya/Thancred, 1.7k words. Post-5.55. Warning for references to fantasy racism...?

It appears that the trail leads towards Sharlayan, where Krile is awaiting aid in busting down the doors of Sharlayan’s knowledge. Zaya has some... feelings, about that.

“I know Krile needs help,” Zaya signed, slumping a little in their chair as Thancred sat beside them with a map and an armful of books they couldn’t read, “But Sharlayan sounds like the last place I want to be.”

Thancred snickered. “I thought you’d say that,” he said, rolling the map out over the table. At the other side, Lumelle scooped up her slice of rolanberry tart and stuck out her tongue at Thancred. “What was it that turned you off it, hm? The bookworms, the bureaucrats, the long sea journey from Limsa to Sharlayan…”

He flipped a few dozen pages in his book with ease until he found whatever chapter it was he’d been looking for, quickly reading even while he flicked his eyes back up towards them every few seconds. Casual show-off. It was so easy for Zaya to forget that the tattoos on Thancred’s neck they liked to trace their fingers over really meant he’d written something that won the approval of an entire board of scholars—and then he did things like discuss basic aetherology or whatever with Urianger over, or effortlessly recall several hundred years of Ul’dahn history in the midst of a conversation.

The idea of sailing there didn’t help much, nor did Forchenault making his existence known as someone Zaya wanted to strangle regardless of how he actually felt about Alisaie and Alphinaud, but above all Zaya was simply tired of feeling like an idiot.

Zaya, somehow, sunk even lower in the stiff wooden chair, jaw tightening. “If I wanted to feel stupid, I would just walk into the Scholastice in Ishgard.” 

Behind his book, Thancred frowned. Blinked confusedly for a few moments, before he said, “No one is going to judge you for using sign, love. In fact, more people would be fluent in sign there than here.”

“Not the reason,” they signed, because it wasn’t being mute in a city of verbose scholars that was the problem. Even if there were people who did take offense to their sign (or a number of other things about them), Zaya was plenty happy to flat out ignore any disparaging comments made towards them.

Thancred set his book down on the table, slipping a small bookmark between the pages. “Well, if it isn’t that,” he said, light-hearted and kind and not at all looking to upset them, “Might you explain what it is, then, that bothers you?”

It wasn’t the potential gossip and rumors about them, really. Zaya couldn’t care less about meaningless words and assumptions. They could believe whatever they liked of them as long as they didn’t act like they hated them. Even if that went hand-in-hand with the terrible rumors about them, it was just the way people looked at them that felt terrible. The way they looked at them like they were some—some godsdamned voidsent with sticks for brains and too much muscle, when they learned that Zaya wasn’t good for anything involving the mind.

Language was one thing. Language was a whole other beast, because growing up as a Qestir, even if their father frequently talked to them with kind intentions while he walked, meant never being taught to speak, much less understand any Xaelan. Qestiri children were taught to read intent, to look at someone’s body and take any other visual information to understand; any Xaelan they picked up on was sheer luck. Their father, who was a storyteller and a healer who interacted with dozens of tribes, taught them and their siblings because it would make their lives easier when he came home with strange people from other, distant tribes. He’d even gone out of his way to teach them scraps of Eorzean—apparently the common trade tongue, even in Hingashi—after an encounter with the Kha led them to meeting Hyuran merchants long before Zaya stepped foot into Eorzea.

Made Papalymo and Thancred’s jobs easier down the line, at the very least; the Echo hadn’t sunk its teeth in fully when their father was still alive, only rattling around in Zaya’s skull enough to make understanding the differences between Xaelan and Eorzean simple enough, even if they couldn’t speak either of them without sounding like a gargling goobbue. Learning sign would have been even more difficult if Zaya didn’t have the vague idea of Eorzean sounded like.

Then there was the whole gil thing. Any Ul’dahn worth their salt knew how to manage gil, except they didn’t, because they traded goods for goods across the Steppe. On the rare occasion they did find a tribe that didn’t want leathers or meat or medicine, they used the bone favors an old khagan from the Qerel introduced before the Oronir dethroned them, because those could be traded for protection or aid from other tribes. There wasn’t any gil on those grassy plains until Zaya came back and found their own tribe trading with Hingan merchants in it, and by then they’d already learned the hard way how money  worked.

The list went on and on and on, a terrible collection of things Zaya would have to fight to understand, because the Azim Steppe was so different from city-states and cities and kingdoms that it was like jumping into ice water sometimes, living here. Zaya liked learning about new places, loved learning Ala Mhigo’s history from Raubahn and A’dewah and Minfilia—but that didn’t make it easier to forget that they’d just never fit, especially not among scholars.

The first scholar Zaya ran into in Eorzea was the one that read their name, squinted, and told the Ul’dahn gaoler that they were from a ‘land of uncultured savages’, that the fact they were standing there in cuffs was practically unavoidable. Talked about them like they were some breed of warmongering hellhound instead of a person because he thought they couldn’t understand him. The next few scoffed in Zaya’s face when they learned the person running their damn errands couldn’t even talk back. Thancred was different—mostly because he was a socialite before scholar—and so were some of the Scions, but then Alphinaud put their faith right back at square one, the little prick that he used to be. With their scales, their strange relationship with gender, and their lack of knowledge about things that in Eorzea were just common sense, it was already impossible enough, but that just felt more obvious around people who were everything Zaya couldn’t be.

And then there was Old Sharlayan, looming on the horizon. Old enough that it kept books that were who-knows-how-many-years in the past, old enough that even Alisaie and Alphinaud could recite scraps of ancient swordscraft and politics like they were discussing the weather. Full of scholars that could talk circles around Zaya and books in languages Zaya would probably never be able to read. Thousands of people who probably wouldn’t say anything to their face, given their tendency to storm off first, but would still manage to make Zaya feel like shite regardless.

Maybe that first man had been an outlier, like how the Scions were strangers to their peers because they liked having more than just Sharlayan survive. Maybe he’d even changed, like how Alphinaud did (after a little more trauma than he should have ever needed, probably) once Zaya returned from Limsa’s shadows. Maybe Zaya’s distrust of scholars and distaste for not belonging were absolutely unwarranted, given how they belonged just fine with the Scions and their friends. Fine. Didn’t mean Zaya liked putting themselves somewhere that they would be at odds with every single person, not after learning what it was like to not worry about that in Norvrandt.

Sharlayan would be good for someone. A’dewah would finally find out why his mother’s magic kept reminding Y’shtola and Urianger of Sharlayan enchantments; Duscha and Syhrwyda could rub their new status in the faces of the Sharlayans who censured them and laugh while some pissy scholar fumed about not being able to touch any of their grimoires and see the wonders inside. Tehra’ir could probably reap the rewards of the espionage studies Thancred probably started, with his thesis. It’d be a great place for their friends. Zaya didn’t want any of it, even if there was some secret knowledge about martial arts, because even if there was they couldn’t fucking read it, much less get near it without getting looked at like they might tear it apart with their claws.

“Forget it,” Zaya signed sharply, eyes burning. No point in getting upset over something they would never be able to change. “I just—nothing. The sailing. Boats are stupid.”

Thancred didn’t seem content to leave it alone, still frowning a bit, but he leaned forward lightly in his chair, reaching over to rest his hand on their knee. “I feel as if there’s something painful lying beneath your deflection, but forgive me for pushing and upsetting you, regardless. Gods know I’ve done more than enough of that for a lifetime.”

Zaya shook their head, a little sigh escaping their still-gritted teeth. They’d been getting upset a lot, recently; too many buttons being pushed, sure, and learning to share their problems meant dealing with them… but who were they, Hanami? At least Thancred was letting it slide, even if he did call it. Just another storm for him to weather, after the mess that was last year.

“‘S fine,” they mumbled, letting their tail shift over their legs to brush over the back of Thancred’s hand. They uncurled their fingers from their palms, grimacing at the indents in their hands. At least they didn’t grip hard enough to bleed. “Not y’ur fault Sharyl—Sharle—scholar land sounds like Ishgard. Hard t’ say, too.”

That, at least, broke Thancred out of his worry with a laugh. “It is rather strange to say, isn’t it? G’raha even rolled his ‘r’ when he said it, earlier; he’s never done that before, when I got the chance to steal his attention.” A little smile crept onto Thancred’s face, his fingers drumming playfully on their knee. “Though Krile does need our assistance, perhaps the two of us can find some solace from Sharlayan together. You need not deal with an island of books and debates alone—and it would save me the ordeal of facing my old teachers.”

[fendyr-xiv]

──.✦ #febhyurary ── day seven, sleep.

While preparations were made to fix the train, the warrior of light and her companions take a moment to rest.