#he's either extremely shy when he doesn't trust someone or very witty to not show any weakness

[avirael]

FFxivWrite 2023

Day 28 - Blunt

One afternoon, after they had scared off Kenrick and his henchmen, Rael and A'viloh sat on one the flat-roofed houses of the Silver Bazaar and looked down onto the tiny settlement.

"It’s nice to see that we could help these people…", Rael said as they watched the villagers on the town square.

A'viloh nodded and smiled. "I still can’t believe we really managed to save the Bazaar from demolition. Well, at least for now…"

"You think too little of yourself you know that?" Rael shook their head.

"Really?"

A smirk appeared on the Viera‘s face. "If I say so. Considering I thought you were good for nothing when I met you that’s quite an improvement."

A'viloh chuckled. "I guess that wasn’t such a bad assessment. You probably wondered why I’m so lousy at everything, didn’t you?"

Rael looked at him apologetically. "Definitely not at everything but you didn’t leave a very good first impression for sure…"

The Miqo'te sighed. "To be honest, I have never been much of a fighter. I never really tried to be and I never saw the need for it either. Well, until recently… you know, sometimes I don’t even know why I’m doing all of this. For Kikipu sure! But apart from that? Sometimes I still feel like I’m good for nothing. You know, when I first traveled to the city there was this man. A merchant I think. He saw me walking trough the wasteland and he had this caravan, so he invited me to join him. At first I was wary but there were children and soldiers too… well anyway, the point is, he asked me why I wanted to go to Ul'dah. Why I wanted to become an adventurer… and without exactly knowing why, I told him I wanted to become stronger…"

Rael felt like there was more to it and suddenly they regretted all the blunt words they ever threw at him. They looked at the Miqo'te as sincerely as they could and tried to find the right words. "You did certainly get a lot stronger since we first met, you know that?"

A'viloh shrugged and grimaced. "Mh… I don’t know. Have I really? I’ve never been strong, always relied on others. Always let them down."

Rael raised a hand and made a gesture down to the Silver Bazaar. "But you didn’t let Kikipu down. You didn’t let all of these people down. And I can’t imagine you let anybody else down either. As far as I can tell you always give your best and no one expects you to be perfect, A'viloh."

A'viloh laughed a sharp short laugh. "Oh believe me, Rael, I’ve been a disappointment to a lot of people. I’m certainly not perfect but sometimes your best just isn’t enough…"

A'viloh thought about all the things he messed up, the people he let down. Truly strong and good people unlike him. People like Laqa. U'odh had expected Laqa to be perfect. And he had indeed been perfect. Until A'vi had ruined him. Not with any bad intention, but he still had ruined him. He had let him down, he had let everybody down and he would forever regret that…

"Oh, stop that nonsense!", Rael interrupted his thoughts. "All of us make mistakes sometimes. But there’s no use to dwelling on them. It’s what your going to do next that matters."

A'viloh looked at them for a second before turning his gaze to the floor. "But what can someone like me do, Rael? I‘m just a weak, little guy, who’s terrified of everything…"

The Viera angrily furrowed their brows. "You know what? I‘m going to be blunt with you now!"

"Here I thought you were always brutally blunt…", A'vi joked but only earned another scowl. "Alright, I‘ll shut up…"

"You’re a coward, A'viloh! You need to stop treating yourself like that. You are always belittling yourself and questioning your own capabilities. But you are already so much more than you think and you could be even better if you stopped holding yourself back with all of that self-doubt. You should try to believe in yourself a little more, you would be surprised about all the things you could do if you just seriously tried."

The Miqo’te’s ears lay flat at his head as he stared at the Viera. "But what if I mess it up? I’m afraid, Rael, I‘m so afraid."

"A very wise person once told me something, A'vi.", Rael said and looked them in the eyes. "They told me that fear is a bad advisor. That it will push you to make the wrong decisions if you let it and that it will make you hesitate when your life or someone else’s depends on it. See, this is why we can’t afford to be scared doing what we‘re doing or people could get hurt."

A'viloh blinked. "But are you never scared at all?"

"Of course I am.", the Viera retorted. "But I know that it won’t help me, so I push it away and try to think about what I have to do and why I have to do it. I can’t fail, A'viloh, because I have to get stronger, so that one day I can help save my home."

A'viloh smiled sadly. "I envy you for that. It must be nice to know what your purpose is…I wish I knew mine. What all of this was good for and where I‘m meant to go next."

That seemed to catch the Viera off-guard. They realised that they didn’t know much about the Miqo’te at all or why he behaved the way he did. But something seemed to seriously bother him…

For a moment Rael struggled to find a reasonable reply but then they tilted their head a little and tried to look as reassuring as they could. "Maybe it’s okay that you don’t know yet, but you can try to figure it out on the go, hm? You can help me until then if you want. At least I would really appreciate your help."

Surprised A'viloh looked up at Rael. "Would you really want my help?"

"Of course.", Rael shrugged. "I can need all the help I can get, I guess. And after all your only half as bad as you think…"

"Thank you!", relieved A'viloh threw his arms around the Viera, who looked puzzled in response.

"But under one condition!", they said as they wriggled themself out of A'viloh’s embrace. "No more hugs. I’m really not a fan of all this touchy-feely stuff."

At that A'viloh started to laugh heartily.