#yes amandina is humming the mission: impossible theme

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #12: A Rescue!

Prompt: quarry || Master Post || On AO3

---

Hunting with a trio of carbuncles is a fascinating experience. Well, it’s really one carbuncle with two more mostly learning under her direction, but Aymeric’s point still stands.

Galette, of course, takes point: finest nose and aethersense on three continents, after all. Roksana slides after her, reminding Aymeric strongly of a seal moving on an iceflow, the faintest chime of her giggles echoing in the back of his mind. Amandina lay draped over his left shoulder, too big now to perch on it, humming something Aymeric was fairly sure he’d heard from Rereha a time or two as she snuck around. Aymeric, of course, is at the rear, ostensibly serving as lookout but more accurately just enabling.

Galette’s ears twitch, and immediately they all pause; Aymeric, mid-stride, very gently eases his foot onto the floor. Roksana’s ears and tails go flat, and now she really does look like a seal.

Ivar wanders out of the library, a piece of bacon hanging out of his mouth and slowly disappearing as he chews and swallows it. He pauses, then turns to stare at them.

Aymeric grins. The twins valiantly attempt to not giggle and are mostly successful. Galette just stares with all the gravitas of being the eldest sibling.

My family is so weird, Ivar grumbles, and walks past them towards the kitchen.

Says the pyromaniac, Galette mutters. Ivar’s tails lash out of the corner of Aymeric’s eye, but the ruby carbuncle, for once, doesn’t raise to take his sister’s bait.

Galette turns back to the matter at hand, peering into the library. Roksana eels across the floor to poke her head under Galette’s. Aymeric leans forward, as does Amandina.

Synnove sits her desk, head bowed and propped up by one hand, a faint frown barely visible on her face. She is tapping her stylus against the desk, tappa-tappa-tap-tap, and stacks of papers sits on either side of her.

It was mid-afternoon, and his lady had been grading papers since just after breakfast. This intervention is necessary.

Galette flicks her right ear, and Aymeric carefully eases his way into the library along the righthand wall. The heavy rug there is able to muffle footsteps, and the floorboards beneath it aren’t prone to creaks from large footsteps the way the ones to the left are. Another flick of Galette’s ear, and a breeze begins to blow in through the open window, further disguising the presence of anyone else in the room.

Amandina begins her humming again. Roksana, unable to glide along on carpet, belly crawls instead, following after Galette as they go opposite along the wall from Aymeric and Amandina.

Aymeric ilms his way along the wall, until the right angle turn that allows him to begin his approach from behind Synnove.

His lady is still tapping her style rhythmically, but the frown has become a sly little grin.

Oh, well.

He swoops forward, and Synnove pushes her chair back just enough to give him clearance to lift her without banging her knees or shins against the desk. His lady still lets out a playful shriek, and he settles her in his arms with smug satisfaction.

“My lady,” Aymeric says in his poshest voice, “you while the day away in shadow and labor, when the sun shines brightly and the flowers dance in the breeze. How dare you squander Hydaelyn’s gifts?”

Synnove laughs, her breath briefly punting out of her in a wheeze as Amandina tumbles from his shoulder to land in her lap with a Hi, Mommy! “Oh, woe,” his lady says in her best mimicry of him, “I am but a slave to the needs of my masters! Whomever shall save me from my labors and show me the joys of the wider world?”

She tilts her head up, green eyes twinkling, and Aymeric lowers his head so they may exchange a sweet kiss.

Have no fear, Mama! Galette says, hopping onto the desk, with Roksana after her. She pauses, taking a moment to reach down and scruff her baby sister to help her up. That done, she continues, I have found a brave knight to bring you to the sun, and all the glories that await!

Synnove turns to stare at her eldest, a wry grin ticking across her face. “Got some pastries from Red Rooster Stead, didn’t you?”

YES, now let’s GO.

Galette picks Roksana up—Roksana now almost too big for it, but the white pearl carbunclet obediently tucks her arms and legs and tails close to make it easier—and leaps down, trotting imperiously towards the door to make her way to the patio. Synnove and Aymeric both laugh, and Aymeric presses a kiss to his lady’s hair as he follows after, prize safely in hand.