#we love and support the lalafellan dynamic duo terrorizing the grumpy elf

[kootiepatra]

#FFxivWrite2024 - Day 30: Two Heads are Better Than One

Tataru glanced up anxiously from her desk as Krile emerged from the Dawn’s Respite. “So,” she asked her. “How do they look?”

Krile shrugged resignedly. “Unchanged. Which, I suppose, is both good news and bad news. …I hazard a guess we have not yet had any contact from the Warrior of Light?”

“Not as such, no,” Tataru said. “She hasn’t been gone long, after all. But I did have the strangest dream…”

Krile inclined her head curiously.

“Oh, never mind,” she said. “It’s probably just my silly imagination. Dinner did not set right, or something. But! I did hope to seek your counsel on another matter, actually.”

“No one else has fallen mysteriously unconscious, I trust?” Krile joked wearily. “What is it?”

“Oh!” Tataru gasped, suddenly realizing herself. “Look at me. Chatting your ear off, and yet I have not even offered you tea. Have a seat; I’ll be right with you.”

She directed Krile over to one of the common room’s tables, and then hurried over to the bar. She only had to threaten the Mark XIV Thermocoil Boilmaster just a little to get it to dispense the hot water. Within the few minutes it took the tea to steep, she joined Krile at the table with a pristinely laid-out tea tray, complete with cakes she had stress-baked the night before.

Krile gratefully sipped the steaming brew. The past few days had been… a lot, and the respite was more than welcome. “So,” she asked. “What is all this about?”

Tataru folded her hands and leaned forward. “I have been thinking. We are a little—shall we say, short-handed at the moment.”

Krile chuckled dryly. “I suppose we are, yes.”

“Our best are literally on another world, and only one of them is in possession of her body. And the other teams, bless them, have their hands full, struggling to pick up the slack. Yet, truth be told, even if they were not already stretched to their limits… I worry that we still have a problem that is, unfortunately, beyond their experience to take on.”

“You mean the war?” Krile asked.

Tataru shook her head. “I mean Black Rose.”

“…Ah, yes,” Krile remembered. “Gods. If only these crises could come fewer at a time.”

“I do not doubt our Scions’ enthusiasm nor willingness, lest you be mistaken,” Tataru explained. “Hoary and Arenvald would probably require only a suggestion before they stormed the gates of Garlemald itself, swords drawn. But as good as they are—and as much as they’ve grown—I can’t say I fancy their chances.”

“No indeed,” Krile agreed. “Thancred is the only agent I know personally whom I would entrust with such a task.”

“And he’s quite inconveniently indisposed at the moment,” Tataru nodded.

Krile set down her tea. “So… how do you believe I can lend aid?”

Tataru smirked, ready to lay out her plans. “I am of a mind to recruit someone.”

Krile just raised her eyebrows, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You remember Estinien Wyrmblood, I trust?” Tataru asked.

Krile nodded slowly. “Of course. Though I cannot say I have seen hide nor hair of him since he was delivered from Nidhogg’s possession.”

Tataru leaned in more intensely. “Outside of his brief involvement at Ghimlyt, no one in Eorzea has. Not even Ser Aymeric—I’ve asked him. It would seem our former Azure Dragoon has been quite intent on disappearing. BUT,” she said triumphantly. “I have contacts. People who know things. People who owe me a few favors.”

“…And?”

“And, I think I can safely say we have narrowed down his whereabouts. I have reason to believe he is in Kugane.”

“Most impressive,” Krile congratulated her. “But… apologies; I still do not understand where I might come into this.”

Tataru tapped her fingers together innocently. “Do you suppose you would still recognize him by his aether?”

“…No better than you could recognize him by his face, unless something has drastically changed.”

“No,” Tataru said, a bit miffed that her grand scheme was not as obvious as it seemed to her. “I mean, could you find him by his aether? The way you found Thancred?”

Now Krile understood. “…Oh,” she said, considering. “Hmm. I may need to pay a visit to the Steps of Faith to see if I could possibly pick up a lingering trace, by way of reminder.”

“That is easily enough arranged,” Tataru said brightly.

“Matoya would have my head if I asked to borrow the Crystal Eye again, now of all times…” Krile shot a glance towards the door to the Dawn’s Respite, where the old woman was even now continuing observations with said crystal. “But if you’re sure he’s in Kugane, then I suppose I would not need it once we’re close enough…”

“Oh I’m sure,” Tataru asserted. “Have you attuned to the aetheryte there? Time is of the essence, I’d say.”

Krile nodded distantly. “As fortune would have it, business for the Students has taken me there before.”

“So?” Tataru asked. “Will you help me?”

Krile looked at Tataru’s outstretched hand and pondered. It is true she had used her aetheric senses to track people down before, but only rarely, and only for individuals she believed wanted to be found. She had never spoken to Estinien. She had never even met him when he wasn’t a vessel for Nidhogg. It seemed a bit intrusive to memorize his aether to hunt him down now.

But then she thought of what she knew of Black Rose, and of the absolute, unimaginable death it threatened to all her allies—nay, to the entire star. She thought of her friends stranded on a different world, unable to continue their work to stop it. She thought of Tataru scouring the streets of Kugane alone—even with her considerable resourcefulness, it would be a difficult task.

Was she really doing this?

She hesitated. Then she smiled. Then she clasped the hand of her now co-conspirator. “Let us be about it, then.”