#also cheeky mmo maxims!

[thelongestway]

FFXIV Write 2024, Prompt 23: On Cloud Nine

I slid into The Forgotten Knight's shadows with a familiar feeling of relief. Its inn, Cloud Nine, was my home away from home in Ishgard - house Fortemps may have adopted me, but I'd always needed to haunt at least one space of my own, to have a place to wake without ceremony or servants. And this tavern, with its shadowy corners and rough beds? Was perfect.

Having friends here made it all the better. Alisaie trailed me as I said my greetings - Rielle, Sigurdu, Haimirch, and finally Bamponcet.

"The usual room?" The barkeep asked.

"Aye. We won't be long. Work to do."

Perhaps Bamponcet would have made a wildly inappropriate joke, as was the coin of the realm in this tavern, but Alisaie's scowl and the distinct red glow of her rapier shut him up quick. Instead, he looked from her to Rielle - who looked like she would summon a proper balisarde from the sheer darkness if he gave her cause - and merely smirked.

"Give me fifteen. Need to clear out the bottles from the last visitors."

"So long as it's not an utter pigsty, I'm happy," I grinned back, and looked over to Alisaie. "Good thing, really. I've been wanting to introduce you to Rielle for a while. Shame Alphinaud isn't with us."

As we approached, Sigurdu eyed us with his customary dark humor, and then said to me:

"We both have a habit of picking up strays, eh?"

To her credit, Alisaie didn't skewer him immediately. Instead, she looked to Rielle and smiled a courtly smile.

'I'll assume tall, dark and suffering here is your ward. I'm Alisaie Levellieur, and it is a pleasure to meet you."

"Rielle de Caulignont." The smile she returned was an appropriately icy Ishgardian noble's. "Conjurer, and knight in training. So yes, my ward. And the pleasure is entirely mine."

Sigurdu sputtered. I folded my hands, and wished that I had some sort of repast for the pleasure of watching this unfold. Alone, Rielle and her very logical arguments had been all too easy to ignore. But as anyone who'd spent any time with Elezen knew, the moment there were two cunning youths with complementing skills in one place... Well, Sigurdu never stood a chance.

He valiantly tried anyway.

"Now wait just a-"

"Please," Alisaie gave him a withering glare. "I can see the age-old argument arising as you think it. There is an old Ishgardian maxim my father has always been very fond of: if the shield breaks, it is the crook's fault. So, you are her ward. At least until lady de Caulignont earns her blade and finds herself a new crook."

"Rielle will do." Of course, using a name soured by Ystride de Caulignont had to have stung. But it was well that the wound had healed enough Rielle could use it at least in passing.

"RIelle," Alisaie smiled warmly. "I realize we've known each other for mere seconds, but I would happily impose on you at your leisure if you were open to the idea? My brother and I have long been lacking a third for practice. I'm a sword and he's a crook, you see..."

"...I would be delighted to be your shield. Shall we compare schedules?"

After that utter failure of an assault, Sigurdu turned to me and gestured at the two young women, by now fully embroiled in planning.

"What."

"What?"

"Why in the hells are you..."

"I am doing nothing." I interrupted. "I hadn't even warned Alisaie about you two. They hit it off entirely on their own, within moments. Looks like an excellent start to me."

"If your wards needed practice, you would have fully sufficed!"

"You know how the rest of that proverb goes? Swords die, it's their own Twelves-damned fault. And I have always been a sword at heart." Sigurdu gave me a very skeptical look, and I shrugged. "You know well enough my greatsword comes out only for very specific occasions. I don't live in that part of the shadow."

"You," he said with feeling. "Are a lazy bastard."

I tapped my new staff's dark gem.

"Comes with the territory. Besides, Sigurdu. I've got news that concerns you and time to kill."

"And you owe me a bloody drink."