Hydaelyn Role-Players

It was a bright and cloudless morning in the Mist and all was fairly quiet at The Midnight Moogle. Melody had been awake for a while taking enough time to get herself ready for the supply run she and Martsia had been assigned.

Brio had called them all to a meeting several days before and laid out his game plan on what still needed to be done before they opened up shop. She smiled gently to herself, feeling proud at how much Brio had taken control of managing the place. Her twin still had a long way to go in regards to maturity, but he was making progress.

"Let's see, am I forgetting anything?" she asked herself.

She stood back looking at the objects she'd laid out on her bed while she finished eating the fruit bread she'd nabbed earlier from the kitchen. Coinpurse with enough for deposits and snacks, notebook, pencil, cleaning cloth for her glasses, and their chef's shopping list. She liked to travel light, to say the least.

Nodding in approval, Melody neatly packed everything into her well-used leather satchel, slung it over her shoulder, and turned to head out the door.

Martsia prided herself on being punctual, but today was testing that. She had just gotten Nicodeme yesterday, and her overwhelming joy at being a chocobo parent had her riding around La Noscea all night and well into the early morning hours. She had put Nicodeme up in a local chocobo keeper's place for a few hours. She went back to her room at the Inn and set an alarm for 8am. Unfortunately it was poorly made and she didn't wake up until 9:45 at the earliest. Her room was nice, but it wasn't as nice as a Company bedroom. Alas, while the Moogle was ready for customers, the living spaces were still under construction.

Scrambling to put on a decent outfit she ran out the door with nothing but a poorly made list and her axe, which she'd lovingly named Mordecai. She'd had many axes, and each new one she got, she named the same name. She didn't know why, but it was just something that made her laugh. She raced over to the chocobo keep and hopped onto Nicodeme, who was still tired, and irritable from last nights trek. She steered him towards the nearest way to Mist and off they went. Running through sand and stone, Mar loved the breeze in her hair, and the feeling of speed. She had worked so hard to earn enough to get her own chocobo, and seeing it nearly brought tears to her eyes. 

As they neared the Moogle, Nicodeme started getting restless, and was speeding up. She tried pulling on his reins but nothing could slow down the beast. 

"NicoNICONIIIICCOOOOO!!!" Mar screamed as they raced toward the front door. "STOOOP!!" With those words the chocobo stopped, and Martsia was flung off his back and straight into the door, with a loud THUD! She whimpered painfully as she writhed on the ground outside, shouting curses to the gods. That was when she heard the door open.

"Ah!" Melody jumped back at the sudden loud thud against the door and nearly fell backwards. Hearing Mar's voice outside, she carefully stepped out to see what was going on.

"Mar? What's going- Oh my goodness,are you hurt?!" she rushes forward to check her friend for any injuries. She checked Martsia wherever she was holding herself in pain. Not finding any blood or bruises she asked "What happened?" as she took a concerned look around the front of the house. Her eyes rested on Nicodeme who's reins were dangling near the ground as he scratched and pecked for grains near the stable. Melody's bird, Clef, seemed curious at the newcomer, but kept to her own business.

"Let me guess. New chocobo?" she asked Martsia, now taking notice of skid marks in the dirt near the front door. Melody looked back to the grounded Lalafell and held out a hand to help her onto her feet. "Looks like you made it in one piece, so that's a good start." she grinned mischeviously at Mar.

Martsia laughed to herself, not liking how she'd made her entrance on this day. She accepted the help up from Melody and brushed herself off, leading Nicodeme to the stable and getting him settled. She held out her crinkled, and slightly torn list to Melody, listing all of the ingredients she needed for her drinks. She knew that Melody had the food list...well, hopefully. The cook was pretty useful in the kitchen, but when he was absent, he cause more problems than he was worth.

"Well then Mel! Shall we head out?" Mar said, petting Nico's beak, feeling him nuzzling into her palm. She heard him chirping as she turned away from him, and suddenly she was stopped in her tracks when he bit onto her hair and held on. "AhhhAAAAAHHH?!" She shouted confusedly, and painfully. "Leggo! Leggo NICO!!" She said, turning to try and pry her hair loose. He stared her in the eyes for a few minutes, a silent threat of 'if you leave and don't come back, I'll find you...and you don't want that.'

He let her hair go gently, tapping his beak a few times to release any remaining strands. She kissed him on the beak, and then turned back to Melody, grinning sheepishly. 
"Okay...now lets head out!" She laughed, starting her trek to the shops.

Martsia could participate in an „Entrance of a century” contest but she would have a worthy rival...
As theyhead out, girls spotted an unidentified flying object – a flying flaming ball with small hands. The flaming ball had a face that shown an expression of panic. The burning object was in fact – a bomb.

The creature was held by something hanging behind it. That someTHING quickly became someONE as they spotted elegantly dressed Lalafell with white hair and huge glasses covering his emerald eyes. Is it a bird? Or maybe an airship? No… It’s Jigumundo.

“GET! DOWN!”

He shouted at a burning, panicked creature as it dragged him behind in mid-air. They were at a formidable height, one must admit.


“I promise, You’re going to be okay! Only a few tests!”


As he yelled again, promising a safe return to a Bomb, it started to freak out even more. It looked like an air-show when the monster performed an acrobatic flying tricks to shake of the Professor.

“Stoooo-ooooo-ooooo-oooo-p!”

The bomb got noticeably brighter as it panicked even more. Like it would…

“Oh nonononononononoo!”

…and it did. A huge explosion shook the surroundings, along with a big black cloud that appeared on the sky after the bomb went off.  An object could be noticed falling out of thecloud. It was Jig. He was descending very quickly, just for a rough landing on a roof of nearby building.

Regardless of prediction that he’ll disrupt the peace of family living in the house he landed on by barging in through ceiling, he bounced off the roof and fell on nearby stairs. Rolling down, bouncing like a rubber ball with “Ouch”, “Oof” and “Bwah” getting out of his mouth, he ended up faceplanting right near the girls.

He looked intact at the first glance; however his clothes were smoked and covered in dust and rubble. Probably some protection spell saved his sorry butt… He was lying there, not moving, only moaning, with his face kissing the ground.

The look on Melody's face was not easily described as she processed what had just transpired. Strained mixed with surprise and..... shock, maybe? After the explosion dust settled and Clef had calmed down, she reached over to help Martsia steady Nicodeme. When they were certain the skittish bird would not bolt, Melody hopped down and walked over to the charred and smoky professor.

"I'm not too sure what you'd hoped to accomplish there, but I hope a lesson was learned." she said, pulling Jig to his feet and brushing off some of the dust from his coat in an almost motherly fashion. "Please be more careful the next time you try to snag your own personal hot air balloon."

Looking back to Martsia and signaling the okay, Melody walked back to Clef shaking her head "Agh, this day is turning out to be crazy already and we haven't even left the Mist yet." she mounted back up and looked back to the still dazed professor. "We were just heading into Limsa, Jig. Do you need a ride anywhere? Clef can handle two."

Martsia accepted that Jig and Melody were dating...but after the events that had transpired hours ago...she was still very wary of him. Now the man stood before them, charred, hair still smoking a bit, and she reached over, putting the last flame out with her fingers.

"Quite adventurous are ye?" She said calmly, not wanting to seem insulting, or too kind. Distant, distant was a good word to use in this scenario! She wasn't too fond of Jig, not after he and Brio had pretended to fight, leading Mar into such a fit of rage and upset that she had to go to the water to calm down. Her words still rang in her ears. 'Brio, yer like a brother to me...but i would ruin everything if he hurt you...I'd have to kill yer sister's boyfriend!' Because he was such a huge idiot...she sighed and hopped on Nicodeme. Hoping that riding would ease her tension.

"Adventurous? No. Suicidal, maybe..." 

He answered having his thoughts somewhere else. Jig gazed at both girls and continued. 

"Since my bomb appeared to be more unstable than I thought I need to create a new one which means... buying some ingredients, if I want to continue testing... Gathering them would be a pain though, I..." 

He continued, mumbling to himself. His face grew red in embarassment, when he realised that no one was listening.

"I... uhm... I mean the lesson. Yes. I learned something very useful here. Bombs explode and gravity hurts."

He probably just suffered severe brain damage due to a hard fall. Or he's just dumb. He imiddiately sobered up as he sensed some hidden hostility from Martsia. He quickly forgot that the entire situation from before was in fact a huge misunderstanding.

"Oh. Excuse me, Ladies. Am I interupting something with my explosive entrance, am I not?"

"Eh... No need to excuse yourself. The two of us were just going into town on a supply run. You feeling alright?" Melody seemed very concerned at hearing Jig mention 'suicidal' and the fact that he was trying to make bombs. After thinking on it for another second, she felt she shouldn't be too surprised.

She glanced curiously at the unusually silent Martsia and tried to make light of the situation. "At least he took something away from his detonating tumble, eh Mar?" she joked, trying to get her friend to smile. Melody didn't like how tense she seemed.

She nudged Clef forward and walked her around the professor, looking back at the both of them, waiting for any reactions. "So? We all heading in the same direction?"

Mar let Nicodeme ride next to Clef, smiling lightly at Melody's attempt at a joke. She really wanted to feel more at ease, so she told herself to just let it go for now. Something seemed off about Jig...she didn't know what...but he stirred up feelings. Bad feelings, of bad times. He seemed irrational? 

"Ah yes! Let's head to the markets. And if he needs things as well...might as well not waste a trip." She tried to smile kindly, but she felt as though it seemed fake. She felt like she needed a drink, and it was only morning. Nico shook a bit, almost throwing her off, but she held tight. "Alright Nico... We'll get goin faster soon!" 

She turned to look back at Melody and Jig, seeing them chatting a bit. She couldn't help but feel jealous at Melody's luck at finding someone. A smaller, more genuine smile came to her face, watching their interaction.

"C'mon you two! Let's get goin!"

"Good. Let me fetch up my ride then!"

Jig whistled. Almost instantly a loud patter could be heard from the distance. Jig looked around and saw... Nothing?

"Where is this useless bir..."

The 'useless bird' he tried to mention, jumped from behind a tall wall, landing on it's master. The yellow chocobo, clothed in black attire, with a white mask on a beak was oblivious that his master was under it's foot.

Jig mumbled something from down there but his voice was muffled by dirt in his mouth. The big bird looked around in searh of his owner, but failed to notice him. Jig partially crawled from under the avian toes and spit out the dirt.

"Pyro! You big, yellow dumb... WHOOOA!"

Pyro - as Jig named him - catched his master with it's beak and launched him in the air. This time Professor landed safely on back of his faithful, yet silly steed.

"UGH! I hate when he does that..."

Jig grabbed Pyro's reins and looked at girls.

"I think I'm good to go..."

Indeed something about him was odd... And it was not brain damage. Something in his bright, emerald eyes that hid under large spectacles. Something disturbing.

"On it, Pyro!" 

He ordered his chocobo as it jumped slightly, spread it's tiny wings and took position to run...

Melody felt an energy in the air. An energy that sparked with one thing.

Competition.

A playful smirk appeared on her face and a giggle escaped her as she watched Jig and Pyro's antics. When she saw they were about to take off running, she made sure her bag was snug around her and aimed a now excited and bouncy Clef towards their destination.

One nudge with her legs was all it took for Clef to burst out running down the street, kicking up dust along the way. A smack from Melody landed on Nicodeme's rump as she zoomed past Mar, causing the new bird to jump and take Martsia by surprise.

Melody turned her head to yell at the two other Lalafells she was leaving quickly behind. "Last one there buys lunch!"

Mar would not be easily outdone, she was a Troy after all! Gripping the reins she grinned, because she would not lose!

"Onward Nicodeme!" She shouted, the chocobo reared up and took off, flying as fast as his feet would carry him. At least they had the competitive connection that could boost their spirits! Even though they were both exhausted from the night before, and all the traveling they had done throughout La Noscea. 

She laughed as Nico passed Clef, her eyes glinting gleefully. 

"Can't catch me now Mel!!" She shouted, speeding up just a bit more.

"What...?"

Jig watched the girls leaving him behind. Then sudden realization hit him straight to the face.

I'm third... they are racing... I'm going with them... Last one buys lunch... have money only for ingredients and little less for food... 2+2=... HOLY CRAP!

"MOVE IT, PYRO!"

Jigumundo hopped a bit to give his steed sign to run. But Pyro knew better... It started beaking the ground in the search of some food.

- "I said, Move it!"
- "Kweh!"

Pyro cared none for Jig's money. Only for food. The Professor had to be smarter if he wanted to win the race and what comes with it - save some money.

"Loser will buy you greens, you ungrateful glutton!"

After this words, Pyro's spirit heated up with the feeling of competition and more important, the prize. Delicious, sweet, green prize. He started running... no... Launched itself into wild sprint almost dropping professor behind. Jig almost fell. He grabbed the reins at the last moment.

Pyro was about to catch up with Nicodeme. He ran with unstopable gluttonous rage. His eyes were burning with passion for food. His stomach was roaring with lust for tasty Gyshahl Greens.

It was late morning when the three little competitors arrived at the gate to Limsa Lominsa. Their birds were hitched and watered and given many pats for their hard work. Melody performed a goofy little victory dance as she walked up between her two companions, placing her arms around them both as they made their way into the city.

"That was a close one!" she beamed at them, rubbing her win in their faces just a little bit. "We can rematch later if either of you are feeling sore." Ok, she's rubbing it in a lot.

She directed them towards the bridge to the elevator lift. "Since the professor here is buying lunch, shall we let him decide where we eat?" she grinned, giving Jig a playful nudge.