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"Are you sure I couldn't persuade you, Miss Altair. There are plenty of healthy Hyur children-"
"Which I have three of, all grown and out of the house." Her response was polite with an underlying firmness.
The woman sitting across from the desk from Lili was a portly little thing. Grey flyaways that kept escaping from her loose bun, and her blouse was smeared with stains of all colors. Yet despite those two things she was very tidy with austere features and a very prominent nose. More like a beak. It was from that beak that she looked down at Lili with a frown of disapproval.
Who would have thought the head of a mixed race orphanage would be...racist?
"But why a miqo'te? I'm sure a city couple or barren female would be more then happy to take care of-"
"Mrs. Pickett. Please." The blonde's patience was wearing thin, her arms crossed as she was leaned back in her chair. The woman was nearly as suffocating as the office they were in: cramped, with furniture too large for its confines and not a single essence of order to the madness of books, papers, and other strange stains. "I would really like to just finish the process and go home."
The woman's lips opened to try and dissuade Lili further, but after nearly a bell's worth of this she had had enough. She moved to sit up, smoothing down her skirt and the top of her thigh high boots with as much calm decorum as she could muster. "Mrs. Pickett, I can always go else where with my donations and support. Like to Limsa Lominsa."
"Now there's no need for that! Oh, foo! Fine." With an indignant huff of 'so difficult!', the woman got up and waddled from behind her desk to the office door. Enough to crack it open and shriek past the commotion of screaming and playing children. "BITSY! BITSY, GET THAT BABY IN HERE!" As soon as the door closed she took a breath and sat back at her desk. Clearing her throat, she addressed Lili once more who by now was tapping her foot to show her displeasure.
"She'll be right in."
"Good."
Fuck being nice to the woman at this point. She wanted her son. Now.
Moments later a haggard younger woman came in. In her arms was a toddler. A miqo'te toddler no less, whose Keeper eyes honed in on the other adults in the room with silent interest. His hair and fur were a burnt orange color, and his skin was reasonably fair. Though his eyes were an intense orange hue that was more on the red side then his hair. Bitsy stood in the doorway with the boy, not moving to come any closer.
"The paperwork is in order and your credentials approved. Though with being the leader of a free company are you sure you'd be up for the task of-" Lili had already strode across the room, and it was then that the little boy honed in on the blonde Hyur coming near him. One smile was all it took.
He held his arms out to her with a needy grunt, being fussy in Bitsy's arms who looked too tired to argue. "Take the little ruffian!" She grumbled, which Lili did with a flourish. Like Ado, the child fisted his tiny hands against her long blonde locks and entertained himself well enough that way.
"I think we're finished here, ladies. Just send me the finalized documents in the next few suns. I'm taking my son home."
"But-"
Bitsy skittered to the side to let Lili stride past her, the miqo'te child in her arms giving no protest to being spirited away from all that was familiar to him. All that was heard in her retreat was a 'Why I never!' from Mrs. Pickett.
The trip back to the Lavender Beds was uneventful. The child seemed far too interested in prodding and examining Lili's hair, earrings, necklace...everything he could get his little hands on. Aetheryte travel didn't phase him in the slightest, and it was only when they were in the new residence of the Free Wing Society that he looked around.
Lili watched as he looked at the harpsichord in the corner, the over hanging chandelier, the bar over by the stairs, and then the carbuncle set by the harpsichord. While originally Ado's, it was now left out for all the children to play with. That now included the newest addition to Lili's family.
Mikh'a.
His story was part of what Lili to want to take him in: He was left with the umbilical chord still attached and swaddled in someone's old shirt. By the make and smell of it, with rum stains and smelling like the ocean, it looked like the tunic of a seafarer. A large one at that! But there was nothing else.
No note.
No footprints.
Just abandoned on the stoop of this small, self sufficent orphanage in the seedier part of Ul'dah. With the trade routes and airships his savior could have been any where. So he was naturally cleaned up, cared for, and a few months ago Lili saw his little portrait in a file with other children from the same orphanage. It was love at first sight.
She peeked down as Mikh'a looked up at her and smacked his little hand against her mouth. She wasn't worried. He'd do just fine.
