#special tour guide babycorn will show you all the most uninteresting places to you

[hqmillioncorn]

FFXIVWRITE: DAY three three irty: Sojourn

‘Maidens with flowers of hope blooming in their hearts!’

babycorn really wants to show tilika around the first but its very hard considering she cant actually go over there. So babycorn comes up with a genius and very convoluted plan

Tilika stood by watching as random objects after random objects went flying her way. She looked behind her to see the mess that Babycorn was currently making, some of the things she threw behind her were walking away on their own. As unnerving as that was, Tilika had to admit she was slowly getting used to it.

“Any luck in there?” Tilika watched as a small wind-up toy began to walk and climb up on her new pink couches. The toy took out a sword the size of a toothpick and started waving it around “Hmm…” There was probably nothing to worry about there.

Tilika turned back to see Babycorn still digging through Hungslta for something. Just when it felt like Babycorn had just about taken everything out of the backpack, there were another hundred little things taken out of it. Most of it felt like it was just thrown in there and forgotten about. Including the many many wrappers of snacks Babycorn had eaten.

“I just know she's in here somewhere!”

Another old bag of chips went flying past Tilika’s head. One of these days she was going to have to remind Babycorn that she needed to clean up more than she actually did.

“Take your time!” Tilika moved her head just in time to dodge a whole parasol, ignoring the ominous crashing sound behind her. It sounded like a jar just shattered but she could deal with that after Babycorn found what she was looking for.

On cue, Babycorn let out a gasp and held up her treasure in the air for everyone to see. “Found it!!!” It felt just like finding a big treasure at the end of a maze after taking on waves of enemies upon enemies. Only less shiny.

“Tilika check it out!” Babycorn got up from sitting on her knees and held up a doll, it vaguely resembled a Calca and Brina doll if not for the small differences scattered all over it. One leg was a little longer than the other and the pigtails were just a little wrong. The dolls eyes were also just sewed on with different colored thread. Maybe the biggest difference was that the doll was wearing a white dress.

“I made this for Cherry back when I started to get better at weaving.” Babycorn held the doll in front of her and turned it in all sorts of different directions, examining it to make sure there weren’t any loose strings. “I thought you could only make like-clothes and pants with weaving but you can actually make lots of things! When I found out I could learn to make toys I had to find out how!”

“I think you did a good job! It’s cute!” Tilika knelt down and looked at the doll closer. Taking special note of the little blushes that Babycorn must have also sewed onto it. “Sorry for asking but if you made it for Cherry then why was it buried so deep in your backpack?” Usually Cherrypit’s dolls were running or sitting around the house, not in Babycorn’s backpack and certainly not as still as it was right now at the moment.

As weird as it was to say, it was strange that a doll around Babycorn wasn’t walking around.

“I was, um, planning to give it to him as a present for his nameday this year but…You know.” Babycorn hugged the doll closer to her. “...I’ll just give it to him as a wake up present!” Babycorn smiled up at Tilika. Though she was trying, Tilika still noticed the small tears in her eyes.

“I’m sure he’s going to love it.”

“Yeah! He will!” Babycorn jumped up and twirled around with the doll in her hands. “And for right now-! This doll is perfect!!!” She ran past Tilika and sat down next to the small coffee table near the pink couch. Babycorn shooed away some of the wind-up toys marching around the living room.

Unlike the Calca and Brina dolls, Babycorn’s doll couldn’t stand up on her own, needing some support to stay upright. “I think I made her head a little too heavy…” Babycorn frowned as she held the doll from the stomach, watching as the doll���s head flopped down behind their back.

“Aww…” There was something a little cute about how the head flopped around. In Tilika’s opinion, it wasn’t a bad first try of making a doll from scratch.

“I put a bunch of cute little rocks in there just for Cherrypit!”

“Ahh…” Yeah, that would explain it.

Babycorn grabbed one of the cups on the floor and set it on the table so her doll could lean up against it. “There!” She stood up and stepped back, grabbing a familiar necklace from her pockets. The main jewel hanging off of it resembled the same jewel that Chelinka had shown her so many years ago, she guessed that being a Starsinger finally gave her access to it.

Also hanging off the necklace was her Azem stone.

Babycorn wasn’t quite sure what gave her the idea that what she was going to attempt to do would work but something also told her that she had to at least try. This was the only way that Tilika was ever going to have a chance to see the First, so she had to try her very best!

“Okay, okay, okay…!” Babycorn held the stone in her hand and closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she was really going to do but she was sure it was going to come to her eventually.

Tilika stood behind her, unsure of what to really do in this situation besides cheer Babycorn on. “You got this…!” Tilika whispered in a hushed tone, just in case Babycorn needed some quiet to concentrate.

“I got this!”

The Azem stone let out an orange glow and an assortment of glowing orange strings came flying out from it and towards the doll. The strings wrapped all around it until they all came to a stop and disappeared, leaving behind some light orange dust to fall on the doll.

“Woah…” Tilika had never seen anything like it. She had seen Cherrypit’s talents of bringing dolls to life firsthand but it wasn’t anything as showy as what Babycorn just did. All Cherrypit really did was tap a doll and they were running around as if they were always alive.

The light from the stone faded and Babycorn slowly opened her eyes. Without a word Babycorn stood up and waved her arm up and down, the doll in front of her followed her lead. When Babycorn jumped to the left and wiggled around the doll also followed her exact movements.

“Yes! I did it!” Babycorn turned around with a pose and the doll next to her mirrored her same pose. “

Tilika clapped for her, “What’s next after this?” All she really knew of Babycorn’s whole plan was that somehow her being able to bring a doll to life was pivotal in her plan of letting Tilika know what the First looked like. 

She hadn’t wanted to ask too much about it since it felt like Babycorn wanted it all to be a surprise, even if Tilika was the first one to bring it up.

“Tilika! Tilika!”

“Yes? Yes?” Looks like it was time to find out what she was up to.

Babycorn had a playful grin, her doll clumsily walked over to where Tilika was sitting and sat down on the floor under her. “I’m gonna make it so you can see through my doll’s eyes! Using your eyes! Doesn’t that sound cool!?”

“Ah-!” 

That sounded really dangerous actually!

———————————–          

The next thing Tilika knew she was sitting on her couch with her eyes closed and an entire different world in front of her. It felt sort of like looking through a pair of binoculars, though she could still see the Source when her eyes were open. 

She could only see the First when her eyes were closed. It felt more like a really vivid dream now that she really thought about it.

“This is the Crystarium! It’s the second place me and Cherry visited here!” Babycorn stepped out in front of Tilika and pointed up into the sky. “When we got here the sky was full of light! It really hurt to look at but we helped to get rid of it!” Babycorn figured the less details she told about the nitty gritty of the situation, the better.

She didn’t want to stress out Tilika anymore than she already had been after their whole Edge of the universe thing. Maybe she would include the whole Lightwarden thing as a footnote after the tour was concluded. That sounded like a smart idea.

Tilika was awestruck. “Woah…” The First looked pretty much exactly like it did back home. Everything but the purple trees were pretty much par of the course, and she had known about those ahead of time already. 

For some reason Tilika found that she could actually make the doll move around wherever she wanted to. For all extents and purposes it was almost like Tilika was piloting a really small giant robot. A very very small giant robot. 

It was so weird, just suddenly being smaller than Babycorn.

Just as the two of them were about to set off, Babycorn froze. “Oh! Wait, hoooold on!” Babycorn reached into her backpack again but unlike last time, she managed to find the exact thing she was looking for in record time. “Ah-ha!! Got it!” Whatever she managed to find, she was quick enough to hide behind her back so Tilika couldn’t see.

Not that she was actually looking either way. Tilika was too busy looking at the everything around her. She knew about the Crystal Tower ahead of time too but actually seeing the whole thing in person was a whole different experience. She really needed to make time to visit it back home in Mor Dhona.

While she was distracted at wondering why people walking around them weren’t too surprised at seeing a walking doll in their city, Babycorn surprised her with a sudden push on her head.

“What the-?!” Tilika did feel something push down on her head and now it felt like there was something on top of there too. She could feel it with her small doll hands, which she just found out were capable of feeling. That was really weird.

“Yay! They fit!” Babycorn knelt down and flicked the pink Viera ears she had made herself for this very occasion, “I made them so I could know that it's you! I looked really hard at your ears for days to get the shape right! I think they’re pink enough too!” The little Viera ears were made of paper and pink stuffing around them. They weren’t anything too spectacular but they sure did make Tilika stand out.

So that was why Babycorn had been staring at her so hard during the past nights they ate dinner together. Tilika was worried that she had done something wrong, like throw away something that Babycorn really liked, or something.

“Uh, thank you!” She didn’t think she needed a pair of ears resembling her own to stand out to Babycorn but it was still nice. Tilika was sure it looked really cute on the doll too. She would find out when Babycorn came home. “Where’s the first stop then Babycorn?”

“Glad you asked!”

Somehow, while Tilika wasn’t looking, Babycorn had changed into an outfit that was much fancier than the jacket she was wearing earlier. She was even wearing a fancy little hat over her pom. “Okay! Let the official Babycorn tour begin! Yayyyyy!” Babycorn cheered, while waving a small flag in the air. “Don’t worry you won’t need to walk a lot! I’ll teleport us to the best views!”

“That’s good to hear!” Tilika was not at all used to walking around with such small legs. If she ever admitted this to Babycorn, she would never hear the end of it from her.

“Is there anywhere you really wanna see Tili Tili?” Babycorn was excited to show her everywhere! There was a story she could tell for all the places they visited together. Maybe she would leave some of the more dangerous parts out but most of her stories were perfectly fine to tell her new not-older sister cousin.

Tilika opened her eyes to think. Normally she would be closing them but closing them wouldn’t have the same effect as they usually would.

She closed her eyes again and she was greeted with Babycorn doing an excited little dance in place. Time worked differently from the Source so who knows how long Babycorn had actually been waiting for Tilika to respond. “I really want to see the Pixie kingdom! If that’s alright!” The little tales Babycorn had already told her about it sounded amazing, she wanted to see everything with her own eyes.

So to speak.

“You got it! Ooooh my gosh! Feo Ul is going to be so excited to meet you~!” Babycorn did another happy little twirl. Hopefully they wouldn’t be too jealous of Tilika being able to spend all her time with Babycorn. 

“Before we go let’s stop by the Pendants! You can see me and Cherry’s room! They still let us stay there cause we saved the world probably!” Babycorn couldn’t think of any other reason they could still sleep there.

“I’d love to see it! Let’s go!” Tilika was so excited she ran ahead of Babycorn, despite having no idea where she was going. Babycorn did not catch on to this and just ran behind Tilika, happily waving her tiny little flag up and down.