#though it only lasts until Camp Drybone and there's no boning

[tsunael]

What-- Why are you circling me? Were you a vulture in another life or something?

[blackestnight]

the gravekeepers

set in the early part of the gap between 6.0 and 6.1, and does contain spoilers all the way through 6.0 msq. or: i replayed ARR on an alt, had a feeling, did a bunch of sidequests around drybone that compounded the feeling, and then had several days with a lot of free time.

As it drew nearer to noon and the sun reached its peak, the bare stone of Camp Drybone would catch the light and the heat like a bowl placed under a leaky roof, driving all but the most devoted pilgrims into the cool dark of the underground tavern and inn and shops until the shade returned; early in the morning, though, it was still bearable, and Hanami waited in the shadow of the rickety old ramp that climbed out of the hollow.

Eventually a single hooded figure came down into the camp from the southwestern gate. Not quite dressed like a pilgrim—light cotton, practical for keeping the sun off his skin, and exceedingly practical boots covered in oil and ceruleum and who knew what other machining fluids.

“You are late,” she called, as he made his way across the plaza.

When Cid dropped his hood, he was grinning, and he clapped one hand gently on her left shoulder. “Aye, well,” he said, “some of us have to get around the hard way. You done with your shopping?”

She nodded. When they turned to climb the ramp back out of camp she said, “You stink like horsebird.”

“Give us an hour and neither of us will be smelling that fresh,” he said, and she wrinkled her nose because he was right.

The road to the Church of Saint Adama Landama had been old when the building itself was new. It wavered between broken cobbles and packed dirt, rough with tracks from hand carts, and the sight of the grooves made Hanami think: eight years. She wondered at the difference between ritual and tradition, or maybe habit, and whether one was better than the others, and how many more years of ruts she would have to leave on this road before she settled into the right word.

Not that she came every year. She’d missed two: once when she was stuck on a boat halfway between Limsa and Kugane, and once when she’d been drowning in her own Light-filled lungs on the First. Not that she was the only vigil-keeper, either; Cid was more consistent, leveraging his supposed erratic flights of fancy to sneak away from the Ironworks, if it could be called sneaking when everyone knew what he was up to. Others came and went at their whims, but it had started like this and sometimes Hanami thought it would continue until her and Cid’s bones were as brittle as the dirt beneath their feet.

The last turn in the road before the church doors was a mess of crumbled stone, and Hanami was careful picking her way over it, until she stepped onto the dry grass scattered between the headstones.

The grave marker was old, not as old as the road but nearly as much as the church, and the remains it guarded had been dead for even longer than that, apparently, moved from the city after the moon fell. Hanami wondered what it said about her that she didn’t really think much about the man buried here. She couldn’t bring herself to feel too guilty. He’d been dead long before she set foot on Eorzean soil, and while some long-dead names seemed to haunt her every step, this one wasn’t her ghost. There were other people to remember him. So she knelt carefully and gave a perfunctory nod to the name Warburton etched in the brass plaque on the stone, but when she fumbled in her bag (Cid reached silently to hold open the flap, and she thanked him and cursed her useless right arm with the same scowl) the flowers she laid down weren’t for him.

White and red. Most everything else in her bag had come from the florist back in camp, overpriced and scrubby from growing in the desert heat, but the Velodyna cosmos were still cool from the ice shards she’d nestled around them, fresh-harvested from the Peaks. Cid was silent and unsmiling when he knelt beside her, producing a rag from his pocket to polish the nameplate and the fresh etching along the bottom, careful lettering in the best imitation Hanami had been able to do of F’lhammin’s handwriting.

F’lhammin came out here often, Hanami knew, even if her visits didn’t coincide with this ritual-tradition-habit. There were no weeds to pull from the grave or bits of mud clinging to the rock. Hanami laid one hand on the top of the marker and then leaned forward to rest her forehead against it; even this early in the day the stone was warm, like a hand pressed to her brow.

The Atiascope hadn’t been warm, or cold, just—there, a constant pressure on her skull, like what she imagined when people complained that their ears popped. Every flicker of the dead’s attention on her had lit up her skin like a live wire. After that place where memory was made manifest, the lichyard seemed barren.

“You think she’s getting her rest?” Cid asked, replacing the rag in his pocket. She wondered how much he knew. She hadn’t told him the specifics of what she’d seen in the Lifestream, but maybe the others had said something.

“I think so,” she said, thinking of bare feet on glittering stone, dim golden light and a fading flicker of a smile.

Cid grunted. “Good,” he said. “She always did work too hard.”

Which was hilarious, coming from him, and even moreso directed to her, but the joke wilted in the heat. Hanami closed her eyes and swallowed the itch on her tongue; she’d never been good at prayers and they seemed pointless when she knew Minfilia’s spirit wasn’t here. When she sat up Cid still had his head bowed. She’d never asked him if he prayed. She thought he’d adopted Eorzea’s myriad gods as his own, but it wasn’t her business and she didn’t like to invite questions in return.

The grass crackled under them both when they stood, leaving the flowers behind on the stone, and wandered off to their private little tasks. She watched Cid clasp hands with one of the Sisters, Eluned or Ourcen, probably, and vanished around the side of the building with their heads bent low; Hanami paced through the graves, brushing off dust and pulling weeds, nudging aside the desiccated, rotten remains of old offerings. At least the gravestones seemed to be holding up well. The year before she and Cid had stayed almost a fortnight, fixing the markers they could and replacing the ones that were beyond repair. Father Iliud had tried to pay them but Hanami already had more gil than she knew what to do with and Cid always said he still had a debt from five years lived in church robes, even though by then he’d been living as his new-old self longer than he’d ever been Marques, and neither of them mentioned that the meager stipend the church got from the Order wouldn’t begin to cover the cost of the stone they’d hauled clear from Bronze Lake, never mind the cost of their time. Iliud let them make their excuses either way, so it was fine.

The new plaques had been her project, bent over sheets of bronze in the dim light of the church, using the altar as a bench and working her way through the list of interred dead from the records Iliud had given her. Most of the plaques had more than one name, and some had none, a consequence of nameless bodies dumped on the doorstep, but for those Ourcen and Airell had given her little sigils to draw, holy symbols and tokens of good luck and peaceful rest. There was another one, hung by the door, names without bodies to accompany them, but Iliud had insisted that their memories had a place here even if their corpses were scattered to the winds.

She stopped at a stone marked with three names: two strangers, victims of the Calamity, maybe, and at the bottom neat markings that spelled out Una Tayuun. Lilies were hard to come by out here, but the florist in Camp Drybone had just brought back fat fistfuls of lavender, so Hanami laid a few sprigs against the marble and continued her pilgrimage.

Haribehrt. Percevains. Satzfloh. Liavinne. Clive, Ursula next to him, Hanami hadn’t even known her name until she’d been dead three moons and really only remembered her as being an antisocial jackass, not that she could talk. Aulie, laid to rest with the only family she’d chosen in her life. More cosmos, for her, tied with a ribbon, and a piece of slate rough-hewn into the shape of a spear head.

“Arenvald said he will be back,” Hanami murmured, weighing down the flowers with the carving. “Once we finish his new chair. He did not think the one he has now would do so good on the road here.”

She waited, listening to the wind whistling across the rock and the broken roads. She’d never had much patience for speaking with the dead. Maybe they just didn’t have patience for her, which was fair. But the only sounds remained her own breath and the buzzing of flies, so eventually Hanami stood, dusted off her knees with her one good hand, and moved on.

By the time she’d wound her way through the lichyard the sun was uncomfortably high in the sky, and it was a relief to step into the scant shade of the doorway, stooping to lay down one last offering. The rest of the lavender, her last few cosmos, a clumsy attempt at slate claws to cover them. A’aba Tia’s tribe had claimed his body but Arenvald had said the rest of his family’s there, you know, which was plainly false when Arenvald himself was still breathing but Hanami wasn’t about to argue over sentiment. She traced over the other names—Bhaldthota, Darnella, Marcus, Fafaniso—and, satisfied that the etchings had held up to the weather, ducked inside.

The dusty sunlight through the windows and the smell of sand on the floorboards always hit her like a fist to the throat. Not an Echo vision, but it hurt like one if she let it, splashing blood back onto the soles of her boots and crusting it under her nails, blinding her with sun and fear and leaving her choking on it—dead, they are all dead, help me, help me, help me—

Father Iliud met her with a calm, sad smile, and Hanami bit the inside of her cheek and let the copper taste keep her in the present. “Welcome back, my child. When word reached us of your departure in that great star-ship, we held vigils praying for your safe return. And you have come back to us healthy and whole?”

She gave him a shallow bow; whole was out of her reach on any given day, but the cracked edges of her soul had worn against each other so long that it was almost the same thing. “Almost,” she said, lifting her right arm in its sling and wiggling her fingers as best she could. The motion sent hot sparks up to her elbow. “Nothing I cannot live with.”

In her mind, eight years overlapped with two weeks, bouncing off each other like pebbles dislodged underfoot, and skittered away to collide with all the time in the world. Two weeks to let the bones in her wrist finish mending, to get the stupid sling off, and then…however long it took her to teach her nerves to listen to her again. They burned, now, like fire licking under her skin, and her fingers only twitched when she told them to move. Permanent joined the little landslide, echoed in the voice of one of the half-dozen sages who had poked and prodded her during her confinement in Sharlayan.

Whatever, she thought fiercely. She’d come through permanent before, staggering back to her feet after losing her horn and strapping metal in its place. She would come through this, too, re-train her arm into obedience, and if she couldn’t do that she would build a new one. She had time, now, to do it. And she’d stopped believing in impossible things when she’d heard her own heart stop at the edge of the universe and woken up on the bridge of the Ragnarok anyway.

Father Iliud fussed, bustled, busied his hands hovering over her arm and pouring her tea even though she was fine, and in the middle of all that the door creaked open again to admit a gust of wind that scattered dirt across the floorboards and Cid, grimy and glistening with sweat. “Good to see you again, Father,” he said, scrubbing at his forehead with his sleeve.

“Welcome back, Cid,” Iliud said, and rose to greet him—more effusive with Cid than he ever was with Hanami, meeting him with a warm hug, always so attentive to both of their comfort. “Goodness, look at you. What have you been doing out there?”

Cid slung his toolbag off his shoulder and gratefully took the glass of tea from Iliud’s hand. “Oh, this and that,” he said. “I asked Eluned how your water filter was holding up, took a look at it. And Barryn said you’d been having problems with your roof tiles?” Cid tipped his head in Hanami’s direction. “I’d ask for your help on that one if you weren’t being so lazy today.”

Hanami glowered at him over her glass. “My arm is broken.”

“Excuses,” Cid said, genial, and she reached out to tap the side of his knee with her boot in a gentle mockery of a kick.

The air in the church seemed—lighter, with all three of them there. Less stifling. The phantom fingers grasping at Hanami’s lungs eased their grips. Maybe it was because, where every look at Iliud reminded her of Minfilia, of Scion blood in her clothes, she always struggled to see any trace of Marques in Cid’s face. Watching him fall back in love with life as they hunted for the Enterprise had been almost too bright to bear, back then, but it was good to see him like this now, having scraped together the pieces of his old selves to build a new one from salvage. Maybe that’s why he’s always been so patient with her. The Scions were, for the most part, too kind to say it to her face, but she knew how grating she could be. Not that she’d ever been sorry. She’d never been the sort to skin over her hard edges for the comfort of others. Cid, she thought, must still remember what it was like to have lost so much he couldn’t even name, to be too overwhelmed with the wreckage to bother with saving face. But he’d pulled something together—maybe not Cid Garlond, prodigy of the Empire; she hadn’t known him then but sometimes watching the furrowed brows of Biggs or Wedge when he spoke made her wonder—something new, someone who would build his new future with his own hands.

Kami save her if she ever admitted to his face that she envied him a little. The best she could do was try to catch up.

Iliud poured a second cup of tea for Cid even while he frowned. “I am always happy to have you with us—both of you—but you know you do not need to work while you are here. Please do not consider us an obligation. You both do so much already.”

Hanami shook her head and closed her eyes as she sipped. Mint tea wasn’t her favorite (she would argue that it wasn’t really tea, either) but she and Cid had brought it with them the first two visits, and Iliud enjoyed it, so she could tolerate it for the day.

“It’s nothing, Father,” Cid said. “I’m afraid we’re just the meddling sort. Never can keep our noses out of other people’s business.”

Hanami snorted. “I want to help,” she said. “You know that.”

Iliud seemed resigned; the same arguments had never availed him before but he seemed determined to trot them out again, to let them leave their marks on the pew like another pilgrim. “I would not ask either of you to do yet more work when we should, by all rights, be serving you. You have done so much for the people of Drybone…in your treating with the Amalj'aa, to say nothing of your saving the rest of the realm.”

She stared into her cup, still gently steaming; Cid always brought mint tea and cinnamon cookies when they visited Father Iliud, because he remembered from his days as Marques how Iliud liked to nurse a cup after days when bodies piled high on the church stoop, and Hanami vaguely remembered another one of the Order—Esmour, maybe—whispering about a son Iliud had lost to the Calamity, and a daughter-in-law. Maybe that was why Cid always came. Iliud always insisted they owed the church nothing, but the debt incurred by being taken in—lost and broken in unspeakable ways, given shelter and guidance and a purpose again—wasn’t the sort that could be repaid with a few mended stones or tidied graves. Maybe Alphinaud had been the one to drag them back out into the world, to force them to pretend to be real people until they remembered how to do it without prompting, but Hanami had no doubt that if it hadn’t been for Iliud and the Order she would have fallen on the floorboards of the church and laid there until her bones returned to sand. And maybe it was a little bit about guilt, too, that the bodies in the lichyard were laid there for the crime of not being interesting, not being her, not being worth the cost to imprison, and there was no repaying a debt like that either but she could at least make sure someone remembered them when the rest of the world said Scions and meant liberators, god-slayers, star-voyagers when so many of the Scions hadn’t even lived to see Gaius van Baelsar brought to his knees.

And maybe, the nastiest part of her said, it wasn’t even about debts. She’d never set out to be a hero. She’d saved the world as means to an end, as a way to become strong enough to exact the vengeance she felt she was owed, and hang Eorzea and its helpless masses. None of them mattered as much as grinding the Empire under her heel. Breaking things had always come easily to her, so maybe that was why she kept coming back to this place where broken things learned to mend themselves. To this place where they were allowed to be broken, and strange, and angry, because the dirt and the dead didn’t mind. The desert always seemed willing to take her as she was while she figured out who she wished to be.

“I want to,” she said again, and Iliud left it at that.

—

Her right arm was useless, but Hanami knew—a certainty, not a boast—that she could lift more than most people even with one arm tied behind her back, so having it tied up in a sling wasn’t much different. She wouldn’t trust herself to keep her balance on roof tiles but flipping over pews and reinforcing loose joints was easy enough, at least with little Eduuard willing to hold the nails for her, or serve as a second hand to keep the wood in place while the glue took hold. Afterward Airell had her carry a jug of oil to refill the lamps around the fences; the oil smelled strongly of sage and the smoke just smelled bad, but apparently it was keeping away most of the flies. She had to prop the jug on her right shoulder and let her left hand guide the mouth down to pour, all with her neck twisted at an angle to keep her horn clear of the clay. It was still less arduous than asking Airell to help her with something that was more awkward than it was difficult.

The sun was high enough now that even just walking the perimeter of the fence left sweat clinging to her underarms, her temples, the base of her spine. The bleached soil that made up the scrublands of Drybone reflected the heat back, so even lounging in the negligible shade of the trees by the gate (as the on-duty Brass Blades were doing) never helped much. She made her way back to the building feeling oily and hot and gross, with the ends of her hair plastered to the parts of her neck not covered by scales. After tucking away the jug of oil it was back out into the lichyard, this time with a basket slung over her good elbow while she paced between the rows, gathering up old offerings that had withered in the unmerciful sun. The flowers and organic matter she would toss onto the church’s compost heap before she left; the bottles and charms would be returned to the church, either to be cleaned and re-sold or to be repurposed some other way. Esmour had mentioned wanting to break up already-damaged offering bottles and turn the shards into a mosaic depicting the symbol of Nald’thal, which was at least better than letting the broken glass linger on a shelf gathering dust.

There was something there, about trappings of mourning being turned into pieces of worship, that felt the closest she’d come to understanding an Eorzean god, but rather than examine it too closely Hanami just lined up the bottles on a window sill for Esmour and went back outside to upend the rotten flowers onto the compost heap. By the time she made the (hot, sticky, stinking of burned oil and dead vegetation) hike back up to the church, Cid had finally climbed down from the roof, in turn stinking of sweat and some sort of sealant.

“Told you,” he said, wiping his face with the hood of his discarded robe when she fanned her hand in front of her nose. “The roof will be fine for a while, but the next time we’re here I may need you to work your magic on it. So no more broken bones, aye?”

Hanami just swiped some sweat off her own forehead and flicked it at him. Cid cackled.

Iliud was apparently busy meeting with a pilgrim from Hammerlea, which was for the best; Hanami hated making a fuss of leaving. Barryn met them at the door with skins of clean, cold water, which Hanami barely resisted pouring over her head instead of drinking, and with an offer of a blessing for protection on the road, which Cid accepted and she did not, shaking her head and stepping away while Barryn murmured out of a prayer book. At least he didn’t seem offended, and didn’t seem to notice her dropping coins next to the offering box.

She understood the theory of paying gold to gods, but from what she’d seen, people always seemed to make better use of it.

The Brothers and Sisters of the Order had retreated inside against the afternoon heat, so their walk back down the road to Camp Drybone was long and quiet; Hanami picked out the Scions’ graves as they passed them, looking for the flowers that would remain fresh for a few more hours at least, and Cid had retreated into a tired silence, once more hooded to keep the sun off his skin. The guard posted at the ramp down into camp gave them a lazy nod when they passed.

“You will be fine to get back by yourself?” Hanami asked, as they neared the aetheryte and the little underground tavern. The porters probably wouldn’t let anyone take their birds out until it had cooled slightly, and Cid insisted the ale was at least good even if the smell of it always made Hanami gag.

“Yes, unless you can magick up a way for the bird to walk faster,” he snorted. “Only need to go as far as Black Brush this time. They’ve got their rail station running clear through the old Amajina mines and around the mountains up to the border of Mor Dhona, did you hear? Faster than a chocobo by far. Heard they might look on expanding out this way next, to get a logging line from the Shroud. Not as fast as an airship,” he added, “but not bad for long-haul transport.”

“So you will not need to stink like a horsebird,” she said.

“Yes, that’s exactly the takeaway,” he said. “Though it means if you want to come here again, before the usual time, Jessie won’t need to take quite as many travel days out of my hide.”

The usual time startled her. But—of course he knew, obviously he knew, it just wasn’t an anniversary she’d ever heard another Scion acknowledge. The day the dead from the Waking Sands arrived at their final rest. Possibly the rest of them didn’t know the date, exactly. She’d certainly never spoken of it. To hear it now was jarring.

A silent tradition, to eke out time in their world-saving to come back and pay respects, Hanami to the dead who gave her purpose and Cid to the living who gave them both sanctuary. But there was no reason a tradition couldn’t be interrupted.

“Tell me when,” she said. “And I will come back with you to finish the roof.” And maybe help Esmour with his mosaic. Refitting glass was a process ripe for disaster, to the untrained.

“It’s a deal,” Cid said, and clapped her gently on the shoulder once more, rather than try to shake her hand. “Are you sure I can’t treat you to lunch before you go?”

Hanami shook her head; she never let him, not with one more place she had to be. “Tell Jessie I said hello,” she said. “And tell Nero to go fuck himself.”

With another hearty laugh and a mocking salute, Cid retreated into the tavern, vanishing into the cool dark. Hanami waited for the door to swing shut behind his bootfalls before she closed her eyes and began to cast her body into the stream of aether that swirled around the aetheryte; even before the spell had finished she could taste crushed grass and clean rain on her tongue, and the strangely sweet scent of woodsmoke that always lingered around the Hawthorne Hut.

The sylphs had no use for flowers, and they worshiped none of Eorzea’s gods. But there was a tree, back towards the border of Larkscall, dotted with rusting nails and scraps of thread, and a piece of ribbon at the bottom of her bag dyed a rich green that she remembered Noraxia being fond of, when she had toyed with disguising herself as a hyur. The weave was loose enough that Hanami would be able to mount it on a nail without having to pry it out and hammer it back in.

The ribbon wouldn’t last much longer than the flowers, being exposed to the elements, but that was alright. For a few days at least it would be clean and bright, a reminder of the things Noraxia had loved, and that would be enough.

[heartwoodventures]

Flaming Hearts

It was nearing nightfall by the time Aislinn and Rolanda returned to Camp Drybone. The desert had a way of cooling considerably after the sun went down which made Aislinn all the more thankful for the leather duster she wore. The two women had been assigned to scout out Red Argos’ next ritual site in the crumbling ruins near Highbridge and though they found it just as Momori directed, there was little they could do in the way of disrupting what was already in place. Sigils writ into the stone had been hidden with aetheric wards so well done that Aislinn could barely sense the magicks below them, let alone dispel them. At best, all she could do was take a guess at where each one lay and write an absorption shield over top. It was arcane math done on the fly with no assurances her variables were correct.

But, if Momori’s information held, the ritual itself was going to take place that night. They would be rejoining a contingent of Heartwood and leading them back to the ruins. The group assembled near the aetheryte in twos and threes just as their linkpearls buzzed with a great deal of static. 

“Is everyone gathered at the aetheryte? I have news everyone should hear.” It was Momori. 

Aislinn looked around and counted heads before tapping her pearl. "Most...of us. What news?"

There was a pause, and one could assume Momori was nodding at the linkpearl. “Signal’s good on my end as well. Let’s get right into it then.” the lalafell continued, her voice tinny through the pearl. “Highbridge is no stranger to being besieged. The place is attacked daily by Qiqirn, bandits, and Amalj’aa. Usually, a few passing adventures are all that the local guard needs to fend off such attacks. Tonight....is different. Fire and chaos have broken out on Highbridge. Someone has drenched the place with alcohol and set it ablaze.” she delivered the news without much of a pause or feeling.  “...Think of it as you will. But the Brass Blades squadron originally set to reinforce our attack at the ruin site have been rerouted to deal with the more visible, and pressing threat.”

"...Nothing ever goes smoothly does it?" Jorgund sighed, looking around at the rest of them. 

"Somehow, I doubt it's a coincidence." Aislinn hummed in agreement. 

"Tis not a coincidence at all in my eyes." Haila said, turning to look at the woman. 

Momori laughed on her end. “As smooth as Raubahn’s beard stubble, I’d say. I agree with everyone’s sentiment. The timing of this attack on Highbridge is far too convenient for our pirate friends.”

"So what is the plan now?" N’ana asked. 

“.....It depends. Do you think the Brass Blades capable enough to repel the attack on Highbridge? Or would we go forth with our original plan and disrupt the ritual?” Momori hummed to herself. “If it were up to me, I would press on to the ritual site.”

Haila lowered her head, "Although the humanitarian choice would be to help the Brass Blades... My vote would also be to press on."

Aislinn snorted. She had no love lost for the Blades. "The trouble at Highbridge is what the Blades are paid to handle."

“A choice I can get behind. I believe two of us have already been to the ruins? By their lead, let us make haste," Momori said, and then the static cut off.

Following Aislinn and Rolanda’s careful lead, Heartwood navigated their way to the ruins beneath Highbridge. As they passed, the smell of smoke, even at a distance, was suffocating The sound of guns firing, of steel clashing, could be heard above the fire’s roar. It was only somewhat quieter below as everyone stepped into the ruins.

The ritual site itself was a wide, crumbling courtyard that overlooked a dizzying drop down the cliff-face. From the shadows of the corridor, Heartwood spied a small crowd gathering around the six sigils that had been masked earlier. A skeleton crew of six Seawolves and one hooded fellow, significantly shorter than his escorts, kept their six victims in check. Each of the victims had a bag over their head and a gun to their back. They were being forced into a circle around the mysterious robed figure. A familiar sight to those of the Company’s number who had come too late to the other two rituals, and a prelude to a coming disaster.

Jorgund kept his voice extremely low "Alright...how do you figure we go about this? Gotta decide quickly, though."

"I don't like any of it at all..." Haila muttered, slipping on her goggles for a moment. "How about a quick distraction, pay back what they did with our backup?"

"That's one option, but there's a chance a loud entrance will make one of them panic and shoot their captive. That's preferably avoidable." Jorgund countered. 

Aislinn tilted her head. "Seems they need those people. I bet if they shot one, they'd ruin the whole thing they got set up here. I think the guns are more of a scare tactic for the victims than anything."

"I agree with Aislinn on this one. They have needed the sacrifices for the ritual in the past. Perhaps we can call their bluff.” Rolanda added. 

"A distraction might be good actually, if you can all distract them I can sneak in to grab those that are captive." Nyscera pointed out. 

In the end it was decided that if Haila and Jorgund could stun the pirates from a distance, that would be the best shot they had to retrieve the victims unharmed and to halt the ritual in its tracks.

The hooded figure wasted no time in raising the Helm, and it floated above their head, the crystal bringing light to the dark. A feeling of comforting aether washed over everyone present, and for a moment each of them could swear they could hear the gentle mutterings of a mother spirit, promising paradise and salvation. Time was running out.

To varying degrees, the Company members shook off the soothing voice. Not wasting any more time, Haila climbed to higher ground, setting up into position. The Viera reached for her gun, tampering with a button or two until she was satisfied. "Everyone ready before I start shooting?" she asked into the linkpearl.

For her part, Aislinn wondered why there was any need to do anything at all. They should all just sit down and relax. She was about to do just that when some instinct, sharpened to a ruthless blade’s edge, took a hold of her and shouted she was crazy. One look over the edge of the cliff was enough to drive the voice from her head and the fear of the Twelve back into her. 

"Right. Yes. Ready." she said into the linkpearl.

"Ready" came Jorgund’s whisper. 

"Do it" and Rolanda. 

"We are waiting on you!" N’ana huffed into the pearl. 

Aiming carefully from her spot, Haila focused first at the grunt closest to the hooded figure. Taking a deep breath, she shot at the grunt, followed by two more shots in succession at the other targets. 

Before the first shot, the smallest of the Seawolf escorts tensed. She raised a hand over her victim and the glow of aether leaves her palm. No...could it be? Though ever so faint, she could feel the touch of someone else’s magick above her own ward. Her eyes opened wide and she dashed to the hooded figure at the center, casting a hasty shield around them both. “Kurr!”

Haila’s shot hit the still figure, paralyzing them and bringing them to their knees before the shield could be raised. Her second shot hit as well. The third grunt, with two others brought down, was wise enough to dodge the shot by dashing under cover, leaving their captive behind. However, they didn’t expect fire from above. And Jorgund fired an arrow that hit his target, the stoneshot shattering and knocking the grunt out cold.

Seeing the shield go up, Rolanda did what she always did in these situations, and shot an arrow at it. "Take that you magical jerk!"

The arcanist’s shielding ward holds, though it flickered against the attacks. She huffed, the force of her magic blowing back her robe and hair. “Kurr! We must needs retreat! We cannot afford to lose the Helm!”

Aislinn watched the activity from her hiding place, her attention zeroing in on the small Seawolf who had seemed to be able to detect her magick. That was the arcanist. And, recalling Wyda's words on her last visit to the jail, the highlander used Momori’s device to take a snapshot of the woman.

Suppressing fire down, N'ana charged in at the remaining grunts and with a jumping slash tried to cut one of the men in two.

Quick on the miqo’te’s heels, Aislinn rushed in, using N'ana's charge as a distraction in a bid to get some of the victims down the corridor and out of the way.

The remaining grunts attempted to let loose a covering fire, but one was forced to stay behind stone by Jorgund’s suppressing fire. This left Heartwood dodging the gunshots of one foe, who primarily shot in Aislinn and N’ana’s direction. 

Seeing the gun, Aislinn drastically shifted course, dodging swiftly behind the nearby pillar. With a hasty calculation, she drew her own aetheric shield around herself. Pulling the firearm from her back, she cocked it and checked for the man's position once more.

She needn’t have worried. From the darkness, Nyscera shot forward in a blur and went straight for the man shooting at her company members. Her hand snatched the grunt’s arm and twisted it with a sickening snap of bone. With her other hand she placed it behind the grunts head and sent him down with enough force to collide with the stone below. Once that was taken care of, the Xaela went back to hiding and waited for the next attack.

The threat had been summarily handled. Gun held in a protective stance, Aislinn hurried to the victims and began pulling the hoods from their heads.

"Someone see if they can break that shield! Having the Helm would be nice!" she called out into the chaos as she ushered victims down the ramp to safety. The men and women hugged the wall, the ledge and a fall into the canyon’s depths was just a few steps away. 

Taking advantage of the ongoing commotion, Haila fired another set of shots, all aimed at the mage's shield rather than the rest of the grunts in an attempt to wear it down enough to face against the pair that was left in its protection.

"Nothing I have with my bow could break it without potentially electrocuting you all, which isn't ideal!” Jorgund yelled down to Aislinn. 

"You know what, good call! I appreciate that!" the highlander yelled in reply. One could never be sure, but it was possible the woman’s words had a sardonic bent. 

Rolanda continued loosing arrows at the shield as quickly as she could manage, in an effort to put pressure on the mage.

"I'll keep the one behind cover pinned until you can incapacitate him!" Jorgund offered instead. 

A detail that was swiftly taken care of by Nyscera as she came out of hiding once again. The grunt groaned as they’re dealt with by the Au Ra, an invisible threat to their eyes. The arcanist looks around herself, cursing...and in that moment of distraction, her spell wavered. The onslaught shattered the ward,  leaving her open to N’ana’s blazing sword attack. She made a guttural sound and hit the floor, still breathing, but downed.

The hooded figure hissed and raised a frail, finned hand up. “Shhhorewalker foolsss...You dare raissse your arms against we messengers of the whhhorleater?” He brandished the Helm, channeling its power through himself and releasing it as a powerful torrent of water aether. It crashes down like a tsunami, washing anyone in the courtyward level back with the force akin to the ocean’s mighty waves.

Jorgund and Rolanda could only look on in helpless horror. 

"Shit!" he yelled. 

Rolanda braced herself against the stone pillar as the waves crashed into her comrades. "NO!" she shouted, attempting to get a glimpse of anyone through the deluge.

Haila cursed under her breath, the current would have easily dragged her away, had it not been for the thick pillar she had been hiding behind and she held onto it for dear life.

When the shield fell, Aislinn attempted to raise her weapon but she wasn’t quick enough. The wave knocked off her feet and sent tumbling down the ramp. If not for the victims at the bottom, who scrambled to catch her, she would have gone over the side and disappeared into the canyon below. 

N'ana tried to hold her own against the deluge but fell to her knee and planted her sword to anchor her as the water poured over her. 

Nyscera felt herself get pushed back, grabbing her daggers she stabbed them into the stone to hold herself in place.

Haila, Aislinn, N’ana, Nyscera. It was too much for Jorgund to simply sit and watch. 

"...Well, a good a time to test this as any, I suppose." Jorgund sheathed his bow and drew his sword, taking a breath, and whispering a single word, infused with aether "...justice." At the word, the sword came alight with fire along the blade. He took another breath, focusing his aether into his flesh and bones to toughen himself "...please let this work" Jorgund leapt off the ledge above and plummeted down towards the hooded figure, raised to slash downwards as he reached them.

Jorgund’s sword hit, severing the hooded sahagin’s arm clean off. It flew aside, glowing white blood trailing its arc, before being washed away by the water. Surprisingly, the sahagin turns to Jorgund, giving a wicked and rotting smile to the man. “Ahhhh...thissss one. Thissss one hasss moxie...”

Jorgund grinned at him, already steadying himself from his fall. "You're goddamn right I do."

Nyscera shakily let go of one of her daggers and the Xaela summoned the water that the pirate had used on them to herself. It swirled around her before targeting the hooded figure staring Jorgund down, trapping it in what would be a water prison. "Shoot it!"

Haila jumped into action once more, knowing that would be her cue as she shot at the sahagin, hoping that the stunning properties of her shot would be just as effective on it.

Aislinn was ushered back to her feet by the victims, and breathlessly clambered back up the ramp just in time to see Haila's shot.

The wind picked up, reaching a fever pitch. An invisible force hovered nearby, forcing dust into the air. At this, the one-armed sahagin blinks, and grabbed his downed comrade by the neck. Haila’s shots sink into the sahagin’s face, tearing deep holes that bled white with unnatural blood. “....Ssso you all mussst be our ssstalkerssss...you hhhave done well, thisss time.” His body moved, as if propelled by some external force, ripping legs through the water in a self-destructive manner.

"That doesn't seem good...!" Jorgund yelled, falling back a step. 

Aislinn stared at the sight in bewilderment. "Seven hells?"

"What in the world...." Haila muttered, lowering her gun knowing that more of her shots wouldn't be enough to stop it.

"No you don't!" N’ana lunged forward and swung her blade to strike the creature's head.

The strike sliced the sahagin’s head off, and the body remained, puppeted by invisible strings. It seemed slightly inconvenienced as it bent over to retrieve its own head, forcing the flopping thing back into the stump of a neck it had left.

“...Hhhave this sssmall victory. We concede thessse sssix lambsss...” With the arcanist brutally held by her neck, the sahagin, radiating aether, stepped off the ruins’ ledge. He turned, standing seemingly on nothing but air, and stared back with a dead fish’s eyes, before disappearing into the air with a slam.

Aislinn stared where the Sahagin had just disappeared. "Seven Hells?!" she repeated, just a little bit louder this time.

"...Now I've seen some strange shit. But that's amongst the weirdest..." Jorgund said. 

"We seem to be running into more and more questions each time..." Haila commented, coming out from her hiding spot.

"At least we saved the six..." He said as he lowered his blade. 

Aislinn holstered her firearm and turned to look down the ramp at the victims. "Aye. There is that."

Jorgund sighed and relaxed a bit but suddenly paused. "...wait, did we deal with the one behind cover?"

Nyscera pulled her daggers out of the ground and secured them to her hips again, her glowing orbs looked the group over. At the mention of the hidden target the Xaela's gaze snapped into the direction where the grunt was hidden.

Adrenaline shot back through Rolanda’s already adrenaline-ravaged veins as she noticed the remaining guard. "OHWHATTHEHELL" she hurriedly nocked an arrow.

Following the Xaela’s gaze, Jorgund turned to walk casually behind the cover, holding his still flaming sword up towards him "...you wanna come quietly?"

Aislinn turned quickly to the sight of her companions closing in on the remaining guard like a pack of wolves. "We should hand them over to the Yellow Jackets. Supposedly they're Red Argos, the -real- crew the Maelstrom is looking for." Such a thing could go a long way to securing Wyda’s release. 

"I, personally, don't kill. Not unless absolutely necessary. I don't, however, have an issue if they rot in a cell forever.” Jorgund locked eyes with the remaining man. "Nor do I have an issue with beating the seven hells out of someone."

The Seawolf glared back at Jorgund, and brought a gun to his head. “Till sea swallows all, ye dirty ‘heroes.’” A shot is fired, echoing off the mountain walls...when the ringing stops, the Seawolf is...dead.

"...Twelve above." Jorgund said, his voice quiet. 

Aislinn was anything but. She cursed. Loudly. And vehemently.

That left one paralyzed grunt, and six victims. Very wet, very confused, and very afraid victims.

No longer concerned with the victims, Aislinn strode across the courtyard and secured the last remaining grunt, kicking his weapon off to the side. "Fine. One to turn in to the Yellow Jackets."

"Grab the paralyzed one, let's bring the captives to Heartwood to get them looked over by G'lewra and get a meal in them. We'll get them home once they're no longer in shock." Nyscera said, dishing out orders to her team. 

Aislinn nodded once to Nyscera. "I can get the grunt to Aleport."

The six victims, a mix of hyur and Seawolf, were in varying states of shock. Some simply stood and watched Heartwood with dead eyes. Other rocked back and forth. But they were all well enough to follow the company to wherever they needed to be brought. They were certainly ready to leave this place behind. 

[chrysalispen]

locum tenens (NSFW)

In which Nero is extremely conflicted about. Um. A lot of things, but Cid and Aurelia specifically.

(Set during ARR, post-Titan MSQ. Masturbation, but it’s an implied threesome and there’s fairly overt Cid/Nero overtones in this one, so give it a pass if that isn’t your thing.)

NSFW under the cut. 

===================================================

He has long since lost focus on the evening's work. For the last bell the buzz of the overhead fluorescents have proven a most effective distraction: one of the bulbs is about to die. It flickers at random, the flaring and receding patterns of light in his already sensitive eyes leaving him with both a burgeoning headache and an increasingly foul mood. 

Thus, the tribunus laticlavius has instead chosen to tilt the adjustable back of his office chair as far back as it will go and stare blankly into space for some unspecified amount of time. His pale blue eyes tilt upwards and relegate the faulty bulb to his periphery, tracking some fixed point within the maze of crisscrossed steel supports that adorn the castrum ceiling like a roof strewn with bones. 

It's quiet. Late night. Other than the Fifth Cohort's rookies running the graveyard shift guard duty along the castrum perimeter, everyone else has sought their bed. Everyone, that is, save one Nero tol Scaeva, currently finding his office ceiling a fascinating subject of study, and whomever else in the XIVth Legion that might at this juncture have eschewed the blood in their veins in favor of roughly equivalent amounts of caffeine. 

Van Baelsar being one of them, probably.

With a slow and careful exhalation Nero stares down at the files sitting in his lap. He's long since shed his armor; it's sitting polished and neat in its compartments until he has need to don it again -- another eikon investigation, perhaps -- and he is clad only in carbonweave breeches and a loose, untucked linen undershirt. Even his boots sit by the door, and if the legatus were to enter right this moment he knows he'd get a long and piercing hazel stare and a thinly veiled lecture about the dress code.

But neither the Black Wolf nor one of his lectures appears to be forthcoming, meaning Nero will pass another sleepless night alone with naught but a pile of tomestones and paper. 

More distractions from Project Ultima that he would prefer not to have. But he agreed to accept the posting, and the posting included a duty as the head of legate counterintelligence, and he might as well do something productive if he can't sleep. Old habits die hard.

At length he wrenches his gaze away from the ceiling (where it had returned while he considered putting his boots back on, at the very least). Runs a restless hand through thick platinum-blond curls. Glancing at the door one last time as if to satisfy his silent suspicion that he is the only man awake at this hour, before forcing himself to return his focus to the godsdamned reports.

He leafs slowly and thoughtfully through the copied printouts he'd selected from the raw data earlier in the day. Since Operation Quicksand's semi-successful conclusion he's had his men scouring the surrounding region for any sign of the missing adventurer who somehow managed to escape Livia's net. 

Somehow. He allows himself a smirk.

He picks up the reading glasses from their perch on the lacquered edge of the table and skims a few more pages of the assembled dossier.

His man's stakeout along the Sunroad has yielded unexpected fruit: not one, but two persons of interest. A woman matching the adventurer's description was recently seen around the so-called town of Camp Drybone, little more than a rest stop with a chapel run by some religious order or other.

He'd expected that, of course. She wouldn't have strayed far from Vesper Bay. 

It's the other one that catches his eye, one of the apparent clergymen at first blush. The beard throws him for a handful of minutes; it adds years to the man's face, makes him look far more like someone else Nero used to know. But the question lingers for barest moments, and then vestigial memory locks the rest into place, fills in the holes that time has eroded.

A cold and mirthless smile twitches at the edges of his lips. 

So. Alive, then. 

He's not sure whether to question the strange watershed sensation of relief or to let himself ruminate over that tight coil of anger already forming in his gut. The bastard should be  gone  , by all rights, out of  everyone's lives, but especially Nero's. 

He tosses that picture to the desk along with the neatly typed file clipped to it, reaches for his coffee (long since gone cold), and downs the rest of it in one sitting. It's only his iron control over his temper that keeps him from slamming the earthenware vessel onto the surface of the table in a fit of pique. 

Shite and hellsfire, matters were unbearable enough when he thought he must needs merely contend with the man's ghost. 

Setting the file and his glasses aside, he picks up the other: a much smaller dossier, owing largely to its subject's relative obscurity. There is surprisingly little information about her beyond army records. Highborn, but of unremarkable parentage and even less remarkable service. No different, surely, from any of the other pureblooded ladies who play chirurgeon for their requisite four year tours.

The difference, of course, being that this woman is supposed to be dead and clearly that is not the case. 

The Scions of the Seventh Dawn have done remarkably well to conceal her identity; it gives one cause to wonder what other secrets they might be keeping close to the chest. No doubt Livia is now taking great pleasure in wresting that information out of them.

She has been seen in Garlond's company, he muses. 'Tis most like she is an associate of his in some capacity, most likely professional by his man's reports, unless of course Garlond has taken more of a liking to the girl than he would have assumed.

Nero unclips the photo and studies it in silence, steepling his fingers before his lips as he leans forward in the chair. Committing that face to memory.

Carefully he places the file atop the collection of paperwork and pushes back the chair, padding towards the entrance to his quarters on bare feet. As he does so, he ignores the chill of corrugated steel against his soles. He's felt far worse. 

One of the few objective advantages of his lofty rank within the XIVth is the privacy it affords him. Second in command and privy to extremely sensitive information, he cannot afford a security breach. The door is soundproofed and can only be opened upon his command; locking it will alert the guards standing watch to dissuade any unexpected visitors -- and that he will brook no interruptions.

He throws the deadbolt. Behind him the dying light continues to flicker. 

He stares at the switch panel, considering for a brief moment, then uses the flat of his hand to push all of them down simultaneously, and the flickering is blessedly gone. Cool blue light from the walls spills across the darkened room like water.

That done, Nero turns towards the entrance to his personal quarters. Empty office space he only uses during his visits to this particular outpost, adorned with a desk, a small console with his feeds from R&D, and two small metal armoires. 

Between them, situated behind the soulless steel table, there lies a long and narrow cot with a stiff, uncomfortable mattress and a single thin blanket. Up until now, it has gone untouched. Nero has long since accustomed himself to falling asleep upon whatever surface exhaustion places him, and that's been in labs for countless weeks now, his fingers wrapped about a mug of coffee with a tomestone scrolling raw data for decryption on the screen before him. 

Nero sits down on the edge of the cot, swings his legs up and over the side, and stretches his lanky frame from end to end -- he is a tall man even by Garlean standards, and his toes are only an ilm or two shy of the armoire. There is no pillow so he folds his arms behind his head and lets his eyes fall shut, listens to the soft and even whisper of air through his nose as he takes a breath, lets it out, takes another. 

He's not going to fall asleep like this, though. Not with his mind defying him, still moving a malm a minute.

Sifting idly through spare bits of information for something his mind can use, his thoughts turn to the woman. Adventurer, defector, a cipher in and of herself. 

The photo that now lies in Frumentarium's keeping is somewhat outdated now, but still reasonably accurate to his memory of her battles otherwise: hair the color of honey, falling in soft and loose waves to tumble past slim, proud shoulders. Dark blue eyes. An almost unreasonable air of personal composure. In the dark and quiet stillness of his sealed chambers he can paint a picture of her in his mind's eye, what he has witnessed of her, a force of nature in battle -- and there is an appeal in that strength which Nero won't deny. He has ever appreciated power in all its forms.

Idly he wonders what she would look like without the unadorned battle robes of a conjurer: a context in which there would be no cause for her soft mouth to set in that grim line, nor eyes to harden as they stare down a dangerous opponent. No crudely fashioned silver circlet to conceal that third eye, a mark of her heritage that in a just world she could display with pride.

Softly disheveled, she would appear quite different. Candlelit glow against gold and the porcelain field of flesh laid bare, indigo eyes perhaps burning with a different sort of fire. Mouth slack and soft, the lips parted ever so slightly, to admonish or to laugh or to whisper. To smile. 

Perhaps even to kiss, he thinks, and for some reason that is the thought that spears itself down the core of his spine. Heat blossoms in his groin. 

His hand strays to his waistband and lingers, settling over the silver clasp of the first buttons without unfastening them just yet. As a younger man he would have been impatient to seek release, but now that he has so little free time to himself these days, save stolen moments such as these, he prefers to take a more relaxed approach. He rests the flat of his palm upon his belly, giving the heat and tension time to build upon themselves. Beneath his gently curled fingers he can sense the indentation of his navel and a light mat of wiry blond curls, tapering downward in a smooth line from the broad planes of his chest.

The tribunus opens his eyes, staring sightlessly at the darkened ceiling.

She'd smiled once, after one of those battles: a quiet, shy thing that had lit up her face as she said something to the man accompanying her. Another Scion associate, or a lover? 'Tis rumored the adventuring profession attracts a certain free-spirited sort of individual. If the defector is of that bent, he imagines she has had her share of suitors, if not simply like-minded souls willing to warm her bed when the mood strikes.

Perhaps Garlond is one of them. 

A sullen annoyance arises at the thought and Nero kills it swiftly, before it can put him back into the less-than-ideal state of mind he'd come in here to dispel. It isn't likely, for one. The same man who had reported their presence in Camp Drybone had also provided a rough map from his memory of the chapel interior, in case the tribunus might decide to order a raid on the premises to arrest them. The floor plan is open, spread among narrow and rough-hewn wooden pews -- no room there for trysting clerics.

Or is there? The Academy's floor plan had included a similar layout in the main lecture halls, and there had been winter nights where the snowfall had been so heavy and the gales so dangerous a student could risk their lives simply attempting to walk back to the dormitories. Sometimes they'd be shut in the school building for days at a time, bundled two to a pallet along the floors at night for warmth through body heat while the arctic wind wailed around steel eaves. 

Nero knows from personal and very lived experience that one could get up to some interesting pursuits beneath those heavy blankets with one's instructors none the wiser, were one so inclined. 

And the desert is quite cold at night. 

Have they maintained professional distance, or have they indulged themselves? Shared more than body warmth of a cold and lonely evening? 

Nimble fingers slip the silver-plated button through the first loop, loosens his breeches just enough to allay some of the growing discomfort, and his cock twitches at the sensation of touch in its general vicinity. His lower lip catches for just a split second between his teeth before his fingers move to unfasten another.

He would never admit it to a living soul but he can remember the precise location of every one of the calluses that work and long hours had worn into Cid nan Garlond's hands. Can almost feel the half-remembered sensation of roughened fingertips and broad palms tracing their circuitry patterns down his back from shoulder to waist and beyond. The memory brings no rancor with it, and that, he finds, is a surprise in itself. 

His eyes fall shut again, and this time his breathing is ever so slightly uneven. Another button slips from its confines, then a fourth when he finds no relief to be had from the pressure of his own clothing. A noticeable ridge has formed beneath the carbonweave and with a light and questing touch he places his palm upon it, notes the way it stretches and strains against the coated fibers. It's warm to the touch, and acutely sensitive; his breath hisses between clenched teeth upon contact and his knees flex in response, heels drawing an ilm or two upward. The motion drags his feet away from the cold steel armoire and he exhales, a trembling gust of air.

He begins to touch himself in earnest. Slow and firm and unhurried strokes, palm gently cupped about the half-clothed shaft, heel of his palm applying just enough pressure to feel each subsequent twitch as it occurs.

Nero knows his touch intimately, but the adventurer's (defector's) is as much a mystery as the rest of her. She would be soft, he muses. Soft and smooth, the tiny hairs on the surface of her skin like the nap of fine velvet: an exquisite contrast to her partner, toned muscle and wiry silver filament strands against the rough homespun pallet. 

From there it is easy to imagine the two of them entwined, concealed from prying eyes beneath their shared blankets in the cool desert night. Calloused hands upon slim and elegant shoulders, drawing the simple linen conjurer's robes along her limbs and down to pool at her waist. The heat in those ceruleum-blue eyes of hers, when those same strong fingers trace the shape of her collarbone before descending upon the soft and pliant weight of her breasts.

The final button undone, he carefully lifts his hips from the mattress so he can move his loose breeches to mid-thigh, then slides the elastic waistband of his smalls down and over the curve of his hips, just enough to expose his aching cock to the night air. The surface of his skin feels... electric, a living levin conduit. His heartbeat is a drum pounding its rhythm in his ears. 

He wraps a hand about himself, a short gasp escaping his lips at the sensation, and the pace he sets is far less measured than before.

It isn't only Garlond that Nero imagines now, breathing ragged and heavy beneath the close darkness of homespun blankets, learning the adventurer’s body with the meticulous eye reserved for an engineer's schematic. It's himself as well, his curious nature making it impossible for him to refrain from conducting his own investigation - and his jealousy, the pride that leaves him unwilling to allow even a phantom Cid borne of his own fevered imaginings to possess aught that Nero tol Scaeva wants for himself. 

The shy little smile he remembers has become something approaching wicked as she presents herself to him, lounging with her back relaxed against Cid's broad chest and his arms wrapped fondly about her waist. He would enfold that slender frame in his arms, soft warm skin damp from sweat. Inhale the scent he'd caught that day in the caverns, trapped within the skeins of blonde hair that slip across his chest. 

Her long legs flex when she parts them and his gaze catches upon the small cap of curls nestled at the apex of her thighs, soft and lush and inviting. 

In his mind's eye he sheathes himself in one stroke: an easy and perfect slide into her cunt, slick and grasping and as hungry for him as he is for her- and then there are hands, not one set but two, hers tangled in his hair and Garlond's rough, broad ones, dragging across his back, soothing and sure and familiar. 

His back arches, hips rolling into the quickening movements of his hand, taut flesh slick with his own fluids. A deep moan, urgent and frantic, threads its way from his lips and goes all but unnoticed. Wholly caught within the gossamer threads of his own fantasy, he is entwined with them, pressed into that warm closeness they share, overcome both by lust and a deep-seated desire to possess whatever undefinable quality it is that seems to draw others to them. 

That draws Nero, for all his protests to the contrary. 

The heat and the painful tension in his belly surge, drawing to a point as fine and white-hot as the tip of an iron. Nero's free hand finds desperate purchase in the scratchy fabric of the blanket beneath, pulls, clenches into a fist so tight it will leave crescent-shaped indents in his palm even through the cheap synthetic wool.

The phantom lovers in his head sigh. His name is a prayer on her lips as she shudders around him. Another (far more familiar) mouth presses itself against his neck, an echo of her cry rasped in hot breath and a soft male rumble, and it is his undoing. 

The sound he makes when he comes is a broken and stuttering cry. Wet heat paints his bare stomach and the fingers wrapped snugly about his length. He lies on the cot for long moments without budging, staring into the darkness with unfocused fjord-blue eyes, his breathing rapid and loud and the pounding of his heart keeping time with the bright pulse still thrumming in his spent cock. 

His eyes adjust, eventually, as his heartbeat slows from its breakneck pace. 

He sees the same ceiling as before. Standardized castrum architecture. Soulless black steel, the neat and careful lines backlit by cool blue light, light that will turn a deep scarlet were he to switch on the fluorescents. The last vestiges of afterglow have faded. Garlond has been presumed dead for five years, his adventurer associate is a stranger with a bounty on her head for defection, and Nero is the engineer Gaius van Baelsar has rather than the one he wants. The acceptable substitute.

He is also no closer to sleep now than he was before. Too much on the mind, too much still left to do before the project is ready for a field test. Garlond and his eikon-slaying friend, wherever they are now, will have to wait upon further consideration, and Livia will have to accept what means of intelligence she has available. For now. 

Nero swings his legs carefully over the side of the cot, grimacing briefly at the mess. He uses the corner of the blanket to clean what he can as he tucks himself back into place and stands, thoughtfully buttoning his breeches. First order of business: fresh smalls, and a long shower. After that he might as well get back down to his lab and put on a fresh pot of coffee. He can work out his leftover frustration on that damned servomech he's been wrestling for the past few days.

And if he finds himself distracted by an old memory, or the whisper of a scent-

Well. 

He can ignore it.

[eremiss]

23. Parched

son of bitch forgot the readmore woops

Thanalan’s sun was unforgiving, blazing irreverently overhead as Gwen wiled away bells filling her satchel and assorted jars with whatever she could find between Camp Drybone and Broken Water.

Gwen swiped an arm across her brow and belatedly wondered if she actually managed to wipe away any sweat or if she’d merely smeared it around. After a moment of debate she ducked under a jut of rock to cool off and give her feet a break, surveying her surroundings as she caught her breath.

The desert was a place of opposites, the land and air both bone-dry unless it was monsoon season, searing hot during the day and near freezing at night. The desert was sandy and flat in some places, rocky and hilly in others, every ilm of it rough and parched unless it was oversaturated and flooding with more water than it could handle. Stubborn plants, some wiry, some scraggly, some with delicate little blossoms, all of them tough and hearty, had found ways to survive, or even thrive, despite the unforgiving conditions.

It was nothing like the dense, loamy forest she was used to. In the Shroud the ground was covered in lush grasses, mosses and ferns, the air muggy in the summer from the almost-nightly thunderstorms. The ground was softer and very few plants perished for want of water; even the harder, more densely packed parts were at least a bit damp and run through with some stubborn roots.

The Shroud was towering and vibrantly green, while Thanalan was expansive and painted in reds and browns.

When Gwen first arrived in Ul’dah she’d worried if botany and gathering would be viable, as she’d come to rely on the trade both for money and to feed herself when work was scarce. X’hrun could only help so much, and the last thing she wanted was to be a burden. 

Momodi had been happy to set her straight on the matter, and happier still to come to an arrangement that involved her gathering whatever ingredients the Quicksand’s kitchens were lacking. Rather than paying her directly, Momodi struck a deal with Otopa to reduce the rate of Gwen’s room, giving the fledgling adventurer’s purse a modicum of breathing room while sparing the proprietress the prices in the markets and the cost of couriers.

After wisely spending a bit of gil on books about the desert’s flora and fauna, all of Gwen’s lingering doubts about the proprietress’ claims were laid to rest. Honestly, it was not so terribly different than the Shroud once she knew where to look. She could still get by on the surprising bounty of the desert, either from selling what Momodi didn’t need or by partaking in it herself. 

Black pepper, mustard seed, garlic, parsnips and carrots didn’t fetch high prices, but they were easy enough to find and necessities for a multitude of common dishes. Someone was always willing to buy them, though not for too much. 

Saffron fetched a high price, but it was difficult to find. Crocus flowers could tolerate a lot, somehow always finding a shaded crevice or shadowy patch to grow in, but even they had their limits.

If she was willing to take a risk, the alchemist’s guild was perpetually in need of scorpions and vipers, and they didn’t split too many hairs when it came to compensation. Antivenoms and antidotes were a vital part of first aid and there was a (dubiously) steady demand for them, for one reason or another. Most went to Phonistery and the Immortal Flames, neither wanting to risk their stockpile running out. 

One wrong move, however, could mean Gwen would need a dose of the antivenom she was trying to help create. Once she had thicker gloves and quicker hands the scorpions, at least, were far less harrowing. 

Once she’d found something of a routine, once she’d figured out how to make her way, Gwen quickly grew accustomed Thanalan and its extremes. Sometimes she was even a bit fond of it all. Duskfeather seemed to prefer the wide open skies and bright sun to the Shroud’s crowd of branches and dappled shade.

Gwen didn’t even mind the heat all that much, though that didn’t mean she was enamored with it. Maybe her parents’ talk about ‘desert blood’ actually had some weight behind it, though she had no idea how similar Thanalan and Dalmasca actually were. She used to think a desert was a desert and that was all there was to itt, but of course nothing was ever so simple, and she’d learned the error of her ways quickly enough.

At that moment, on a day when she traded training in red magics and dueling for simpler manual labor, Gwen didn’t have the zeal or patience to search for crocus or hunt scorpions. Instead she’d chosen to substitute rarity with quantity, spending her time trimming sprigs of laurel, collecting handfuls of pungent mustard seeds and digging up thick, knobby popotos and ginseng roots..

Gwen hefted her pack, the weight of it providing a solid sense of satisfaction that made the dirt on her knees and under her nails, the scrapes on her knuckles and and the sweat running down her face more worthwhile. She took a long drink of water that nearly drained the skin, forcing herself to not to finish it off despite the fact her mouth still felt a little dry. 

One of the things she’d learned about the desert: ration her water, and save the last of it until a fresh source was within sight (or reach, damn mirages.) Nothing made a trek through the heat more grueling and desperate than being out of water.

She weighed her waterskin in her hand thoughtfully and scratched her fingers through the dry, brittle earth at her side. How long had she been out foraging? She leaned out of the shade and squinted up towards the sun to gauge the hour.

Well, it didn’t actually matter, did it? She was almost out of water. That was the clearest sign it was time to pack up and return to town that she could ask for.

As she stood up and dusted herself off she glanced down at her arms, bare from the mid-bicep down to where her thick gloves reached just above her wrists. She fancied she could, maybe, feel her skin growing a bit too tight and hot.

She’d find some aloe first, then she’d head back to town.

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I started out wanting to do a sick fic but then it started getting away from me so I scrapped it. I like this waaaay more! :D

idk if it would actually be reasonable/profitable/reliable to gather shit in a desert but hey the nodes are up in game all the time so

idk what other people did for their WoL’s housing situation for the very beginning/very early MSQ, but I decided Gwen lived at the Hourglass while she got her shit together