#is also there even if your average mhigan resistance soldier wouldn't recognize him on sight

[blackestnight]

18: light party (bound by faith)

Prompt: Panglossian

Word count: 1112

Featuring gratuitous headcanoning about aetherpool weapons and armor, Duskwight physiology, and a bonus sprinkling of Resident Clueless Adventurer Elysa.

Palace of the Dead is probably not the worst place you could go for a double date, but it’s up there.

While she waits for the rope ladder to get tied off, Elysa closes her eyes and tips her face up to bask in a rare ray of Shroud sunshine, working its way down through the canopy. The breeze is gentle and sweet today, the branches whispering to each other overhead when their leaves brush. She wiggles her toes where they curl over the edge of the sinkhole and thinks, very fondly, of jumping.

“Lysa,” Addie says, “you’re going to fall. There’s loose dirt there.”

“I’ll be fine,” Elysa says, but obediently steps away from the entrance to Issom-Har, pebbles crumbling down in her wake. “It’s not that long a fall anyway. There’s a ledge.”

So maybe her foot slips a little, when she twirls to face Addie. Maybe her toes brush open air. It’s not like she doesn’t know how to catch herself anyway. Not like she needs to, with her second foot already on solid ground and Addie right there to grab her arm, if she really starts to go.

“Please don’t break your ankles before we’ve even gone in,” Addie mumbles, already turning away now that she’s assured of Elysa’s footing, back to Hanami and her elezen friend. New guy. Some Ishgardian rich boy, and Elysa thinks he’s some kind of commander but she’s also pretty sure she’s supposed to know already and it would be rude to ask even though she’s been over the border past East End for like, years now, so sue her if she’s missed some Eorzean news.

Definitely rich though. No one answers ‘show up in clothes you don’t mind getting Morbol puke on’ by wearing leathers that nice if they’re not rich. It’s not like they need the protection, anyway; Elysa already has her bracers from the Wood Wailers strapped on, the ones she and Addie and Hanami keep in the footlockers in Quarrymill, humming with power this close to the entrance cairn. She’s traded her lance for hora, today, hanging delicate and hollow as spun glass by her hips; once they step inside she knows they’ll light up, dense and glowing with aether. Addie’s book is spider silk-thin, pages threatening to tear under her fingers. Rich Boy (Elysa’ll have to ask Addie for his name later, out of earshot—er, hornshot?—of Hanami and her scowl) keeps reaching behind his back to fiddle with the spindly fiberglass of his bowstring.

“You mean to tell me,” Rich Boy murmurs, and Elysa can’t really see his expression with how he’s bent over to talk to Hanami but she thinks he might be making the kind of face Addie makes at her sometimes when she’s got one of her maybe-not-so-good ideas, “that we are entering hostile, isolated territory, with no maps, and relying on unknown magic as our only means of transportation?”

Addie’s ears cant down. Elysa reaches over to take one of her hands from where it’s clutching the cover of her book, pressing her thumb into the divot of Addie’s palm and rubbing. “It’s just like teleporting,” she says, voice raised enough to make sure Rich Boy knows she’s talking to him even if she doesn’t really want to look away from Addie. “Like the aethernets in the big cities.”

Addie folds her fingers to tap Elysa’s thumb in turn. Not really a hand-hold—more of an admonishment, probably, that’s enough, Lysa—but it’s close. It gets closer when Elysa steps sideways and lets their hands dangle between their legs.

“My apologies,” Rich Boy says, contrite. “I misspoke. I should have said that such magic is unfamiliar to me; I fear I lack familiarity with the theory of teleportation, and with the expedition here. I shall take more care in the future.”

Addie shrugs; the movement jostles the arm hanging between her and Elysa, and on impulse Elysa rolls with it, swinging their hands back and forth a bit. “We’re still working on navigating between the beacons,” she says, her ears flicking back up. Looking at her in profile like this, Elysa almost swears she can see the backlight in her eyes, those reflective Duskwight irises that always leave her breathless when she presses their foreheads together in the dark. “We’ll be functionally lost most of the time.”

Hanami crosses her arms. Her hollow-glass shield clinks when the movement brushes it against her sword belt. “We always find our way out,” she says. “We have plenty of food and water. I thought you wanted a real adventure.”

“Besides, the cairns always spit us out in safe rooms every few jumps,” Elysa adds. “It’s way easier to get around from there. There’s really nothing to worry about! Me and Addie are experts. We do this just the two of us all the time.”

“Never this deep,” Addie protests, quiet, squeezing Elysa’s hand again. “It’s still dangerous. We could get hurt.”

“No one will get hurt,” Hanami says, firm, and she turns just enough that Elysa can make out the set of her jaw, hard like—like Captain Meffrid, back when he used to say the same thing, those long nights between crossing the Wall and their arrival in Rhalgr’s Reach.

The reminder tugs at something unpleasant in Elysa’s stomach, but there’s no use dwelling on it now, so she beams instead. “It’ll be awesome!” she promises. “Cool monsters? Tons of treasure? It’s great.”

Addie tugs her hand free to rest her palm on Elysa’s arm instead. Her hands are always so gentle, when she’s calm like this, so different from the brilliant magic that lights them when she’s weaving shields and flinging stones. Elysa can’t really find it in her to be afraid of anything when she has those hands at her back. “Just watch for traps,” Addie says, the words probably as much a reminder for herself and Hanami as a warning for the new guy. “I still haven’t found a way to turn people back if they get turned into a toad, and it’s annoying to wait for the curse to wear off.”

“I beg your pardon,” Rich Boy splutters, and Elysa laughs at that, deep and true and fearless.

“If I hit a toad trap,” she says, quiet as she can around her giggles, leaning over to press the words to Addie’s ear, “will you kiss it better? Like in the stories?”

Addie’s lips quirk. “I’ll turn you back if you give me warts,” she says, solemn.

Elysa bumps her shoulder against Addie’s, urging the lines of tension to loosen. She’s not that worried about toad traps, anyway. Addie hasn’t failed her yet, and Elysa could be helpless, blind and staggered and bound in chains, and she wouldn’t be worried, not as long as they’re together.