Tengri Geneq sat within the confines of his' room at the Hourglass. He sat and glowered at the gem that danced across his fingers. A different stone, this time, but perhaps this one, too, was somehow trapped. Somehow rigged.
That wasn't what was troubling him. There were ways, methods, to manage such risks. What had left him restless this night was that he'd not found anyone suitable for this particular soul stone, despite months spent searching. There was but a single candidate that came to mind. She was too close to the problem. There was too much at stake to risk everything on whether or not that child could resist temptation.
He sighed and cast his thoughts back to when he'd first laid eyes on this particular gem.
Mikh'a was perched on a rock overlooking the water. He had bare feet and a crude would-be spear in his hand. He was watching the fish as they passed with a very intent cat-like look on his face... and then he lunged. The spear went right through the fish's side and he yanked it back quickly. Mikh'a held it up to examine it proudly. Plopping back down on his bottom, Mikh'a plucked his pearl from his ear and pocketed it. "Fine," he grumped. "We'll do it this way just once."
Mikh'a's shadow... licked its lips and ran a sleeve across its mouth.
The boy stared at it.
"Jin'li, if you're trying to test me again, I'm busy."
He started to climb off of the rock veeeery slowly while watching the shadow. There were no further discrepancies between Mikh'a's motions and the shadows. A trick of the light, perhaps.
"...right. Okay. Maybe I'm the one that's crazy." He stood upright and looked at his fish. "Er.... okay. Maybe it's just like when I talk to Spriggan. She doesn't answer either...." He looked back at the shadow, then around. "Uhhh. Rotund,a I have to talk to you."
There came the sound of shifting sand... or perhaps shifting ash... as Mikh'a's shadow somehow squirmed and... and lightened... as a dark puddle of something pooled into existence about his feet. In a panic, Mikh'a scrambled backwards to get away from the movement at his feet.
The pool shuddered and shot into the air, the black ooze swirling about itself before resolving into... a Keeper. An ugly, dirty, rotting Keeper. The disgusting thing leered at Mikh'a's fish.
"Jealous jealous, that's me me me. So hungry, you know, so hungry. Parched and famished, parched and famished, but can't taste can't taste can't -eat-.... well, alright, I lie a little little. I can eat but I'm always hungerin'." The male bowed with a flourish. "Khuja'ya Zhawn. The Maw. Speak with the captain, yes? That's what you want, yes?"
It took every ounce of self control Mikh'a had not to throw up. The smell was repulsive, would be even to a Hyur... but to his nose, which was even more sensitive than that of an average Miqo'te? It was awful. He stepped backward, then stood his tiny, frail body as upright as he could to look like he wasn't a total failure at life and his role in it.
"...I uh.. I need to talk to Rotunda. You uh... You can have the fish. If you take me to him?"
"Bad-bad at the listenin', yup yup! Ah, well. Rotunda Crow, not here. Not here! But you can speak with him, yes yes." The Keeper started pacing back and forth and speaking to itself. "Charged Khuja'ya with the task! Watch brat, watch brat. Observe! Report in in in, relay if need be! And needing's be!"
"I heard you just fine, you can eat but never get full!" Mikh'a defended. "What do you mean he told you to watch me--- have you been following me the whole time?! You know everything I've said?!"
The Keeper's ears wilted.
"...oops." He rallied. "Rotunda or no, Rotunda or no?!" He jabbed one mangy paw towards Mikh'a's direction.
"Don't you deflect--- this conversation isn't over. Yes. Either take me to Rotunda or bring him to me."
"No need, no need!" The Keeper winked, then shut his eyes. Shuddered. Groaned. Stilled.
Mikh'a hesitated and then took a step toward Khuja'ya with one hand out. "Er..."
Whoever... whatever... opened those eyes next was not the Keeper of a few moments ago. The hands folded behind the Crow's back, the lips curled into a lazy smile, and the Keeper's weight was committed to one leg as the new resident of the corpse leaned to that side.
"Master Korofi." The voice was the same, but the tone was different. Clipped. Measured. Garlean. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The boy was perceptive enough. He remembered the reports. He remembered Rotunda talking about what was once Tengri but was now him. He remembered.
"...you are neither Khuja'ya or Rotunda, are you?"
"An educated guess. You're exercising your intelligence now. Most excellent. Alas, I am afraid you've quite missed your mark."
Mikh'a wavered a little. "Adin?"
"The very same." One hand emerged from behind the Keeper's back and rolled in a gesture. "The Curse of the Crows has its... benefits. Upon their creation, they find themselves in a communion of sorts, a network. Their minds are... merged? No, linked would be more accurate. They can communicate mentally at near instantaneous speeds over large distances." Adin grins. "Furthermore, the one who holds their leash holds their net... and can commune with them. Through them."
He bowed. The same bow Tengri had once given Mikh'a. The exact same.
"You'll have to forgive my mistrust and discomfort, but I didn't expect I would ever meet you like this." Or, truthfully, at all. He never expected to ever run into the man, despite his initial desire to ask after his own mother.
"If Khuja'ya has been following me and they're a hivemind, you have been linked to them. You know why I'm looking for Rotunda?"
"Unfortunately, my servants seem quite incapable of penetrating the defenses surrounding your home, so I remain blissfully unaware... though I have my suspicions. You have my compliments on those defenses. How did you accomplish such a feat?"
Mikh'a smiled at the Crow. "By being smart." That was all he was going to relinquish as far as information went on the wards, he wouldn't risk endangering his family more than he already had. "Though it's good to know they do the job they were designed for. Thank you."
"You are quite welcome. Now, what did you wish to speak to Rotunda about?"
"The soulstones he wants delivered. I want to know who they are going to and I need a guarantee they'll be returned to their rightful owners...."
"Neither I nor Rotunda nor the men and women to which they are delivered will need the stones once we have made full use of them. They will be returned to their respective owners regardless of the manner in which Askier Mergrey acquired them, though I know not what guarantee I could possibly give you."
The Garlean ex-patriate folded Khuja'ya's hands behind the Keeper's back again and started circling Mikh'a.
"I need to know that the stones are going to be retrieved from the people they're being loaned to and directly returned to whoever delivered them, Adin. I need that promise." He followed Adin's movements carefully. "I need this promise. That the one I'm going to give to you will come back to me... I can't give it to you without this promise."
"I could promise you such a thing, but you would be taking and trusting the word of Adin Adonis. Your friends would argue that such a thing is worthless."
"My friends have argued against a lot of my trust." His hand came up to touch his stomach. "It won't stop me from placing it."
"Then I make you, this promise, Mikh'a Korofi: I will see the stones retrieved and returned. Tengri Geneq will make those deliveries personally."
"Past misdeeds shouldn't rob anyone of the opportunity to make things right." He nodded at the promise and went to dig in his belt pouch. Eventually he produced the telling blue soulstone of the dragoon. "One more thing..." He said and closed his fingers around it. "Nahare can't be put in anymore danger regarding this. She can't be put at risk any longer. No more deliveries or tasks or anything should go to her unless it's absolutely necessary."
"Then her work shall fall to Memith Ganajai until such time as Grimsong has recovered from his latest ordeal. That is my condition."
"...fair enough," Mikh'a relented. He wasn't going to make all the demands and he wasn't foolish enough to believe otherwise.
"Then done. I cannot guarantee her safety while Epinoch is still at large, but I can guarantee that my organization will leave her be."
"That's all I can ask of you," Mikh'a agreed. "To ask more would both be foolish and I don't want to owe you any favors if I can avoid it."
Adin came to a halt at Mikh'a's back.
"How crass. I meet with you, speak with you, deal with you. I offer you not the slightest offense and yet you dare give insult as though you've impunity." The former triarius sniffed. "I forgive you, of course. Pray see to it that you watch your tongue in the future."
Mikh'a smiled thinly.
"Of course. Forgive me." He said and his ears flexed back. He turned to face Adin then and held out the soulstone finally. "It is yours for as long as you need it... though I warn you... Jin'li is convinced he will survive this and come out no worse for wear."
Khuja'ya Zhwan's hand reached out and plucked the soulstone from Mikh'a's. "What Jin'li Epinoch does not know could fill several Sharlayan libraries... and I assure you, those are quite large."
"I'm sure. You'll finish your task, of that I have no doubt."
"Thank you for that vote of confidence." Adin held up the stone and inspected it, turning it this way and that against the light. "Was there anything else, Master Korofi?"
The calico hesitated.
"...there was," he said finally. He rubbed his arm and for an instance looked exactly as he was: a very, very scared adolescent boy. "...when you commanded in Garlemald, did you know Mikh?"
Adin froze, save for a downward tilt to the Keeper's muzzle to bring his eyes in line with Korofi's.
"I do not give handouts, Master Korofi, much less so when the information may or may not involve my own history, my own past. You must trade for the answer, of course, assuming you have anything of value or interest to me with which to barter."
"I've nothing you could want." Mikh'a watched Adin and gripped at his own wrist. "And your past only interests me as far as your involvement with my mother. What you were... what you did... none of that means anything to me. You could have been the instrument for Dalamud's fall yourself and it would not matter." He hesitated. "What could you even ask of me? That you could not get on your own."
Adin resumed his pacing. "For one, why the interest?"
"My mother is a continuous threat to my life." Mikh'a followed him with his gaze. "And she's recently, after near a cycle, decided to become a much more active presence in my return to Garlemald. I've endangered an entire tribe of Seekers as well as plenty of others recently because of this and I just need information about her. She's my mother but my knowledge of her is limited."
"Ah. Your little castrum adventure."
"Yes."
Adin sniffed, paused midstride, and turned to Mikh'a. "You forget yourself, Korofi. I asked you for the interest in my associations. You did not ask me about your mother. Not directly, that is."
"Sometimes..." Mikh'a said quietly. "When we are in the company of others they observe things about us. They see the things we try to conceal from others. They know us sometimes better than they know ourselves. My mother is a very powerful woman in Garlemald and you were no less so when you were there. The probability that you did not move in some of the same circles, at least in some regard, is impossible. I ask what your association and knowledge of her is because I want to know her."
Adin nodded, apparently satisfied. "Tell me how you constructed the wards about the Dauntless headquarters, and I will tell you all you wish to know of your mother."
"I drew them. To tell you more than that would risk the security of my house. You're a brilliant man and I'm sure you don't like those wards there...."
"I care little for breaking into your home, and care more for protecting what is mine. Nevertheless, that is my price." The Keeper frowned. "Drew them. Arcanima, perhaps...." He turned and walked towards the water, deep in thought.
"The wards aren't hurting you, only keeping you out. But no... it wasn't arcanima. It's..." He tilted his head to the side. "I wouldn't even know how to begin to explain it. I don't lecture, I just do things."
Adin rolled Zhwan's shoulders, the Keeper's back still to Mikh'a. "Then the usefulness of this conversation is at its end."
"I suppose it is." Mikh'a wilted. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't even know how to begin explaining the wards even if I could."
The Keeper dropped to its haunches and sniggered.
"Observe and report, deliver and report, task task task, when does The Maw get to feast, I ask ask but no ans ans." Khuja'ya glanced over his shoulder at Mikh'a and winked. "Soulstones, soulstones, better than a man's bones~" The Crow rolled the dragoon's gem across his knuckles. "We done, we done done done?"
"Khuja'ya..." Mikh'a looked defeated, but still he reached to grab the fish that had been discarded. He held it out. "You don't get full, but you can still eat. We're done."
The Keeper's ears wilted again... but the undead abomination took one, two, three hesitant shuffles closer and snatched the fish from Mikh'a's hand before collapsing - Keeper, gem, fish and all - into a cloud of black ash that was blown away on a sudden wind.
Two, almost three months now and nothing. No candidates. Not a one, save for the girl he could not count on. He sighed again and stood, slipping the little gem into a coinpurse as he did so and fastening said purse to his belt.
There was much work to be done. Meeting with Summerfield. Visiting the Winds Estate.
He would worry about candidates later.
That wasn't what was troubling him. There were ways, methods, to manage such risks. What had left him restless this night was that he'd not found anyone suitable for this particular soul stone, despite months spent searching. There was but a single candidate that came to mind. She was too close to the problem. There was too much at stake to risk everything on whether or not that child could resist temptation.
He sighed and cast his thoughts back to when he'd first laid eyes on this particular gem.
Mikh'a was perched on a rock overlooking the water. He had bare feet and a crude would-be spear in his hand. He was watching the fish as they passed with a very intent cat-like look on his face... and then he lunged. The spear went right through the fish's side and he yanked it back quickly. Mikh'a held it up to examine it proudly. Plopping back down on his bottom, Mikh'a plucked his pearl from his ear and pocketed it. "Fine," he grumped. "We'll do it this way just once."
Mikh'a's shadow... licked its lips and ran a sleeve across its mouth.
The boy stared at it.
"Jin'li, if you're trying to test me again, I'm busy."
He started to climb off of the rock veeeery slowly while watching the shadow. There were no further discrepancies between Mikh'a's motions and the shadows. A trick of the light, perhaps.
"...right. Okay. Maybe I'm the one that's crazy." He stood upright and looked at his fish. "Er.... okay. Maybe it's just like when I talk to Spriggan. She doesn't answer either...." He looked back at the shadow, then around. "Uhhh. Rotund,a I have to talk to you."
There came the sound of shifting sand... or perhaps shifting ash... as Mikh'a's shadow somehow squirmed and... and lightened... as a dark puddle of something pooled into existence about his feet. In a panic, Mikh'a scrambled backwards to get away from the movement at his feet.
The pool shuddered and shot into the air, the black ooze swirling about itself before resolving into... a Keeper. An ugly, dirty, rotting Keeper. The disgusting thing leered at Mikh'a's fish.
"Jealous jealous, that's me me me. So hungry, you know, so hungry. Parched and famished, parched and famished, but can't taste can't taste can't -eat-.... well, alright, I lie a little little. I can eat but I'm always hungerin'." The male bowed with a flourish. "Khuja'ya Zhawn. The Maw. Speak with the captain, yes? That's what you want, yes?"
It took every ounce of self control Mikh'a had not to throw up. The smell was repulsive, would be even to a Hyur... but to his nose, which was even more sensitive than that of an average Miqo'te? It was awful. He stepped backward, then stood his tiny, frail body as upright as he could to look like he wasn't a total failure at life and his role in it.
"...I uh.. I need to talk to Rotunda. You uh... You can have the fish. If you take me to him?"
"Bad-bad at the listenin', yup yup! Ah, well. Rotunda Crow, not here. Not here! But you can speak with him, yes yes." The Keeper started pacing back and forth and speaking to itself. "Charged Khuja'ya with the task! Watch brat, watch brat. Observe! Report in in in, relay if need be! And needing's be!"
"I heard you just fine, you can eat but never get full!" Mikh'a defended. "What do you mean he told you to watch me--- have you been following me the whole time?! You know everything I've said?!"
The Keeper's ears wilted.
"...oops." He rallied. "Rotunda or no, Rotunda or no?!" He jabbed one mangy paw towards Mikh'a's direction.
"Don't you deflect--- this conversation isn't over. Yes. Either take me to Rotunda or bring him to me."
"No need, no need!" The Keeper winked, then shut his eyes. Shuddered. Groaned. Stilled.
Mikh'a hesitated and then took a step toward Khuja'ya with one hand out. "Er..."
Whoever... whatever... opened those eyes next was not the Keeper of a few moments ago. The hands folded behind the Crow's back, the lips curled into a lazy smile, and the Keeper's weight was committed to one leg as the new resident of the corpse leaned to that side.
"Master Korofi." The voice was the same, but the tone was different. Clipped. Measured. Garlean. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
The boy was perceptive enough. He remembered the reports. He remembered Rotunda talking about what was once Tengri but was now him. He remembered.
"...you are neither Khuja'ya or Rotunda, are you?"
"An educated guess. You're exercising your intelligence now. Most excellent. Alas, I am afraid you've quite missed your mark."
Mikh'a wavered a little. "Adin?"
"The very same." One hand emerged from behind the Keeper's back and rolled in a gesture. "The Curse of the Crows has its... benefits. Upon their creation, they find themselves in a communion of sorts, a network. Their minds are... merged? No, linked would be more accurate. They can communicate mentally at near instantaneous speeds over large distances." Adin grins. "Furthermore, the one who holds their leash holds their net... and can commune with them. Through them."
He bowed. The same bow Tengri had once given Mikh'a. The exact same.
"You'll have to forgive my mistrust and discomfort, but I didn't expect I would ever meet you like this." Or, truthfully, at all. He never expected to ever run into the man, despite his initial desire to ask after his own mother.
"If Khuja'ya has been following me and they're a hivemind, you have been linked to them. You know why I'm looking for Rotunda?"
"Unfortunately, my servants seem quite incapable of penetrating the defenses surrounding your home, so I remain blissfully unaware... though I have my suspicions. You have my compliments on those defenses. How did you accomplish such a feat?"
Mikh'a smiled at the Crow. "By being smart." That was all he was going to relinquish as far as information went on the wards, he wouldn't risk endangering his family more than he already had. "Though it's good to know they do the job they were designed for. Thank you."
"You are quite welcome. Now, what did you wish to speak to Rotunda about?"
"The soulstones he wants delivered. I want to know who they are going to and I need a guarantee they'll be returned to their rightful owners...."
"Neither I nor Rotunda nor the men and women to which they are delivered will need the stones once we have made full use of them. They will be returned to their respective owners regardless of the manner in which Askier Mergrey acquired them, though I know not what guarantee I could possibly give you."
The Garlean ex-patriate folded Khuja'ya's hands behind the Keeper's back again and started circling Mikh'a.
"I need to know that the stones are going to be retrieved from the people they're being loaned to and directly returned to whoever delivered them, Adin. I need that promise." He followed Adin's movements carefully. "I need this promise. That the one I'm going to give to you will come back to me... I can't give it to you without this promise."
"I could promise you such a thing, but you would be taking and trusting the word of Adin Adonis. Your friends would argue that such a thing is worthless."
"My friends have argued against a lot of my trust." His hand came up to touch his stomach. "It won't stop me from placing it."
"Then I make you, this promise, Mikh'a Korofi: I will see the stones retrieved and returned. Tengri Geneq will make those deliveries personally."
"Past misdeeds shouldn't rob anyone of the opportunity to make things right." He nodded at the promise and went to dig in his belt pouch. Eventually he produced the telling blue soulstone of the dragoon. "One more thing..." He said and closed his fingers around it. "Nahare can't be put in anymore danger regarding this. She can't be put at risk any longer. No more deliveries or tasks or anything should go to her unless it's absolutely necessary."
"Then her work shall fall to Memith Ganajai until such time as Grimsong has recovered from his latest ordeal. That is my condition."
"...fair enough," Mikh'a relented. He wasn't going to make all the demands and he wasn't foolish enough to believe otherwise.
"Then done. I cannot guarantee her safety while Epinoch is still at large, but I can guarantee that my organization will leave her be."
"That's all I can ask of you," Mikh'a agreed. "To ask more would both be foolish and I don't want to owe you any favors if I can avoid it."
Adin came to a halt at Mikh'a's back.
"How crass. I meet with you, speak with you, deal with you. I offer you not the slightest offense and yet you dare give insult as though you've impunity." The former triarius sniffed. "I forgive you, of course. Pray see to it that you watch your tongue in the future."
Mikh'a smiled thinly.
"Of course. Forgive me." He said and his ears flexed back. He turned to face Adin then and held out the soulstone finally. "It is yours for as long as you need it... though I warn you... Jin'li is convinced he will survive this and come out no worse for wear."
Khuja'ya Zhwan's hand reached out and plucked the soulstone from Mikh'a's. "What Jin'li Epinoch does not know could fill several Sharlayan libraries... and I assure you, those are quite large."
"I'm sure. You'll finish your task, of that I have no doubt."
"Thank you for that vote of confidence." Adin held up the stone and inspected it, turning it this way and that against the light. "Was there anything else, Master Korofi?"
The calico hesitated.
"...there was," he said finally. He rubbed his arm and for an instance looked exactly as he was: a very, very scared adolescent boy. "...when you commanded in Garlemald, did you know Mikh?"
Adin froze, save for a downward tilt to the Keeper's muzzle to bring his eyes in line with Korofi's.
"I do not give handouts, Master Korofi, much less so when the information may or may not involve my own history, my own past. You must trade for the answer, of course, assuming you have anything of value or interest to me with which to barter."
"I've nothing you could want." Mikh'a watched Adin and gripped at his own wrist. "And your past only interests me as far as your involvement with my mother. What you were... what you did... none of that means anything to me. You could have been the instrument for Dalamud's fall yourself and it would not matter." He hesitated. "What could you even ask of me? That you could not get on your own."
Adin resumed his pacing. "For one, why the interest?"
"My mother is a continuous threat to my life." Mikh'a followed him with his gaze. "And she's recently, after near a cycle, decided to become a much more active presence in my return to Garlemald. I've endangered an entire tribe of Seekers as well as plenty of others recently because of this and I just need information about her. She's my mother but my knowledge of her is limited."
"Ah. Your little castrum adventure."
"Yes."
Adin sniffed, paused midstride, and turned to Mikh'a. "You forget yourself, Korofi. I asked you for the interest in my associations. You did not ask me about your mother. Not directly, that is."
"Sometimes..." Mikh'a said quietly. "When we are in the company of others they observe things about us. They see the things we try to conceal from others. They know us sometimes better than they know ourselves. My mother is a very powerful woman in Garlemald and you were no less so when you were there. The probability that you did not move in some of the same circles, at least in some regard, is impossible. I ask what your association and knowledge of her is because I want to know her."
Adin nodded, apparently satisfied. "Tell me how you constructed the wards about the Dauntless headquarters, and I will tell you all you wish to know of your mother."
"I drew them. To tell you more than that would risk the security of my house. You're a brilliant man and I'm sure you don't like those wards there...."
"I care little for breaking into your home, and care more for protecting what is mine. Nevertheless, that is my price." The Keeper frowned. "Drew them. Arcanima, perhaps...." He turned and walked towards the water, deep in thought.
"The wards aren't hurting you, only keeping you out. But no... it wasn't arcanima. It's..." He tilted his head to the side. "I wouldn't even know how to begin to explain it. I don't lecture, I just do things."
Adin rolled Zhwan's shoulders, the Keeper's back still to Mikh'a. "Then the usefulness of this conversation is at its end."
"I suppose it is." Mikh'a wilted. "I'm sorry. I wouldn't even know how to begin explaining the wards even if I could."
The Keeper dropped to its haunches and sniggered.
"Observe and report, deliver and report, task task task, when does The Maw get to feast, I ask ask but no ans ans." Khuja'ya glanced over his shoulder at Mikh'a and winked. "Soulstones, soulstones, better than a man's bones~" The Crow rolled the dragoon's gem across his knuckles. "We done, we done done done?"
"Khuja'ya..." Mikh'a looked defeated, but still he reached to grab the fish that had been discarded. He held it out. "You don't get full, but you can still eat. We're done."
The Keeper's ears wilted again... but the undead abomination took one, two, three hesitant shuffles closer and snatched the fish from Mikh'a's hand before collapsing - Keeper, gem, fish and all - into a cloud of black ash that was blown away on a sudden wind.
Two, almost three months now and nothing. No candidates. Not a one, save for the girl he could not count on. He sighed again and stood, slipping the little gem into a coinpurse as he did so and fastening said purse to his belt.
There was much work to be done. Meeting with Summerfield. Visiting the Winds Estate.
He would worry about candidates later.
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)
