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RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 03-10-2015
![[Image: divider.png]](http://i1242.photobucket.com/albums/gg536/ayaxandra/divider.png)
[A Hidden Idea - The Scales Part 10]
It was an easy matter to drop another letter in for C'kayah; he would find it waiting in his daily, or near daily round up of messages from the Quick Sand.
She wrote it, as she so usually did, upon the decorative pink stationary she had first used out of necessity, and now out of desire. Her handwriting was exquisite, almost a decorative artwork in and of itself, with swooping styling she had been so carefully taught by her mother.
A light spritz of perfume left it smelling unmistakably of her. He would know.
Dearest C,
Spring is here, at last! The sun's warmth brings with it such brightness and cheer. Not yet the blaze of summer, but away with winter's chill! It has been so long and I'm enjoying it so! I still dream of Costa, but things are looking up.
Oh, did you know I am still looking for it? I'm sure you remember what I mean~~ I think I have looked everywhere! Wouldn't it be nice if lost things just flew home like pigeons? Or, do you remember the fairy tale? If they left a trail of bread crumbs? Though, I guess that didn't work for them either. ~~ALAS~~ Someone should find a way to make the bread crumbs reappear, or else I fear I shall never find it.
Â
Thank you for the loveliest time, I cannot wait to wear the necklace. I pray to have the opportunity soon. I hope that things have been as well for you!
By the way, I so admire your gift from last week. It's given me such solace in your absence, as if I know that despite my vain search, I shall always be able to find you, and you me. Â
You Always Know Where to Find Me,
~Foxy
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 03-14-2015
Reminisces of an Ishgardian Dancer
It was the evening before a holiday-a late night for most of the city's employed. The theater was packed, a full house waiting in anticipation for the show to begin. It was a newer theater, as far as new went in Ishgard. Ensconced firmly in the lower levels, it primarily served for the entertainment of the lower class. Those seeking a little warmth in the city of Frost. An escape from dull boredom, with performance energetic and exciting. They knew tonight would not disappoint—they knew who was performing.
The murmuring of the packed house grew quiet as lantern lights dimmed. The quiet became silence as the curtain began to rise. Aya had always been exotic in Ishgard: a fair-haired, blue-eyed blonde in a city where they were uncommon, if not unheard of. Nearly as tall as an Elezen maiden, but possessed of a voluptuous attention-seeking Hyuran figure. She stood at the base of a large stage that thrust outward into the theater's seating area. With the balcony filled, the house was now home to several hundreds waiting anxiously to have their attention stolen.
She appeared in full costume of light-blue and white. Long, heavy skirt, a rigid bodice that curved inward to snug a narrow waist. A light-blue veil fell across her eyes, held up by a matching mesh cap, which also supported a white mesh veil enclosing long blonde locks that fell down her back. A somewhat suggestive take upon a recognizable costume: that of a particular style of Halone's celebrant.
The quiet lingered a moment longer, before she began a sauntering stage-walk toward the end of the stage. One foot crossed the other, lending an exaggerated sway to prominent hips, with the sound of skirt-hidden high heels striking the deck with each step. The crowd became more excited: whistles joined raucous jeering.
A violinist from the pit struck a note; the pitch sounded languid yet solemn as it fell across the quiet hall. Aya clasped her hands together and raised her chin. She sung out in her high lusty mezzo-soprano voice. The song, paean to the goddess—a hymn sung upon the tongue of every Ishgadrian child. She praised Halone's wisdom, her strength, and grace. There were more playful, rowdy jeers from the crowd - this was not what they had come for, but, no doubt, they knew it could not last.
The second verse began as the first, torn from the well worn hymnal. But rather than ask for Halone's grace and protection, the starlet sung, asking to whom she should turn for a little fun; an exciting evening. Her hands unclasped. She cocked her hips, resting her left hand upon the upward tilt. She sung another verse:
And whom should I ask for a little warmth, make that a little heat.
Who will make me feel alive tonight?
To be a little frisky beneath the sheets.
Who will make me feel better than just alright?"
She raised her right hand to blow a kiss to the audience amidst a low cheer, before tearing the veil from her eyes and tossing it from the stage. It was irreverent. It was impious. According to the See, it was illegal. There was a staccato click of relays being thrown, followed by the low rhythmic humming to life of magitek crystals.
Her eyes were lined with heavy, dark stage makeup. Long lashes begged and called for attention. She turned her gaze, vivacious and sensual from one end of the house to the other. In that moment hundreds focused upon naught but the charming blue eyes of the dancer before them. Sacrilege: the sullying of the holy word, and the holy image. Heretics and Witches would be dealt with by the state, but in that moment they could only envy the bewitching power of one performer's eyes.
She lifted her skirt with a high kick; her finger unhooked the quick-release, dropping the heavy, ruffled fabric aside to reveal the tight, mini-skirt of her costume below, which sparkled in the intensity of magitek lighting. With a spin she cast aside the heavy bodice, revealing the matching bustier as the musicians brought the hall to life. The chorus of backup dancers joined her on stage. The audience cheered, their rapturous attention invigorated the girl: she lived for these moments.
What was a little irreverence, really? Perhaps it was ignorance or laziness on the part of the city's inquisitors. Perhaps it was just friends in the right places, or the right palm's greased. The baudy theaters of the lower levels entertained those without hope, and those for whom those above had little care. Perhaps it was simply no matter to them. Of course, the private boxes that lined the sides of the theater were guarded by mesh screens to hide the identity of those who could afford it. Tonight they were full, as they were most nights she performed: even House-members understood the value of pleasant diversion.
The evening continued, each act performing with an energy and passion matched only by the appreciation of an audience hungry for distraction. Aya moved on and off stage, quickly changing costume and makeup between sets, catching quick, excited conversation with fellow cast, and members of the crew. These moments were always among her favorite - the energy and speed with which everyone worked, the way frustrations and annoyances were so often cast aside as the focus came upon the show.Â
At last they prepared for the show's finale: Aya always asked to be left out of the penultimate act, to ensure that everything was perfect for the finale's spotlight. The curtain again rose in silence, followed by a growing cheer. She wore what they referred to as Ul'dahn costume. Crafted from silks and the finest cloth available in the city: a bare halter top, decorated with straps holding numerous tiny bells. A second piece hung from her wide hips, more rigid and belt-like, it dove below her midriff. Sheer silk hung from the sides of this like a partial-skirt. Strings of beads and metal loops hung from the front.  (Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words). In her hands she held a large, sheer, matching, silken veil, a similar smaller piece held over her eyes by a golden circlet that wrapped around her head, tight enough to not slip loose in the dance that was to come.
Her wrists and ankles were adorned with numerous piece of jewelry. Some were the gifts of wealthy patrons who would want to see their baubles displayed so prominently in her performance. She always wondered if they realized there were a dozen or so others watching carefully with the same intent. A necklace adorned the smooth slope of her collar, falling as it did toward the proactively displayed decolletage below. A gift from her family, she used it to hold numerous additional rings. From the audience one young man squinted his eyes, staring at the necklace until he spied a plain steel loop hung upon it. He let out a cheer joining the others.Â
She managed to contain her own excitement, her features expressionless as she waited for the cue. The music had started, but only at the proper moment did she open her hands out to the side and begin the rhythmic side-to-side swing of her hips. Every movement matched the beat and sound of the accompanying music. The dance was mostly choreographed, with subtle improvisation and improvement from performance to performance. Every movement of her body caused the bells, chains, anklets, rings, and bracelets, that adorned her to jingle and chime. True Ul'dahn dancers adorned themselves in intricate body jewelry, and accompanied themselves with the play of finger cymbals. Their emulators in the frozen tower city of Ishgard could only dream.
Her dance carried her out into center-stage. In the moment she forget the crowd, despite the noise. She forgot the stage lights, despite the heat. She forgot her costars and the crew behind her; she forgot the musicians, her patrons, her employer. Everything faded away except herself, and the music that filled her. Inspired, she moved with an extraordinary grace and an easy agility that belied the difficulty, and athleticism of the display. She spun, she leaped, she posed. Her flowing, moving dance exhibited flexibility, nimbleness, and a deceptively lithesome strength.Â
There could be no denying the lascivious and arousing nature of her performance: for many in the audience that was all they cared about. But the sensual display was without crassness. To her it was art. Poetry: music in motion. She imagined her body as one with the music; the rhythmic motions of shoulders and hips as the thrum of percussion; the movement of her arms and hands as the bow draws along the string; the quick shimmy of shoulders, the undulations of her mid-riff, as the strumming of strings. This was not an irreverent song sung to amuse. This was not a dance to thrill and titillate—this, to her, was an art she performed as much for herself, as for the audience.
When she dropped her body, split-leg, fully against the ground, she brought her motion to a sudden and complete stop. She turned her body to the side, raising her legs briefly into the air, to join in the quiet peal of an oboe reed. She came to rest on her knees, lowering her upper body to the stage. The light went dark. She knew silence as well as sound.
She rose again, triumphant, with a single motion to her feet. She grinned as the music rose toward its climactic crescendo. She danced with the fullness of her heart. She danced with every last measure of strength. She danced with a singular unity of body, spirit, and mind. She embraced the moment. When at last the music came to an end, the sound of her jingling costume ceased. She stood amidst the fixated gaze of hundreds of eyes. She breathed heavily, the only sound in that moment of near complete stillness.
The crowd roared to life once more. She grinned. She curtseyed. She relished. She bathed in adulation, and attention. She took it all in.
The fun would continue into the evening: first backstage. She would be visited by admirer, after admirer. There would be gifts, there would be endless praise, and hopeful, sometimes lust-filled gazes. There would be fun, after-parties. There would be friends, there would be gossip, and there would be boys.Â
There would also be the long walk home afterward; or more likely, not to home, but to the shop of Master Dunois, that old Duskwight smith. She would crash with her brother, his apprentice, rather than face the wrathful scorn of her parents. But that was a long way away yet, why worry?
Â
The knife fell with a sudden chop. Others followed slowly and lazily behind it. "How many of these do we need?" she hollered in a voice only vaguely reminiscent of the performer upon the stage. The reply came in the form of Jericho's Ala Mhigah brogue, "A few more dozen should do!"
She tried to blow a long strand of hair out of her eye. "Why don't you work in the kitchen tonight?" she mouthed off in mock mimicry of the Lalafellan Proprietress.
At least she could always remember those moments, those precious moments, in that distant land, in that distant time, when she felt her true self.
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 03-22-2015
[The Nightmare Cometh - The Scales Part Twelve]
Part Eleven - The Master Forger - was written by C'kayah and can be found here.
It was a quiet afternoon down market. At Madam Momodi's request, Aya had worked the morning shift. Early visitors were mostly looking for a hearty breakfast and a cup of coffee. It was a less rowdy shift than the evening; the patrons were distracted by thoughts of the busy day ahead, less moment for worrying themselves about the staff's accent.Â
Besides, it bought her a free afternoon, and she used it to visit her favorite spot in Ul'dah: the bustling marketplace. She was glancing down, admiring the rings adorning her fingers. She'd purchased another just a few minutes earlier, and it filled her with a warm glow of satisfaction. Her admiration was interrupted by a mellow buzzing in her ear. A link pearl? She thought she recognized the voice, but cupped her hand over her ear to make sure, "Enju?" she asked.
There was a pause before the voice of Kiht's associated resumed, "Well, it'll do..." he sounded disappointed, "I assume Kiht's already informed the pearl of Verad's disappearance..." there was more, but Aya didn't hear it. She stopped mid-stride, the baggage born Roegadyn behind her nearly toppling her over. She didn't hear his curses either as he pushed his way around her.
It couldn't be. The last she knew Verad was bed-ridden. Kiht had just invited her over to visit him, since he was stuck at home and unable to be about his daily business. Kiht would have told her if anything had happened, right? Right? "Informed the pearl..." maybe that was it. Aya was far from religious in keeping hers handy. Perhaps Kiht had tried to tell her - the Keeper seemed to have her hands all too full at the moment.
Then again, maybe she had just misheard. She tried to summon her voice, offering a faint stammer, "... Verad's what?" she managed to ask.
"He's missing." came Enju's almost immediate reply. "And from the looks of it, certainly not beacuse of legality."
She was suddenly aware that she stood in the middle of the busy boulevard. She glanced around bashfully, made a few quick apologies, and stepped aside. She braced herself against a wall. She closed her eyes, her voice soft though she struggled to keep it firm and steady, "Kiht told you this?" She had to make sure, just one more time.
"She has, yes."
"For how long?" she asked. Could he have just been misplaced?
"I've been informed three suns ago. At least that long."
She closed her eyes, and rest her head against the wall. She once more saw Verad's silent, scream of terror.  She was reliving the moment again, and again as Enju continued.
"I have questioned Ser Crofte about it..."
Crofte and Kiht, no doubt the Keeper would soon have Osric on the case as well. She could once more hear their distant cries growing faint. Verad transfixed in terror, held aloft as a sacrifice to the Dravanian Horde. It was her nightmare: she was living it. There could be no doubt.
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 03-22-2015
[Meanwhile in Ishgard]
Rich black smoke bellowed from the tall, masonry stack of the solid stone structure. Even in the lower levels, deep within the foundations of the Tower City, land was at a premium. The one level shop was built of stone, covered by a sloped slate roof resistant to embers and sparks that would sometimes rise from the roaring furnace within. Attached was a split-level home, modest, but warm and mostly dry. It was a busy shop, passersby and neighbors could hear hammers ringing throughout the long hours of each and every day.Â
Kael was familiar with the spot. When he opened the door he was first greeted by the gentlemanly Duskwight owner of the property, Master Dunois. His white hair was thin and long, covered by a handkerchief that looked rather out-of-place. His features worn with the advance of age. His arms and chest still bore the powerful muscles of his trade, though they too had grown stiff and drawn. He offered a cheerful smile; the light of eyes that once bore the spark of a master smith, had long ago gone out. Replaced by the dullness of a man worn down with the destitution of hope: his wife had passed away decades hence, and his only child, Lorraine, had vanished around the same time as Aya. Worry and loneliness had scuffed away sheen off of the once inspiring man down, finding support in a feverish work schedule and the blissful bleariness of drink, but there seemed not an ounce of bitterness in his tired heart.
"Kael Tharintreu!" he exclaimed with a tone just as friendly as his smile. He set down the tools with which he was working. "Tell me, how is the wife? How are your children?"
Kael allowed himself to smile, it was a subtle expression upon his chiseled features. "They are well Master Dunois." He was dressed well, well enough, at least. Endless-winter had left linen an expensive import, and most were now reliant upon locally produced wool for every article of clothing. Only a few could still afford linen cloth, and while his vest was worn, the dye still held. Sign of a man of means, at least in these parts. For this, he had his wife to thank.Â
"Ah, wonderful, so wonderful." smiled the old man. "Ah, ah, I am sure you are here to speak with your brother! I'll leave you two!" Kael nodded in gratitude, the Duskwight turned and walked through the shop toward his kitchen, and perhaps a taste of wine.
Within the shop a hammer fell—propelled by the burly, forceful muscle of the Highlander smith. Osvald had always been large for his age, and had grown into a beast of a man. With club-like fists, fearsome arms, and a barrel chest whose muscles had developed through consistent hard work in ways that the field of battle simply could not avail. His way was quiet: he had metal and stone upon which to take out his frustration.
When Kael entered his brother did not look up from his work. Dressed in a thick blacksmith's apron, his arms were bare and dark. Singed by embers and stained by soot, he seemed, as always, unmoved. The hammer fell once more, a peal that tore piercingly through the shop.Â
Kael stood for a moment, and nodded, his hands upon his hips. "Osvald."
The hammer fell again, striking the red-hot spearblade against the edge of the anvil. Tempered, shaped, formed. What had once been raw iron would be worked, at last, into the form of a Dragoon's armament.Â
"Osvald." he repeated somewhat louder.
Osvald lifted the hammer once more. Kael flinched at the anticipated fall, but the tool had not budged. The smith looked up.
"What do you want?" he asked in Ishgardian, with a tone of quiet annoyance.
"I just want to speak to my brother," replied the elder to the younger in the brogue of their native tongue.
"You could have come later," he replied in kind, using the language of their blood-kin, "Some of us must work for a living."
Kael, stoic, was unmoved, "And some of us must tend to our families."
The smith huffed. The hammer fell. Kael flinched, but did not move.
"Have you heard from Aya?" Osvald lifted his eyes, the hammer at rest. He looked at Kael - a look that spoke more than words between brothers.
He turned his eyes toward the forge. Toward the box that hummed quietly; the gears within whirled and turned upon an endless cycle driving the bellows that fed the forge. It was the auto-bellows that his teenager sister had repaired in the dark of the night, years ago. A gift, a repentance, a way of making up for all of the trouble she had caused him in the early years of his apprenticeship. It hummed, but it always ran. He treated it like a member of the family: freshly greased and oiled. It was something like an alter, it always reminded him of her, and sometimes he worried what it would mean if it ever broke down.
"I have not." came the quiet reply in his deep, heavy voice. "What makes you ask?"
"I saw one of her friends earlier today, at lunch. I could have sworn I heard her say Aya's name. I thought perhaps she had written again."
Osvald looked back to his work. He clenched his teeth together. How badly he wished that were the case. "Not that I know of," he said with a voice that refused to share his emotion.
Kael tensed. He always seemed in-control. In control of his surroundings, in control of the situation, but most of all, in control of himself. He drew his hand up, fingers drawing across rough, fair stubble. "Why doesn't she write us? Why doesn't she tell us what is going on? What is she even up to out there?"
Osvald looked up. "She's not out there for us, Kael."Â
Kael scowled, "Maybe not. But she is 'of Tharin', yet. By blood, by birth, by everything that matters. She is our sister, she could write us at least."
Osvald's gaze was steely. Blue eyes, like all three of the siblings, capable of vicious piercing stares, as well as the full depth of warmth. "Tharintreu." he said, simply stating their Ishgardian-adoptive name. That first borne by their distant cousins settled in the city generations afore.
Few things were more offensive to Kael - the very name had been forced upon them by circumstance. It robbed them of purpose, of being, of the very essence of who they were. However; he contained the snarl that grew within his chest. Osvald was not the object of his frustration. They had fought before, but that was not his intention this afternoon.
"You've heard the news?" he quipped, rapidly moving the subject forward. He unfolded his arms, pacing slightly, "Refugees in Ul'dah have revolted. Mobbed against the gil-whoring Lalafelen who run the place. She could be among them! Maybe she was? Why doesn't she tell us." His voice had grown energetic. He lifted his hands, fists clenched tight. He wanted to scream with frustration, but he unleashed all he could in a grunt.Â
Osvald stood silent, stone-faced. His eyes followed his brother's movement. Kael continued, "That is our place. That is where we belong. Not in this Twelve-forsaken pit of a city. (Even Halone herself refuses to bless these ingrates!)"
"No, not here, but amongst our people, standing ready to reclaim our homeland. Where our banner can fly once more! Perhaps she has even laid eyes herself upon Tyr Abania." His expression was something of a smile. Such a note of high optimism, of hopes and dreams despite the insurmountable obstacles. It had always been foremost in his heart.Â
Osvald still did not budge, but he answered, "You could serve a House. You could become the soldier you always wanted to be. You do not need to leave for that."Â
Now Kael snarled, his arm swung out in Osvald's direction. "I serve a House, and you will not forget. The only house that matters to you, or I. The House of our Fathers. There is none before it. Never forget our father. Never, Osvald, forget our duty!"
The smith grunted with a defiant gesture of his hammer-wielding hand. "Still stuck on the same godsdamned thing. Always, aren't you. Chase your dreams, Kael, but I have a life to lead and so does Aya."Â
This, Kael was used to taking in stride. He nodded, his body relaxing somewhat. "I will live the way for which we were born. Father expects no less."
The quiet smith remained silent. He knew how right Kael was.
"A living, Osvald?" Kael asked, as he began to examine the ongoing work in the shop. Numerous practical, every-day metal objects of use in this quarter of the city, along with a handful of bladed weapons in various states: spearheads, dirks, and short-swords. "And good work it looks to be, brother. Perhaps someday you shall make hammers and axes that make Rhalgar smile." He looked to his brother with a grin.Â
Osvald glanced up, but said nothing. Kael shrugged, turning back toward the shop's entrance. He stopped as Osvald reached across the anvil, grasping a finished dirk. He tossed the blade casually; Kael caught it by the handle. "The master believed it was time I use my own trademark."
Kael turned the weapon over, looking down at the base of the blade just above the guard. There, blackened and engraved was a small slightly oblong square-shaped crow, its wings spread. Just as it flew in their memories. Kael nodded, testing the weight of the blade as he let out a breath that approached a laugh. He looked back to Osvald with a fraternal smile—his brother reciprocated, happily.
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 03-26-2015
[To Confront a Nightmare -The Scales Part Thirteen]
Mother kneeled next to her, gently washing away the blood from her face. "Aya, you must know that, 'getting into a scrap' with your brothers is no way for a proper young lady to act." The little tow-headed girl didn't seem to care. Her eyes looked away from her mother's with a childish determination. Her fists clenched.  Father stood several feet away, but his expression was far from upset. Instead, a mischievous pride. Pride—an expression so rarely expressed for his only daughter. "I don't know, dear..." he said, "she was only protecting her brothers."
The woman rose, turning to face her husband with a look of displeasure. She took the few steps toward him, speaking quietly, but not so quiet that Aya could not hear, "You shouldn't encourage her." He shrugged, "There is time for her to be a proper lady yet." His voice grew quiet, but proud, he lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. "Just look at those eyes of hers; she's as fierce as those boys of ours." Mother looked at him sharply, "Fiercer. That's what worries me."
Aya's eyes were locked upon the leather-and-cloth wrapped object in her closet. Oil-lantern light lapped at the walls with its gloomy illumination. She had kept the weapon stowed in storage since her arrival in Ul'dah. Only once had she taken it out since then, and that was in a moment of hasty panic.
"Aya," she could hear C'kayah's shaken voice clear through the link pearl. "Something has happened with Natalie. Crofte could be in trouble." She'd been in a hurry then, of half a mind to cut the spear free of its wrappings as she'd thrown on her riding gear. Crofte was indeed in trouble, but not of the sort C'kayah feared. When she arrived in Vesper Bay Crofte was surrounded by officials and armed men near the docks. She was kneeling, silently, over the lifeless body of her former sister-in-arms: Ser Natalie. The moment could not be struck from Aya's memory—the woman she had once relied upon as her bastion in this strange and foreign city lay prostrate, her life cut short by a marksman's deadly aim. Aya could only be thankful that they had put things right between them before the end: she would never have forgiven herself otherwise.Â
She carefully unwrapped the twine that kept cloth tightly bound around the metal spearblade. It was of typical Gridanian quality: simple and efficient. No ornamentation, just the cold, practical elegance of the Shroud. It was so unlike its wielder, yet like her all the same. She wiped the oil from it with a rag. It would have to wait for the whetstone, sharpening could wake those in the rooms next door.
The Wildwood instructor stood a good seven fulms tall. Wiry, powerful, and bearing an expression of serene contempt only summonable by Elezen, he was the very picture of a Wood Wailer. This most recent crop of recruits seemed a particularly feckless bunch. "Thrust!" he spoke. Although loud, very loud in fact, it could not be fairly described as a yell. There was no excitement, no anxiousness, just the dullness of a long exercised routine. "Again! Put your backs into it."Â
He strolled about behind the group, watching each one individually as they stepped into a lunging thrust against the practice dummies. Each had been given a practice spear: worn but sharp, not unlike the instructor himself. He paused, paying particular attention to the voluptuous blonde Hyur who could not have looked more out of place. Eyes narrowed behind his mask. He knew he recognized her.
"Ho!" he raised his hand, bringing the exercise to a stop. "Blondie," he addressed the young woman as she turned around with a look of wide-eyed surprised. "I recognize you. I've seen you serving drinks for Miounne at the Canopy." He lifted his eyebrows, a slight tilt to his head. "What is it you're doing here? This isn't a weekend party-trip, lass." He paused upon the final word, playfully mimicking Hyur intonation and idiom.
She looked back at him with an expression both anxious and sheepish. Her hands shifted upon the spear, demurring and feminine. In that moment she looked nothing at all like a lancer. There was not much pity in the Elezen's hardened heart, but he felt its pangs nonetheless. "There, there. No harm done." He paused again, before asking in earnest, "But why are you here?"
Her thoughts flickered to the day before. She was serving drinks to a group of friendly regular customers. The mostly Miqo'te members of a band of sell-swords: they always laughed and carried on in such good cheer. She'd known them for nearly the full two moons she had spent in Gridania. After serving a round, one of them stopped her, the Alpha Female as she was known, Shizu. "Say, Aya!" she asked, her cheeks red with the flush of wine. "You didn't leave Ishgard to be a barmaid, did you?" Aya remembered turning around, looking stumped. Her heart beat a little faster, she knew the answer already, but would... "Why don't you come join us?"Â
And so, she found herself at the Wailers Guild, applying to be taught the art of the Lance. "I don't want to be just a barmaid any more!" she replied in her heavy accent, with voice bearing a sudden tinge of resistance. The Elezen nodded, doubtingly. He drew his long, slender fingers down the sides of his jaw. "Very well then. Show me why you think you can be a Lancer."Â
She nodded, and turned back toward the dummy. She shifted her grip upon the spear shaft, relaxing and then tightening. She lowered her body, legs tensing like coiled springs. For a moment she felt the spirit fill her, the spirit of blood, of family, of pride. Of everything she had so disdained for so long. Reflecting on the moment later she decided it was not fear of humiliation, it was not pride. It was the sense of future, of not wanting it to be cut-off short from the destiny that awaited her. She was ready to be more. Wasn't that why she had escaped? She was not just a barmaid: she knew that much. But in that moment she found herself without thought; only the clarity of action.
Her legs were powerful and strong. She was a climber, a dancer, a leaper. She sprung from the position like the bolt of a crossbow, lunging toward the target with a sudden burst of speed and power. She did not know what she was doing, she had never wielded a spear before. But into the strike she emptied every last reserve of strength: a single startling high-pitched cry that screamed of a future that would not be denied. The practice spear split the saw-dust filled bag, pierced the oaken stake behind it and imbedded itself deep within.
She took a quick jump backwards, looking as surprised as everyone. Everyone, that is, except the Elezen instructor. With an utter calm he stepped up to the dummy, gripping the shaft firmly with one hand. He gave the spear a tug. He grasped it with both hands, heaving upon the weapon that would not budge. He turned his gaze upon Aya, who stood slack-jawed a few feet away. "Very good." he said with a nod, before moving on to the next in line.
In the distance a group of Miqo'te spectators tittered and laughed. One of them nudged Shizu playfully with his elbow, "What's that you said? 'Couldn't hurt to have a gorgeous blonde in the company?'" They all snickered; they'd make something of the girl yet.
She carefully untied the leather thongs that held the wrapping around the spear's shaft. The intense dryness of Ul'dah's climate was rough on wooden weapons. The wood would dry out, crack, and eventually split. If not cared for they could become a mortal liability. She understood the stakes, didn't she? A layer of oil, regularly applied, kept the moisture out. The leather wrapping ensured that the oil itself would stay in place. She began to clean off the oil, preparing the weapon for use.
The bright silver light of the full moon filtered through the Shroud's high canopy creating shadowy illumination on the forest floor. For accustomed eyes it was enough to see by, barely. The sound of numerous fleet footed runners moved along at a quick, steady pace. They leapt obstacles, ducked branches, and watched their footing with an almost ethereal ease. It was a pack activity, the most sacred and honored in the company: the Moon Run. The leaders howled as they jogged, the new members struggled to keep their pace. They could move no faster than the slowest, encouraged and bolstered by the presence and pacing of the others.Â
The rascal Jack Swift liked to move in the trees. He was true to his name: none were faster, especially in the wood. He took to the trees like a squirrel bounding from branch to branch, where he would sit and wait with wise cracks and jibes for those who passed. Just his way of offering encouragement.
Somehow these were the moments Aya always remembered. The exertion, the rush of the hunt, and the sense of belonging with the other members of the Pack. She had seen the Shroud only once as a child: and she had stared in bewildered amazement. For years she had dreamed of seeing it again, of living in it, of learning its ways. Now, with nothing but the moon to light her way, she scrambled through the depths of the forest at a pace few could imagine. She was fast; quick and graceful. She had taken to nothing else the Hungry Wolf did with quite so much ease. Sometimes it seemed the undergrowth shifted out of her way, as if the forest wished to get to know her, just as badly as she wished to get to know it. She was easier to out run on flat ground, but only a few of the forest-born Miqo'te could outpace her in this environment: Jack was among them.
They were, perhaps, not the quietest. They were not the most numerous. They were not the most skilled in arms. But they moved with a swiftness no one could match. They approached, struck, and vanished with a swiftness that terrified their quarry. That was the way of the Hungry Wolf.
She set the weapon aside, along with a leather thong to tie it with for the ride. She turned her attention to her armor: steel stud reinforced leather. It was recently purchased, an update upon the leathers she had worn as a Hungry Wolf. Really, she had just wanted something that would look better on her. The sort of impulse buy that she never seemed to regret no matter how poor her finances. She applied a little fresh oil, some of the leather was still being broken in. It had not seen much use.
She had not been idle in the wake of Natalie's death. She'd felt the call to ready herself, to return to the form she had left behind with the collapse of the Hungry Wolf. Her sessions under the hot Thanalan sun were part practice, part performance, and part meditation. Mental focus and clarity were impressed upon every Hungry Wolf fighter. To clear the mind of distractions, to banish thought which tempted hesitation. To act with decisiveness and reflex. The heat of battle provided a simple choice: kill or be killed. It felt all too natural to her.
She finished donning her riding clothes, and packed her armor for carrying. She was just to visit Forgotten Springs to see if the Heretics holding Verad and his sellsword as prisoners had come that way. They had reason to believe it was the case, but they did not yet know for sure. It was just a fact-finding mission, but Aya knew there was more to it than that. If, and when, they found Verad his life would hang on the balance of hours if not minutes. There would be no time to waste, no moment for hesitation. She would have to be ready. She was ready.
Verad laughed; that deep joyous laugh of his. She had listened to him regaling one person after another with his pitch: fine, indeed the finest, dubious goods to be found this side of Gyr Abania! She had tried to hide her laughs and her giggles as she walked by carrying drink after drink for other patrons. But, at last, the white-maned Duskwight had taken a seat, and it was her turn to be regaled.
She grinned to him, the amusement in her eyes impossible to hide. "Madame! Your very worst drink, in your very smallest serving!" He raised his finger as a flourish, as if this were a well and practiced routine (which indeed it was). She had laughed all the more, giggling her entire way back to the bar. When she returned she offered a tiny shot glass intended for Lalafel, filled with Qiqirn Firewater. He took stock of the drink, served without a hint of hesitation: this was unexpected. For a moment he must have wondered just what he'd gotten himself into. One swig later he knew all too well.
He gagged and she laughed: a friendship had been born. Sometimes it seemed to her, that he never really knew her. But she knew him, and worse, she cared about him. He simply had that effect on people: a truly endearing man.
"Recklessness doesn't really suit you," that's what she remembered saying to Kiht just the day before. The words had carried a warning barb, and one that seemed to wound the pride of the Keeper Huntress. She and Aya had been friends for nearly a year, but only real associates for a short while. Kiht had not much reason to trust her judgement: the bubbly barmaid suddenly turned serious, deadly serious in a moment of high drama. Kiht paused, and then assented to caution.Â
Now what would Kiht think? Aya packed her Chocobo, freshly rented from a Porter, for the solo night-time ride to the edge of the Sagoli. She was taking spear and armor, ready for whatever would come, whatever would pass. Who was being reckless now?
She had reflected upon the stakes. Staring at the spear as she held it in her hands. The flicker of lamplight reflected off the hardened steel blade. She wondered for a moment about her options. She was under no obligation. She was under no danger, no threat. There was reason for caution. But... she could not banish the nightmare from her memory.
The vision of Verad; his silent, terrified scream. She could recall each scale and claw upon the drake rising before the sun, preparing to take its sacrifice. She shuttered at the sensation. The feeling of helplessness. Verad was surrounded by so many who would come to his aid: from every side they had hacked, and slashed. Sultan Sworn, Brass Blades, Moon Keepers, but something had not been right, none had been close enough, none were there in his moment of need. Now, as the nightmare seemed to unfold in the reality before her, she could not banish the thought: he needs me.Â
She had seemed to know this would happen from the very beginning. It was why she was willing to help Kiht, why she was willing to risk her own safety. She could not let a friend down in his moment of need. She would face her nightmare.
There was no other way. There was no choice to be made. She breathed a little easier.
She mounted the Chococo, taking in a deep breath. She was startled by a sudden voice behind her, Jericho the cook. "Aya what in the hells are you doing?" She turned in the saddle to look back upon him. Her eyes were serious, "Tell Madame I shall not be making my shift tomorrow."
"But.. Aya..." he said, pleadingly. "When will you be back?"
"As soon as I can," she replied curtly, before offering a warm smile.Â
With a nudge of her heels she spurred the Chocobo forward. Towards the Gates of Thal. Towards the Sagoli. Towards her nightmare.
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 07-31-2015
[The Nightmare Ends - The Scales Part Fourteen]
OOC Comment:
Theme Music!
The long ride gave the young woman more than enough room for reflection. She watched the sight of a high moon rising, and then drifting steadily overhead as the minutes turned to hours upon the desert road as it wound its way through the heat of a Thanalan night. Clouds on the far horizon flashed with the intense light and energy high in the atmosphere. The image of dragons swooping through the cloudy heights, unleashing torrents of bright, searing breath lit her imagination.Â
She passed within sight of Little Ala Mhigo's silhouette. That refuge for her former countrymen, the camp where they had spent several moons so many years ago. She had never been back. She preferred not to.Â
There was irony in the predicament. How far had she come to escape the obsessions of the Tower City? How much had she sacrificed upon the altar of freedom: to make of her life what she wished, and where she wished--far from the zealots of Halone and their willingness to sacrifice everything good in the pursuit of their mindless quest for victory in an endless war. Yet, here that very war had found its way to her new threshold. She kept the company of Dragoons. She beheld the spectacle of Heretics preaching to the crowds of her adoptive home. And now, what? She rode, alone, through a desert night. Armed to the teeth, prepared to bare steel against what? The Dravanians and their faithful.
How far she had come. How little had changed.
Yet, she knew her cause was different. She understood the stakes of the struggle in its whole. The real, true dangers of the Horde that had been impressed upon her throughout her youth, and firsthand knowledge of what they were capable. Still, that was not her battle. Every time she closed her eyes all she could see was him. Her Duskwight friend, lashed by chains to to a high stone tower. Bearing him to the heavens, a sacrifice to the scaled gods of Heresy. That nightmare that had haunted her for a moon, and driven her to action otherwise incomprehensible.
She wondered, at times, if Verad ever thought of her. She figured in his mind she was little more than a simple, pleasant smile. But every stride of her Chocobo through the waning night air revealed a further truth. The jingle not of jewelry, but of armor. The sound of a woman prepared for battle—for war.
There was resolve. A bounty of courage sprung from the understanding that she had no choice. Step by further step she drew closer to her nightmare. To the visage of all she feared.Â
The last time she had approached Forgotten Springs had been under such different circumstances. She had been part of a small party, riding in a Chocobo-drawn caravan. Every need had been taken care of; she was there on the behest of the Grand Companies, engaged as a model in a series of morale and recruiting promotions. All she'd had to do was smile and look good for the artists and their equipment. It had been a wonderful time, despite the heat, and despite the sand. The work hadn't been as easy as she'd hoped, but at least she had been paid for it!
Now she approached in altogether different circumstances. A sentry posted to the gate hailed her. The sun had just begun to rise over the distant mountains. Long rays giving hint to the sand of the scorching heat that awaited. There was no gil or fun in the offing this visit.
"Aya Foxheart." she answered, "I visited a month ago, I am sure someone can vouch for me."
The sentry nodded, raising a curious eyebrow. She recognized the Hyur, it would be difficult not to. She was waved on through.
"Appeal to their pride, but do not overly flatter them."
She tried to remember Kiht's words of advice. She knew so little of dealing with tribal Miqo'te - and without the protection of an entourage and gil she knew not what could avail her if she made offense.
"Reference Azeyma a few times, and ask if they have any recent kills. Ask for details of the hunt."
She hitched her Chocobo to an empty post. She looked out across toward the quickly rising sun.
"Tis like any social setting, but with different cultural values."
The words were meant as comfort and encouragement. But how very different, indeed, were those values.
She glanced about. The entire night had passed during her ride. She had a lot more to accomplish. Verad's life could very well depend on it.
It had not been an easy matter to engage the U'ranika and her huntresses in the search, but Aya knew that if anyone could find Verad and the Heretics it would be they. U'ranika had already confirmed that a party matching their description had been spotted entering the Sagoli suns afore, and it was now only a matter of locating where in the desert they could now be found.
U'ranika lead a small team of huntresses; she'd met Aya on her previous trip when they were engaged to provide protection for the project. She'd thought the blonde a fun, if trifling woman at the time. She wasn't all that convinced that her first apprehensions were wrong, but the young woman's concern seemed sincere, and she'd appealed to the pride of the tribe. They couldn't just allow something like this to go down in their territory, could they?Â
Aya tried to do her part, holed up within the Immortal Flames outpost in the small settlement with a map of the desert. She'd gone over it and over it again, searching for clues as to where the heretics could be found: near water, she told herself, and plentiful shade from the midday heat.
Speaking of the heat, she had discarded most of her armor which lay in a somewhat neat pile in the corner of the room. Sweat evaporated quickly in the dry air, but the oppressive oven-like atmosphere of the outpost was still preferable to the bare sun of the exterior.
She leaned her head back against the chair. The fatigue of a day and a half of activity washed over her at once. She wanted nothing more than a bath, and a comfortable bed. For this all to be over. For the nightmare to end.
A white-haired Miqo'te stepped into the room, boots echoing against the solid wood floor. Not of the U'tribe, a "civilized" Miqo'te. Aya blinked with blank, confused expression: one that was something of an automatic defense mechanism. She could never know what to expect.
"The Immortal Flames outpost, of course..." she muttered to herself in obvious displeasure. Her eyes flicked toward the seated figure of the fair-haired Aya, her Miqo'te ears twitched slightly with surprise.
"Ummm..." the Ishgardian girl stammered, "Are you a friend of Kiht's?"Â
The Miqo'te's lips quirked into a smile as she offered the slightest nod. "Aya, we've met." She removed her hat and approached the table with a soft step. "In the shroud, at that old Keeper manse; after the time Verad got beaten senseless."
How the hapless Duskwight seemed to bring people together in the most reliable of ways. Aya let out a relieved sigh and a soft smile. In other moments she might have laughed, or shrugged away the display of blonde forgetfulness. But she was full of tired and the weight of responsibility. "Oh.. I remember now! Anstarra!"
V'aleera's entrance was less subtle. The Ishgardian dragoon, well known to Aya since their childhoods, crashed through the door in an obvious hurry as her heavy boots beat the floor. Her eyes filled with annoyance and a concern shared by her furrowed brow. The expression softened for a moment as she too spied the unlikely woman at the center of it all. "Aya? For what purpose are you here?"
She was less here for Verad than his fellow hostage: Kyrael. But her presence was more than welcome. Aya noticed that her unexpected allies were not those struggling vainly in the visions her nightmare: Kiht, Osric, Crofte, Immortal Flames, Brass Blades, Sultansworn. These very protectors were nowhere to be found.. Verad's fate was instead in the hands of a myriad assortment: Ishgardians, and a Miqo'te bard. Perhaps there was hope yet.
Aya stood, gesturing toward the map as she spoke in her heavy Ishgardian accent, "Several suns ago, huntresses spotted a group of strangers moving from the north, through the pass into the Sagoli." She moved her finger along the route the huntresses had indicated. "The travelers were careful to avoid Forgotten Springs. And U'ranika was certain they were not adventurers. She estimated that there were eight of them total, in addition to a heavy load of baggage. I don't know if Verad and Ky were among those eight they counted."
She nodded slightly as she let the other two women take in the news. At least the Heretics had been seen. Her hunch about the Sagoli had been astute.
"So there are, at worst, eight of them. Perhaps six." observed Anstarra.
"Right..." Aya again nodded slightly, while with her left hand she gestured toward some of the areas of the desert map. "Several of the huntresses are out right now searching for them. They're covering areas they thought the party was most likely to have headed. There aren't that many areas of the desert with sufficient cover for several days, let alone water if they did not bring enough with them."
V'aleera narrowed her gaze toward the map. She had been quiet, her attention intense. At last she lent the quiet confidence of her voice, "I know little of hunting in this barren wasteland. But a paltry eight heretics shall pose no threat when found."
She continued, "When their location is confirmed, the attack must be immediate and ruthless. No mercy or hesitation can be suffered; heretics have been known to kill prisoners when rescue appears imminent."
Aya simple looked back toward her with tired blue eyes. The confidence of her childhood friend stirred her own. She nodded in agreement.
The discussion continued as the women thought about the merits of conducting their own search, before the sudden interruption of a U tribeswoman bursting into the outpost. They'd spotted a group of eight in the southwestern outskirts of the Sagoli. Two, who had been bound, had been observed to be digging something in the desert.
Aya swept her unclasped armor from the ground, quickly pulling the jacket on and working the buckles to tighten it around her upper body.
"Can you lead us there?"Â The huntress nodded.Â
Anstarra flipped her hat up, her expression sharp. "We'd best hurry if they're digging their own graves."
V'aleera grit her teeth. Eyes narrowed as if she could already see the prey. "At last, the quarry are cornered. those vermin have scurried in the shadows long enough. We shall end their miserable heathenous existence."
Anstarra flashed a toothy grin, "Spoken like a true Ishardian. With a little luck, and Twelve willing, the sand shall drink their blood by day's end."
Aya pulled the metal mask over her lower face, and lifted the spear from the wall. Once again her concerns where warranted: there was no time to wait. No hesitation could be conscionable. This had been more than a hunch and a search from the start. It is why she had come with spear in hand.Â
The party could not have seemed more strange, the three mounted figures cut entirely different forms as they hurried across the desert. The Ishgardian Dragoon, in full control of her well-disciplined war mount. The Shroud Miqo'te Bard and her mostly un-tamed Chocobo, off chasing the wild life as soon as she dismounted. And the Ishgardian barmaid and her rented Chocobo, wheezing fitfully from the sand-filled air thankful just to have reached a stopping point in the desert's early evening.
The trio quickly joined the huntresses, and were joined by yet another Ishgardian Dragoon: Orrin Halgren. In the distance they spied the Heretics' shelter. There were eight of them, in addition to the two prisoners who laid bound and unmoving in the distance. Out of the sand dunes rose a leather-looking wing, fixed and immobile. Aya shuddered deep.
The group grew busy discussing their options. Aya watched the movement of the enemy in the distance. Her eyes fell upon the longer of the two forms laying motionless in the sand. The white-haired Duskwight. Her friend, and reason for being there. The others were professional soldiers, and a professional adventurer. But still, she knew, she'd have her eye on what mattered. She steadied her breath. Measured the pace. Conscious, slow, meaningful. She summoned her inner calm, focused the inner reserve. Silently she summoned the lines of the song of war. Of the Crow's flight.
One of the Heretics' lookouts spotted the group, letting out a cry. In an instant all thought of a plan was moot. The man who looked in charged turned his gaze upon the tall sand dune over which they emerged. With spears and bow at the ready they descended toward the heretics and their prisoners. The Dragoons belted out their war cries. The leader directed his followers.
Aya's eyes were steely, fixed with intensity upon the leader as he tugged Verad into the air by the white strands of his hair. Now was the moment. Her trance-like breathing swallowed emotion. Her attention focused upon naught but the target. She took quick steps with long strides upon tall legs. Speed, decisive speed. Gravity propelled her down the slope of the dune in silence; a stark contrast to the war cry of the Miqo'te dragoon to her side.Â
The two Dragoons fell behind the surprising quickness of the sprinting blonde, while the Heretics quickly formed a defensive line athwart their leader and the hostages. Two of the harriers stepped toward Aya, intent upon blocking her approach.Â
Her eyes remained fixed through the line, and upon the leader. She carried her momentum forawrd as she suddenly set her heeled boots into a controlled crouching slide. The leader watched the pair of Dragoons as he prepared to carry out the ritual. A dragoon could cover a lot of ground, they were threats—but she was clearly no dragoon. From the coiled position of the crouch she sprung forward, leaping above and beyond the pair of set defenders, with a graceful forward flip. She rolled smoothly into a landing that preserved as much of her momentum as possible. Redirecting the power of her charging leap, she emerged from the roll with a lunge toward the figure of the leader. There was no hesitation; she was set upon her course. Decisive, precise, and sudden she struck with the full power of her leaping, rolling charge. Bare spear point was driven where the man's neck met his collar, with a frightful and determined silence that matched the suddenness of the motion.Â
His eyes were wide with shock, but he had caught sight of her out of the corner of his eye, and managed to barely lean back in time to avoid the fatal strike. He dropped the hostage to keep his balance, nearly stumbled backwards as blood began to flow from a deep gash the spear blade opened in a line from his neck to his shoulder.Â
The battle engaged around them around them, while the other hostage cut his bonds to escape, and joined the fray, slashing at the leader's exposed back. His focus remained intent upon the lancer who had bested him with the charge. His wounds were a hindrance, and the two entered into a posturing exchange, neither able to land a telling blow. He thrust and moved around her with his blade, testing her balance and poise. She kept her feet again, and again, but found herself unable to beat his expert defenses. She was buying time. Buying time, and little more.
He was no poacher or bandit caught in the wrong place at the wrong time—he would have his way given enough time. But still she fought. With tenacity and determination. She held her ground. There Verad lay, where he would be at the Heretics' mercy; at the mercy of the wyrm lying moribund in deep desert sand. The nightmare ended here, one way or another. The battle that raged around them soon turned against the Heretic and his men. One by one the Ishgardian Dragoons put his defenders to an end, while Anstarra focused disrupted the progress of the ritual itself. The end approached, victory was in sight.
Still, the leader fought on, deftly avoiding Aya's spear thrust. He countered countered with his sword-arm passing parallel to Aya's own weapon. It was a sudden and nearly unavoidable strike; she managed the slightest deflection with the haft of her spear, enough to save her life. She did not feel the slice of the blade, or the heat of blood upon her neck.Â
Behind her, Sellaine, the Leader's lieutenant staggered near defeat. His men collapsed all around him. With is forces clearly defeated, the ritual at an end, leader cried for a halt, an end, a surrender. Aya stepped backwards. The beat of her heart finally caught up with her—the sensation of rushing blood, and the pounding in her breast.Â
The Heretics had yielded. She eyed Verad. V'aleera finished the lieutenant with a coup de grace: a settlement of unfinished business.Â
Only the leader remained alive. Surrounded. Anstarra fell to Verad's side, attending to his injuries. Aya continued to stagger backwards. She had held; it was over, it was over, it was over.
The weight of the moment was heavy. She heard the Dragoon, Orrin, giving her orders. She shook her head. She knew how Dragoons would deal with Heretics. It was no longer her battle. Verad was safe, all was well.
She turned her back on the group and struggled back up the dune from which she had embarked upon her long heedless charge. She closed her eyes, struggling with the moment. She felt the sting of her wound, superficial as it was. She swallowed hard. All was well.
The drake would be buried beneath the sand from which it came. The Heretic threat was at an end. Verad was safe. Verad was safe. All was well.
She pulled herself atop the porter's Chocobo, and offered an expression of exhausted gratitude to the U-tribe huntresses.Â
She spurred the bird onward, onward to Ul'dah.
Onward to a perfumed bath. Onward to the taste of mulled wine, and Shroud honey. Onward to another day of work, serving drinks and casting smiles.
Away, away, away from all of this.
Verad was safe. All was well. The nightmare was no more.
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 08-30-2015
[Return to the Shroud - Crimes Against Nature Part One]
In those, long past, distant days of yore.
When we learned , our songs of love, and lore
Of Misty wood, and ancient timber,
Of mighty boughs, untouched by cinder.
Where heroes, beyond our ken, once stood,
Within that dark, that black, that Mirk-wood.
-Excerpt frow a Gyr Abanian Folk Song
The legends of the Gyr Abanians are steeped in the depths of the great valley forests of their highland home. They speak of nearly impenetrable interiors the haunt of terrible other-worldly dangers, and sights of breath-taking beauty. The great forests are said to be home of mystcial creatures beynd the reckoning of man, and jealously protective of their mystery.Â
Passage through these legendary wood for many stands as an allegory for the transition from this world to the next. The final steps of a life well lived, or one filled with contrition and fear of damnation. For others it marked the passage from one life to another: a great milestone from which they emerged forever altered. For all, it was to be touched by the unknowable.
The ancient lyricists who put these tales to song may have been aware of that greatest Mirk-wood: the Black Shroud of Eorzea. There the depths of the wood stretch deeper than imagination. The shadows darker than night. The secrets more terrible and fantastic. A forest alive, and possessed of an unknowable will.Â
So, was Aya born into this tradition. She heard the songs, and clung raptly to the stories she heard as a child. She passed through the great wood as her family trod the path of refugees. And as a teenager she dreamed of the great expanse of the forest as a realm of freedom; she heard the call and gazed longingly upon the distant green canopy from trespassed rooftops of far-away spires.Â
And so, as she made her great escape, giving up all she all she had known, she sought to make her own journey through this Mirk-wood. She embraced the howling call, and, like those before, she emerged forever changed.Â
Those days she spent wrapped within the forest as a wandering home stayed with her in undeniable ways. And, though the ways of the world had conspired to flush her from it and back out into open spaces, she still felt that same longing for the full lushness of its enrapturing green that had entranced her teenage dreams.Â
The rather sudden offer of work in Gridania seemed as though it could not have come at a more opportune time. Monsieur Vann's (as she called him) assistant had surprised her near the end of an evening shift at the Quicksand. She had been tasked, the diminutive Au Ra woman stated, with hiring a model for a new line of Vann clothing marketed specifically to the forest city of Gridania. It seemed an offer tha Aya simply could not refuse.
Due to her growing Freelance work, Madam Momodi had kindly extended her some flexibility in her scheduling. And, the next thing she knew, she found herself leaning over the railing of an airship as it made it's way effortlessly and serenely over the edge of the Shroud. She let out a quiet breath. Her mind wondered over those memories of the not-too-distant past. Of the paths and ways that she had learned. Of the faces of the friends she had made—and of some she had lost. Of the good times and the bad. And those one could not tell from the other. Of those she sometimes wished she had never known. Those moments that forever change a person. And of regret.
She leaned a little further over scanning the sights below. The Sun was setting; the fiery hue of its departing rays illuminated the fading wild flowers of a forest meadow below. She remembered some of the stories she had been told. The forest Miqo'te seemed to know the wood better than all others and they told stories of equal wonder and terror. They told of such splendor and trickery that one came away convinced only that a life-time was not enough to learn the full ways of the Shroud.
She sighed softly as the day's last rays lapped high clouds a brilliant shade of pink. She remembered those forest gatherings. Friends, comrades, pitched in a circle. Those times had slipped away: forever gone, as surely as the light of the sun would too.
A porter met her at the hanger, and with considerable swiftness she made her way from the lower-level platform out onto the cobblestone pathways of what counted for avenues in the forest city. The Carline Canopy held memories of its own: her first workplace outside of Ishgard. The site of so many friendships and of her eventual recruitment. But, there was still the issue with Miounne and some six months of long past-due rent. The matronly Elezen was known for her kindness, but underneath it all Aya knew she was a business woman well aware of the bottom-line. It was the sort of trouble that Aya took no chances with.
No, their destination was a small boarding house in the northern neighborhood of the city. A spot where those who wished for more personal attention than the Canopy could offer often chose to stay. A quiet spot to stay while she waited for word from her employer, Monsieur Vann, or his retainer. And that is what she told all who asked her about her reason for visiting Gridania. Unspoken, in her heart, she knew it was otherwise.
That first night she carefully slipped off the clothing of a fashionable Ul'dahn. She looked, with a smirk upon the freshly manicured fingers that would serve her well as a fashion model. She strapped on a pair of what she considered to be more practical forest boots (of the heeled and buckled sort they used to tease her for during her days in the Shroud—perhaps she had not changed as much as she thought).Â
She escaped quietly out of the house and skirted the lit street lamps in town. She passed through the gate, within the disbelieving sight of the posted guards. She stepped into the woods, and with a confidence born of experience, she took off at a run into the moonlit forest.
She was stronger than she had been. And soon she found, faster too. Years of additional training had seen to that. The rigors of training and rehearsing amongst Ul'dah's Miqo'te dancing girls had done its share too.Â
She beamed a silent, brilliant grin that none but the forest itself could appreciate.
Home at last. Free again.
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 09-05-2015
[Wild Chocobo Chase - Crimes Against Nature Part Two]
Now I kow the taste and feel of Sun.
Beach-hot white sand beneath my feet,
In salt-sweet air, and carefree fun.
And endless smiles for all I meet.
But I cannot forget, or cease to care,
From where I came, and who I am.
Embittered cold, that all must bear.
From where I came, and who I am.
The howling gale; hope; despair.
Where cold-capped snow peaks linger still,
Where frost strong-clings to all it sees.
Where hearth and home bring warm goodwill,
Where love exists beneath the freeze.
The light notes of Aya's voice drifted into a quiet in which only the sound of babbling water and singing birds penetrated. Light blue eyes lingered on the sight of spring-fed stream falling into the distant pool below. The sight was loveliness, the very representative of the beauty that Shroud-memory meant to her. But her mind was elsewhere. Hundreds of miles apart, where distant mountains rose behind the snow-covered spires of the Tower City. Neither her birth home, nor her adoptive home. But her heart's home nonetheless: Ishgard.Â
The conversation within the Morbolvine Clan's lair had drawn her thoughts there. Reminded her of home. Miah never did understand Aya. Maybe she'd never had the chance. Maybe she never would. Heart strings played upon by one who never even knew they were there.Â
She let out a deep sigh. A slow, steady push of air upon which she hoped would carry every thought of home upon it. Away, away, and away.
But C'kayah was already concerned. A gentle look was upon his green eyes, a look he seemed to reserve for the quiet of private company.Â
"You're homesick" he observed adroitly. "The gate is open..." he left the suggestion unfinished, allowing the thought to simply float upon the air.
Aya lowered her gaze, leaning forward to rest her arms upon the ornately carved railing of the observation deck. "More or less, you mean," she corrected with that note of cynicism that always seemed to accompany her thoughts of Ishgard.
"I wouldn't exactly stake my life on the good fortune of just strolling in again."
C'kayah thought for a moment, his fingers upon the cut of his masculine jaw. "No," he agreed, "But, at the same time, you'd be able to see them again. You don't require a forged seal, either. You could, literally if you wished, stroll right in." C'kayah, was right, and knew just of whom she thought, of course. But Aya knew that no matter how sympathetic he was, he could not see the fullness of her plight.
So focused were her thoughts upon Ishgard that she could almost feel the chill; see the snow. A looming sense of dread crept through her heart, as did a sense of the powerful little seizures of anxiety that had once gripped her every time she cast eyes upon an agent of the Ishgardian Church and State. The fear that every Knight, every Inquisitor, every Priest or Adjunct could be preparing to steal her away to face mortal charges. The same fear for for her friends, her family, for everyone whom she had known. That daily terror that had slowly eroded every sense of normalcy.
"Are you so sure?" There was a barb in her tone, a sense of harshness at his own naivety. "They have opened their gates for their own reasons. To allow in the foreigners who bear with them goods, gil, arms. Who will aid in their Crusade, and help safekeep the city from foes Dravanian and Garlean. The Church does not rule with benevolence; Halone is a hard goddess. Her will is ice. Her faithful..." she cut her voice off mid-sentence, allowing words she may have later regretted to linger unspoken. Her fingers clutched tightly against the railing, her heart pounded with a sudden emotion of trepidation, of worry, and fear. "I do... I do miss.. I do worry about them. And, sometimes," she said with the voice of someone admitting her darkest secret, "I miss what we had, despite it all."
C'kayah took a deep breath. He wanted nothing but the best for her. Had he not risked his own life to deliver word to her family that she still lived? It was difficult to see her like this. It was always, so difficult. What could he say to comfort her? How could he encourage her to take that leap of faith: the only leap that would quiet her struggling heart. "Aya... I know I'm not the best source of wisdom on this..." he leaned against the railing, drawing himself nearer to her; his eyes casting their soft, caring gaze close upon her. "I haven't visited my own family since I was but seventeen summers of age. Still... you could Aya. It wouldn't mean that you have to remain..." he tried to assuage her, hoping her understood just what it was that had so inflamed the negativity she so rarely allowed to breach her unruffled exterior.
He watched as she closed her eyes. A look of such seriousness upon her features. Never did she seem so sad, never did she seem so serious, and so bereft of hope as when she spoke of home. "There are those who won't have forgotten me. Unsettled scores, unreturned debts."  She paused, "Unrequitted advances. Or simply, new amorous longings." She opened her eyes, light blue's unfocused as they looked out upon the splendor of the Shroud. "These are the things of Inquisition in Ishgard. The personal disputes that drive persecution by those able. Against those... well, my voice, it would mean nothing. Even less than it once did."
She let out a huff, half-amused, half-dejected; her eyes glanced briefly to his. "Besides; if they remember my performances they may even have a real case."
C'kayah watched, his own expression serene; his concern apparent. "A case? You mean heresy?"
She closed her eyes again and nodded. "Of course. It really doesn't take much when you're an 'Ala Mhigan Trollop.'" Those words rolled off her tongue with more than venom: an outright hostility that rose from a deep-seated anger. It was almost enough to take her Miqo'te friend aback, so rarely did she speak with such a forceful negativity.
He laughed... Aya glanced at him again, wondering at the inappropriate, awkward moment. "Well," he offered, "I would be your proxy once again, but I fear my own enemies have been making sure that I would receive a welcome of chains and a long drop should I ever set foot there again."
He seemed to sense that his laughter had been out of place. How difficult she was to judge in these moments, all he wanted was to calm her... "Aya, I'm sure there are ways. If you wish to see your family, or even just get word to them, we can find a way."Â
She nodded, closing her eyes again as she let out a deep sigh from upon the railing. "Maybe... someday... but I can't just stroll..."
C'kayah let out a breath of his own. That very real sense of disappointment upon it. "V'aleera sent me a letter. She mentioned concern for my family, and... well... the attack." Her voice trembled just slightly. Worry clutched again upon her heart, "I... it's..." for a moment her expression hovered on the verge of tears. Her cheeks reddened, her breath came ragged.Â
"The Dragoon...?" he asked, perplexed.
She tried to force herself to concentrate. This had never been supposed to be about Ishgard. There were important matters afoot. She focused... she forced her breaths deeper, slower. She calmed, as best she could, and then she changed the subject, "...there's something else for us to discuss."
"Business?" he asked, somewhat perplexed himself on the sudden turn of thought.
"Business? I don't even know what to call it any more... trouble seems to just have a way of finding us. But, I suppose this isn't so much our trouble unless we really wish to make it so."
C'kayah cast half a smirk, "Well, we could be selfish and ignore it. Open another bottle of wine, and just wile away the evening. But, lets here what the trouble is, first."
Aya watched the smirk, one that reflected suddenly as a very slight smile upon her own, red-carmined lips. "Trouble in the Shroud. And... its serious. I'm not sure that anyone who cares about it can afford to ignore it."
C'kayah narrowed his eyes, his smiling-smirk quickly fading at the mention of such a problem. He craned his head to look at her, "What sort of trouble?"
"Sinister things," she said in a soft, quiet voice that failed to betray the stake of it all. "Undead, Void-sent, a strange blood-like substance that seems to provoke the plants of the Shroud against others. Accusations against the Wailers. Murder. Intentional fires and destruction within the Shroud. Its as if someone is tempting fate. Testing, probing to gauge whether the Elemental threat, Greenwrath, still is."
"Greenwrath..." he murmured softly. "You know, after the Calamity, people thought the Elementals had forsaken the Shroud. It no longer provided the protection it once did. At the same time, it became a much easier place for those not in Gridania's good graces to live." He drew his fingers gently against his jaw, watching her, "It would be foolish to think that change was permanent, but it does mean the Shroud may be vulnerable..."
Aya nodded slightly, turned her gaze back up toward the waterfall and the coursing stream that fed it. "Either way, I don't think either of us feel that Void-sent are welcome within the Shroud."
C'kayah shook his head in emphatic agreement, "No!" for a moment he pondered the possibility of a connection. The Morbolvine had been dealing with their own Void-sent infestation, "I wonder if there may be a connection..." he mused quietly.
Her eyes followed his. Blonde eyebrows lifted at the suggestion of a connection, before her gaze moved back to the flowing water. "Does Kiht know of this?" he asked pointedly of the Keeper Huntress, his one-part nemesis, one-part dear friend.
Aya nodded, "She does, and she even asked after you." He couldn't suppress a grin at the thought. "Did she...?" he purred in that deep, luxuriant tone of which he was infuriatingly capable. "Well, perhaps the three of us should meet and discuss what best to do."
The blonde shook her head in disagreement. "I'd... well, I'd rather have some better idea of what's going on first. Kiht is best when she has a plan to carry out. Right now..." she hesitates about how just to put it, "She seems rather adrift. And I think we may do more harm than good until we can provide more exact direction."
C'kayah's eyes opened wide at the suggestion. "Adrift? I have never seen that woman adrift. Is she alright?"
Aya's cheeks reddened slightly, her expression flustered. "I hadn't meant it quite like that. She's always grounded, especially by her loyalty. But, when she doesn't know what she should be doing, she kind of flails about, trying to figure it out. She is always doing her best, and once she has a plan of action to follow she follows it to the very end, but... when she doesn't..."
C'kayah chuckled, nodding his agreement. "Yes, she does like action doesn't she? And she'll prefer any action over waiting. Alright, so we have some sleuthing to do, is that right? Who all knows about this?"
He had asked a question that she couldn't even venture a question on. She herself had only really learned about anything the day before, and Edda, from whom she had learned about it from, didn't really know her. Her conversation with Kiht had been so incomplete. There was so much still unknown.
"I don't know." she answered rather matter-of-factly. "Though, I first head about it a few weeks past, I really didn't know it. I think we should focus on what it is we know, rather than on who knows."
C'kayah furrowed his brow slightly, before gracefully stepping from the unknown and into the known.Â
"Very well then, what do we know?"
Aya turned her eyes away, concentrating for a moment as if trying to imagine how to present it all at once. "There is a common theme in these otherwise disparate events. It seems to be some effort to harm the Shroud itself. It started with the undead, raised from recently deceased by some force or individual. They were contained by Wailers with the help of a Leve, and defeated, but the Wailers seemed reluctant to allow any follow-up investigation."
"I learned of this from a Maelstrom Lieutenant who had been part of the Leve. She was rather insistent that she lacked the authority to investigate further, something that it sounded like she had been told by the Wailers themselves."
C'kayah seemed quite confused, "Maelstrom? Why the Maelstrom?"
Aya shrugged, "Happenstance, it seems. She must be a member of the Foreign Levy. There was another attack, the one in which Kiht was present. There was a woman, seemingly mad, accusing a group of Wailers she had attacked of something, 'They did it!' she shouted again and again. A blood-like substance had been spread in the area, bringing the wildlife alive, and encouraging it to attack the Wailers. All were slain, before the woman seemed to vanish into the very firmament itself."
C'kayah pressed his lips into a tight line. This didn't sound good.
"Some of Kiht's companions collected samples of the substance. They're being studied in Ul'dah as we speak. More than that, one of them was actually affected by the blood herself. She claimed it made her feel a very powerful sense of rage."
C'kayah turned all of this over in his head, remaining silent for a moment. "Do you know what the alchemists found, Aya? When they analyzed it?"
She shook her head, "As far as I know there are no results as of yet. They're still working on it. Hopefully we'll hear from Kiht if she learns anything. Now, both of these events seem to share the common theme of defiling the Shrould don't they? There's more still. A fire that was set upon a sacred tree of the Shroud, one that took a great deal of effort to bring under control. Another: a Chocobo-keeper has been murdered, and daily Chocobo are found missing from Bent Branch. When a group of adventurer's attempted to locate the missing Chocobo, they were met by a powerful force: individuals who overpowered them and forced their retreat, empty handed."
C'kayah nodded with puzzlement. It just seemed to keep getting worse. "And what was this about the Wailers?"
Aya's eyes widened for a moment before she nodded, "It was a hunch of Kiht's. She seemed very concerned about the way the woman was accusing the slain Wailers of misdeeds. Concerned enough that she is trying to investigate the Wailers herself to see if she can find any evidence of what they might be up to. Now, when she told me this I thought of two other things: One, that the Wailers had seemed to stymie further investigation into the first group of void sent, and secondly that in Bentbranch they are not following up with any real investigation of the missing Chocobo."
C'kayah fell into deep thought, offering only a slight nod. After a few silent moments he conjectured, "You want to look into the Chocobo, don't you Aya. You want us to look into it?" He cast his perceptive eyes upon her, she nodded.
"That," she couldn't help but smile at his power of deduction, "is where I would like to begin. Not so much, us, perhaps, but there are many Shroud Miqo'te about. Mistresses of the wood. Some of the best are even available for hire. Far quieter than a trampling team of adventurers, don't you think?"
C'kayah agreed, "There's a lot of truth in what you're saying."
She nodded, nearly lost in her own thoughts, "Something is telling me the Chocobo are important. It seems too strange an act to be random. There must be purpose, and whoever they are they killed to achieve it, and have fought to hide their tracks. That seems like the best place to start."
"Then that is where we shall begin! Or, at least, where the Huntresses we employ shall begin!"
He turned his eyes reflective upon the waterfall, lifting his body straight as he looked upon it, "The Shroud has always been important to me. To my livelihood, of course, but also... it was a refuge for me when I had nothing else. It may seem sappy, but I'll defend that."
She watched, smiling softly. "I thought you would. In its one peculiar way, the Shroud itself is Freedom. At least, that is what it has always meant to me. Especially when I spied it from the distance of Ishgard. Perched upon a tower.. dreaming.."
He watched her, a knowing smirk upon her lips. He had heard these stories before, and he had a feeling he was one of the only ones who had.
"Well, when the two of us are on the case..."
She flashed a grin his way. "A pretty unlikely pair of saviors, don't you think?"
She grinned playfully, "The unlikeliest!"
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 09-07-2015
[A Model's Reflections - Crimes Against Nature Part Three]
The Boarding House Beneath Lea's Branches. It was a quiet spot, serene almost. The sort of lodgings one just expects when staying in Gridania. Away from the hustle and bustle of all the adventurers at the Canopy. Ensconced amidst nature's beauty with the sound of a babbling brook meandering its way behind the carefully landscaped property. The eponymous Lea is a gentle and attendant hostess. Tea was served every afternoon, and the meals were ever as delicious and fresh as they were memorable.Â
So far everything had been as near perfect as a girl could hope for. Monsieur Vann had hired Aya, but her work so far had consisted of little beyond enjoying herself in the peace-and-quiet of Gridania at her employer's expense. So, it came as something between disappointment and exciting shock when a visitor arrived for her at near 9 bells one morning.Â
She had asked Lea to attempt delay, but the gentleman's was both polite and clear: "Whatever the miss' state, it behooves her to speak with me promptly."
And so she did, wrapped in a hastily donned dressing gown within the small lobby of the Boarding House. "Very good, Miss Foxheart. Our apologies, we understand that Miss Kai has been unavailable for some time, and haste has now become urgent. So if it shall please you Miss, Master Vann will brook no further delay in the roll-out of his line. He wishes to remind his lovely model, and representative, that her employment is not limited strictly to showing the clothing, but at all times representing the Vann line of fashions, clothing, and accessories. She shall appear at her beautiful best, at all times, so that all who catch sight of her shall know the beauty of Vann Fashions."
The well-appointed Hyur bowed his head with an apologetic authority. Without a glance to the befuddled blonde in her state of undress, he drew a polished watch from his coat pocket to confirm the exact time. "Two women shall arrive here in exactly one hour. They shall attend to your manicure, styling, and makeup. In exactly two hours, your porter shall be waiting here at the door to escort you to the fitting. Please do be on time. Master Vann has the highest expectations."
Musical Accompaniement
Thank goodness for that cup of tea...
Standing just outside the door she took a moment to adjust her hair, buying time for a few deep settling breaths while the Porter stood with the door opened for her. Stepping within, she was greeted by the sound of strumming mandolin to accompany the echo of her heels against the wooden floor of the well-appointed space. She had never been inside the building before, a small domed structure near the main Gridanian market. The porter closed the door behind her, leaving her alone as she entered the unknown.
She moved tentatively forward, across the rich carpet of the small foyer, covering the gold-hued wooden floor. She crossed beneath the ornately trimmed octagonal ceiling, decorated with carved wood-work of a rich mahogany tone. The large chamber doors matched the dark trim, equipped with wood latch and handles of the sort nearly unique to Gridania. The moderately sized room within radiated with a natural sunlight that lilted in through the gently green-hued glass-covered dome above. The player of the mandolin looked up upon her entrance, peering from his perch upon a built-in couch that ran the length of the room's circumference. He cast a friendly smile, and with a nudge to the smaller hammered dulcimer player next to him, the two began a light, relaxing tune that easily filled the area's volume with that warm emotion.
As if on queue a sharply-dressed Lalafellan gentleman entered from a side room. Without a greeting he paced toward the center of the chamber, motioning toward Master Vann's model to follow. She hesitated, lifting blonde eyebrows as she let out a soft "huh〜" upon an even softer gasp.Â
"Well, come on—you're late already," commanded the Lalafel with an imperative but gentle tone. He waved toward her once more, followed by a finger-whistle.
This must be...
As she stepped forward a tall, slender Elezen man wheeled a multi-stepped stool toward the Lalafel who at last introduced himself. "I am Yuyumondi. Since, ahem, Miss Kai is otherwise occupied, I have been sent to direct the fitting myself."
The look of surprise upon the blonde's face was in no measure reduced as Yuyumondi circled around her. She followed him with her eyes around toward the left, then whipping it back to the right. He 'hmmmm'ed quietly, a perturbed look upon his features as he appeared to be examining every minor detail of figure from his modest height.Â
After completing the circuit he ascended the stool which brought him almost to eye-level with the woman. Again he peered over her with an attentive detail that brought a flush to her cheeks.
Come on Aya... you're a professional now, don't be bashful!Â
With his eyes offering an undisguised fixation upon the bountiful features of her chest; he let out a frustrated huff, drawing his diminutive fingers to mustachioed lip.
"Well, it is obvious why Master Vann is so fond of her. But this will require adjustments. ADJUSTMENTS!" he nearly yelled in a flustered frustration as he lifted a tensed hand into the air. With a quick turn he descended the stepped-stool, snapping his fingers.
At the signal several more people entered the room pushing wheeled contrivances: clothing racks, a counter with boxes of jewelry and assorted fashion accessories, and a large circular curtain rack that was pushed until she was centered within the metal lattice, at once two young Hyur women stepped within the ring and then pulled the modesty curtain closed around her before beginning the process of undressing her.
Somewhat to her surprise, this felt familiar. Although Monsieur Vann had taken the entire process to a level of exquisite excess that she could never have expected, the process of being measured and fitted for costumes and clothing was one with which she had become familiar.
As she felt the women's hands unhook, unlatch, and pull the dress from her body, her thoughts drifted to the rather serious matters that had come to so engross her idle hours over the past two weeks.
This Wolfedge fellow - could he really be? I mean, I know I told Kiht: he may be a relic of the past. A figure preserved from, or pulled from years ago, when 'Young King Theodric' first ascended the throne. Before... before the Ruin, before the madness, before everything. He 'knows' and supports Theodric, but he is a Fist of Rhalgar, voicing a boisterous fealty to the Destroyer. He does not know what Theodric became: how could that be?Â
Could this be simple madness? A manufactured persona? Or could it be one trapped in time. What if he had been such a man. An Ala Mhigan supporter of Theodric, before the Ruin. Imprisoned by the Wailers beneath the Shroud in Toto-Rak. What tortures might he have endured? What legacy might he have left for the Void. A foul spirit filled with anger and vengeance to rise again from the mists of time? Or, maybe a victim thrust forward into a time not-of-his choosing. This sounds of madness!
The middle-aged Elezen man stepped into the curtain. Without a hint of emotion on his features he unwound a length of measuring tape and began to move with a professional swiftness. Every portion of her figure was to be cataloged. A series of predetermined measurements that together would account for every curve and length for which the tailors would have to account. He whipped the tape along, first along the back from shoulder-to-shoulder, following each arm: shoulder-to-elbow, elbow-to-wrist, wrist to finger-tip. Each accompanied by a small, careful, adjustment of her pose with the most gentle touch of his fingertips. Then around her forehead. Neck, circumference and height. Collar, chest, above, at the prominence of, and below the bust. With every measure he announced in an unemotional tone the result of the measure, along with the cryptic term that labeled just what-it-was he was measuring, at least to the ear of another trained tailor.Â
The experience could be called invasive and embarrassing, but, such is sometimes the necessity of one's profession.
And why did the Wailers seem to want him to escape. Even now they offer no pursuit, either because they are unable, or uninterested. Why do the Wailers also seem unable to protect Bentbranch. There are two theories there: either the voidsent take advantage of the Wailer guard's waning attentiveness, or else someone involved in scheduling the shifts knows when the voidsent are coming and removes his men from the watch to safeguard them. Either way, there too, they seem to have not pursued any investigation. Even the most basic information: the rumor that the Chocobo are being devoured on site rather than stolen, was either not uncovered by the Wailers, or else not communicated to Edda.Â
No, its not a rumor. The look in that poor boy's eyes... I know children are more capable actors than adults tend to give credit (not that we ever took advantage of that - right Aya?), But he was upset, so terribly, terribly upset. All I wanted to do was comfort him, the poor child. But still, that means the Wailers are either not trying or not sharing...
The moment his measurement-taking was complete, the Elezen exited as swiftly as he had entered. Moments later the two women dressers re-entered with articles of clothing, and quickly helped dress the model in a rather poorly-fit dress that no doubt was due for adjustment. Meanwhile a team of tailors was already to work outside of the curtain, and the musicians happily strummed-and-tapped-away at their strings filling the chamber with a happy mood that contrasted sharply with the efficient attitude of the Lalafel in charge.
How is this all tied to the mad woman? Was she an ally of the same force behind Wolfedge? Or was she something else entirely: perhaps a demon or witch riled by the very Wailers Kiht and the others were dispatched to aid. C'kayah is right: you cannot trust the wailing of a mad woman, but Kiht certainly seems to be worried by what she was saying. Didn't Kiht say none of the Wailers survived? I don't really remember... I thought that's what she said, maybe I should...
A sharp pull upon the strings of the too-tight corset sent a shriek from Aya that rudely interrupted her thought. With a soft apology on her lips, the dresser loosened the bind while Yuyumondi partially opened the modesty curtain from upon his stepped-stool, peering within. "I hope everything is alright, my dear." Aya pressed her lips together and nodded energetically with a worried-look as the women tried to adjust her figure within the dress.Â
"Very well." he quirked one eyebrow, "We want no torture here, but remember: in Fashion there can be no gain without pain!" He lent a flourish to the expression and exited the curtain as quickly as he had poked within, quietly confiding to his Elezen assistant, "Master Vann assured me she was a Professional. Let us pray he was correct in that assessment."
Now, Edda mentioned a 'War' Council. There must be many others involved. More than Kiht, and Edda, since neither mentioned this as their idea. Let us hope the others can keep a calm head. That Sarnai and Wolfe may well have cost us our best chance to find out what's going on before its too late. What were they thinking? Oh, I know, we have a resistant prisoner lets throw knives at him rather than ask useful questions.
She sighed and rolled her eyes at the memory, just as the curtain was pulled open. Suddenly remembering where she was she strode a few steps forward, doing the best runway walk she could in such limited space, swaying her hips to either side drawing one foot before the other with long-legged strides. Yuyumondi nodded appreciatively, "Yes, yes, very good. We'll need to adjust that bodice," he commented as if she had any doubt. "I feel like we could add a little something more in way of a belt, too. What do you think Malachai? Something in a dark brown to match the trim." he looked to the Elezen who nodded silently. She returned to the curtain.
Lets see, where are things. Well: I still haven't been able to get back in touch with C'kayah. I have sent him on a wild goose chase for Chocobo that do not exist. At least C'kayah enjoys goose chases; better him than Kiht. Speaking of Kiht, she'll find Wolfedge, one way or another, I'm sure. and I've told her everything I know. She is the most capable huntress I could have found, and the most reliable: she won't kill him unless she feels she must. Now Edda, Edda and the Chocobo. I made sure she knew they were being devoured. But, what more can we do? I offered her that hare-brained scheme: feed the Chocobo ground Aetheric crystal. Allow the Voidsent to devour them. Then find where their lair is from a distance, rather than tracking them directly. That's crazy is that really the best you can do Aya?
She shook her head in frustration, ready in time for another appearance beyond the curtain. The tailors offered tight-lipped nods of approval, and after a quick discussion returned her to behind curtain where she quietly prayed to be relieved from the constricting bodice already. "The next!" came the order from without, and her wish was soon granted as the dressers began to help her change into the next outfit.
Now what of Toto-rak... what of this Wolfedge. How could we find out more about him? Would it help - well we don't have many leads to go on do we? Was he actually kept there? Could we identify why - or when? Without a better base to return to might he return there? It may be worth a look...
She emerged again from the curtain. The outfit was so Gridanian, it almost didn't seem Vann-like. But he had cut a large window in the tunic, enough to highlight the ample cleavage on offer within the bodice. The back of the tunic was cut with a line both fresh and slightly risque to the conservative taste of the Shroud. Aya stepped out with confidence upon the high-heeled boots that sealed the desired look of confident, racy femininity that dared to defy, but not to obliterate the locally demure aesthetic.
There's been so much activity in the forest, between the voidsent, the starting of fires, and the thefts: the deep forest dwellers must be aware that something is afoot. They must have spied suspicious activities, or heard rumors about them. Hunters, trappers, scouts, and hermits. What about the poachers? The bandits? The Redbellies? If they claimed to have heard nothing that alone would be reason to suspect pay-offs or threats - no the Redbellies do not respond well to threats. What would it mean if these... vandals, whoever they are, had managed to bribe the Redbellies? From where would the acquire the gil or goods? It could tell us -something- at least.
Now, and Stout, Stout... Kiht will come through for you Stout, I'm sure of it. Its the best I could do, I pray it is enough.
The next outfit was similar, the tight leather trousers replaced with leggings, carefully slit along the slide to reveal hints of silky thigh. The adjustable jacket was comfortable: she was settling in. The tailors took their notes. Made their adjustments. The musicians played, part of an ensemble that busied itself in the well-choreographed hum of activity. Master Vann would be pleased, things were at last moving again.
Toto-rak. Wailer survivors. Deep Shroud Dwellers. Wolfedge. And, if the crazy bet pays off, perhaps wherever it is the Voidsent return to. I wonder what the War Council will come up with?
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 09-17-2015
[The Sleeping Boar - Crimes Against Nature Part Four]
"Ah Gridania..."
It wasn't the first time the thought had crossed Aya's mind over her past few weeks in the Shroud, but it was rather different this time. The downward leading stairs had the look of those that had once been stone, still just visible in spots not yet dominated by the green moss that grew like a velvet cover over every nook and cranny.Â
She gazed at the short staircase and its crooked contours for a long moment. She shuffled slightly on her feet, glancing at the strappy high heels she'd chosen that morning to wear for her day out. They were "work" shoes in the sense that in her work for Ul'dah's own Otto Vann, she was expected to exemplify the look of his fashionable lines of clothing—though in this case it was little his fault, her taste in footwear running toward the notorious and impractical. Still, the descent gave her sudden pause. She slipped the strap of her purse over her arm, and with a careful hand on her short skirt she began the adventurous trek with a slow and determined care.
She now found herself at the entrance to a rickety old Gridanian tavern dug amongst the roots of an ancient stump whose mighty tree must have once commanded impressive heights. How had this happened?   Something about an escaped madman, the King of Ruin, and Toto-Rak. Kiht, it can be said, never gets herself involved in simple fun. Aya seems to like to follow her: just sauntering right in with stiletto heels and a carefree dress.
She recalled the scene just within Quarry Mill's defensive foundation—it had been a trying one. The respectable seeming Ala Mhigan Captain, Stout he was called, allowed a few adventurers in to see a strange prisoner. A young man, fury in his eyes, sat chained under watchful guard. He had attempted to cause trouble among the refugees: encouraging them to take up arms for the cause of "Young King Theodric". The passion with which he had espoused the cause of the King of Ruin in one hand and Rhalgar the Destroyer n the other was enough to jar anyone as familiar with the War of Ruin as Aya. The look in his eyes, and the conviction in his voice belied simple madness.Â
It had struck her just how much he had seemed a figment of the past. The product of a very specific and curious moment in time. She had shared her concern with Kiht, the Shroud Huntress she had hoped would help her locate him after his dramatic and sudden escape from Quarrymill. "I believe he may be a man from the past. Brought back either as if kept in another world, or as a spirit out from the void." She had scarcely believed her own words at the time, but since that moment she had only become more convinced. There was already a similar case: a mad woman of the woods who had slain Wood Wailers including the son of the man who had once arrested her.  The two pulled through the waves of time were even linked through one common thread: Toto-rak.Â
Wolfedge had claimed it as his prison in the custody of the Wailers. This link had left Aya curious, and with a free afternoon she had decided to investigate. Armed with a few copies of Twin Adder Pin-Up posters she had modeled for the past Spring, the cutest of Monsieur Vann's outfits, and the charming smile she loved to employ, Aya made her way into the city on the hunt for veteran Wood Wailers who may have heard of Wolfedge.Â
Sheprovided herself a convenient cover: asking after an elderly veteran who had assisted in the modeling shoots, as if she were trying to find and thank him. It was an easy excuse, and one she half- wished were true. To begin the search she approached Wailer guards who seemed most eager to assist and especially happy with the signed posters they received in exchange for their help.
Their advice had led her here, where her heels sunk into soft mossy steps of crumbling stone amidst the dank feel of a forest ditch. A small wooden sign was nailed firmly to the remains of the stump above: the faded but still distinguishable drawing of a Sleeping Boar. The descent was slow, and its treacherousness exaggerated in the mind of the blonde who was terrified at the thought of tearing or staining the property of her employer upon the stairs of a decrepit Wailer bar. There was a soft sigh of relief as she at last reached the bottom as she took a moment to straighten her skirt and clothing. At midday, she guessed, business would be slow and the customers more likely to be of the retired than active duty sort.Â
It took more than a firm press to open the old door, swollen with age and moisture, to gain its opening. The air inside was not much better: stale and warm, mixed with the fragrance of old ale and dank musk. Still, she stepped slowly within. The structure and decor were wood, possessing a hint of the old elegance that is the hallmark of Gridanian architecture but buried under decades of benign neglect.  The rotund, bearded Hyur barkeep was busy wiping glasses. Several other men sat at the bar, others scattered about in pairs and small groups at the handful of tables, all either Hyur or Wldwood. The sound of the groaning door was a common one: only the tender looked up taking a welcome pause from his drudgery, but offering an expressionless face that held no hint of curiosity. The sound of heels echoing on the rough bare wood floor was altogether less common, and soon she had caught the attention of a numerous eyes from young to old.Â
She wore a short skirt of white beneath a belted tunic reminiscent of those worn by hunters and archers. The cut was short and trim, creating a mostly continuous line along the contour of her hips. The chest was open, despite the closed collar that created a "window" effect that her figure took full advantage of. Her hair fell in long, wavy, platinum locks over her shoulders, with a cute, if rather silly, hunter's cap upon her head. The Gridanian style does not favor jewelry and beyond her numerous stud earrings she wore none save that of her navel, hidden beneath her tunic, and the intricate woven leather that substituted for bracelets and rings. She clutched her purse in both hands before her, casting a warm if unsure smile about the room.
The conversations had quieted, the still near-silence holding for a long pause before she thought it best to break it: lifting blonde eyebrows and looking as friendly as possible she spoke, "I am Aya Foxheart~" in her bright and Ishgardian accented voice. "I'm looking for someone" she added, unrolling the last of her signed posters. "He helped me when we were workind on this this..." she asked with a purse-lipped smile that bordered between bashful and hopeful.
A number of the patrons crowded closer, their voices rising to her aid. Old and a few young, most obviously Wailers in their manner or appearance. For some time she held court, offering her bright cheer upon the conversation despite her apparent disappointment at not being able to identify the retired Wailer she had hoped to find. The early afternoon rolled by, the numbers thinned as one cause or another pulled the fellows away.Â
At last she maneuvered herself to a table with an elderly Elezen, proudly displaying a Wood Wailer patch upon the jacket he wore despite the heat.Â
"Aya was it?" he smiled with a tired warmth. His fingers clutching a pint of warm ale, hardly the first since she had come by. She nodded, smiling softly. "It is. And I heard that your name is Trillent?" she asked, pronouncing his name in the usual Ishgardian manner.Â
"Trillent" he politely but firmly corrected.Â
"I heard that you served for sixty years?"
He nodded, pulling his lips somewhat tightly at the touchy subject. "Sixty Six. I'd be servin' still if it weren't for that wretch of a captain!" He slammed his mug onto the table to emphasize the point. She jumped at the sudden thud of sound, and he turned a look of intoxicated contrition her way, "Sorry, sorry missum. That just gets me every durned time."
She reached her hand toward his, gently covering it as he rest it on a table. "Its okay..." she tried to comfort him softly, "You must have so many stories..."
He looked for a moment upon her hand and then nodded with satisfaction. "Enough to fill a small book. But I'm not sure a lass like you would find them too interestin'..."
She smiled warmly, and encouraged him. She heard of his bravery before a force of Garleans. How his platoon had held its line against a rain of gunpowder death. How he had once confronted a Morbol in quite unexpected circumstances, and lived to tell the tale. How he had helped build Camp Tranquil and rebuild Gridania after the Calamity. He steadily slipped deeper and deeper into the pint as he went. At last it was finished and he set it down with disappointment.
He let out a deeply aged sigh, "I suppose I should be getting 'ome before my grandson starts-a-worryin' 'bout me."Â
Aya clasped at his arm, "Oh not so soon!" she exclaimed plaintively, expressing an almost suspicious interest in the old man's stories. She waved to the barkeeper, who looked at her curiously as he approached the table.Â
"Another for the Monsieur," she requested with a bright hopeful smile of which there was no return by the stoic barkeep.
The old Wailer smiled happily, if a little perplexed. She glanced over her shoulder toward the barkeep as he poured a fresh pint. He seemed the suspicious sort. The old man would not be here for long, and by now she had earned his trust. It was time to press her hopeful question.
The keeper served the beer, and as he retired Aya leaned a little closer. She whispered in almost conspiratorial tones, "Have you ever heard of a man named Wolfedge?"
The old Wailer lifted bushy eyebrows, his eyes glassy and blank. "Hmmm... not sure I know that name..."
She repeated it quietly, "Hamond Wolfedge. He is all the talk down in Quarrymill..." The old man sunk into thought. The long moment polled longer. Had all of her effort gone to waste?Â
"...oh.... Oh! Wolfedge!" His eyes suddenly perked up with an energy she had not seen so far, and he answered her with a sudden stroke of recall in a voice all too boisterous for her preference.
"Yes, yes. That was quite the event! Who could have imagined an Aler Mhigan agent in the Shroud! Not like this was the Autumnnwwar... Yes it was most strange. I remember now, 'e was trying to recruit..." his voice lowered, "Duskies... to 'is cause against Gridania. We couldn't have that of course. So we put a stop to it, and arrested 'im."
Her eyes grew wider at the realization that her most wild theory had been correct. "You arrested him?" she asked in a voice that was almost a stammer at the shock of having actually met a ghost of the past.
He took a deep drought of his ale, grinning merrily. "That... that I did! As a noble, brave, Wood Wailer ought! Strapping fellow. Like so many Aler Mhighans, theys the big ones. All that... fighten' with the hands... I don't deg it." He let out a yawn, the excitement clearly passing.
She watched from beside him with eyes grown wider, hesitating for a moment before she could ask him more, "What happened to him...?"
He lowered and then lifted his head again, brow furrowed and perplexed. "Who?" he asked as Aya blinked, dumbfounded herself. As she opened her mouth to remind him he suddenly stirred, "Oh. right! Toto-Rak. The poor Aler Mhigan bastard." He grinned a bit as he managed another drink before taking on a satirical air, "Pending investigation", he blurted out a laugh. "Got what 'e deserved 'e did." He uttered as if a curse, lowering his head back toward the table. Â
She leaned closer to him trying to keep him roused, "What happened to him...? He was killed?"
"Ayup..." he muttered. "All of 'em bastards. All got what they deser..." he took in a deep snore-lke breath through his nose.Â
"They killed them...? In Toto-rak?" she asked with something approaching horror on her features.
"We closed its alls off. Nevers sees the sigtts again... weredn't the jailersssss... nop. No..." he slurred wearily. They werez bad.... trufth. But.... werezn't them." The old man let out a loud snore that filled the tavern.
Aya leaned back against her chair and barely stifled a sigh. She covered her eyes with her hand and took slow steady breaths.
A few moments passed and she rose with a fresh smile, leaving plenty of coin from her purse on the table to cover the old Wailer's tab. She smiled and waved on her way out, ascending the stairs much more quickly than she had traversed them on the way down, leaving behind an old man, and a signed poster of hers already hung upon the tavern wall.
![[Image: 18337061324_cec0b5245c_o.png]](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/489/18337061324_cec0b5245c_o.png)
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 09-29-2015
[Of the Flight of Birds - Crimes Against Nature Part Five]
Not Plot Related
The steady flow of the little brook filled the air with a quiet babble. The banks had once been steep, but the slope had evened somewhat in recent years. Another guest had speculated that the brook must be spring-fed on account of the clean clarity of the water, but that evolving bank told a very different story. A story of Spring melts in the highlands to the north. Of the low faint sun of the Northern winter, and the annual return of longer sun-filled Spring days that seared away snow and sent lowland streams bursting their banks. An annual return of warmth that had been on hold since the calamity; replaced by the bitterness of endless winter and the dearth of hope that every Spring had once held forth.
Nearby, beneath the shade of picturesque trees rested a comfortable-looking lounge chair. It was of just the sort one would imagine in Gridania: dark wood and reed detailed with such intricacy that it would seem to have been crafted by nature itself. It was a comfortable chair—dangerously comfortable. Aya's eyes had long since closed, locking away the visible world, allowing her to embrace the world of sound. To open her mind to the delicate, pleasant sound of a forest brook. To the wind rustled leaves, drying already but still clinging to summer green with the desperation of early Autumn. And to the boisterous and energetic songs of dozens of birds that flitted about the branches.Â
A familiar song caught her attention; eyes lazily opened, casting about in the direction of the chirpy-little voice. She scanned the branches of a nearby bush, hearing again that lilting little song. A voice she knew from childhood. A song that had meant hope, and the essence of nature to a girl trapped within the stone cage of the Tower City. A hardy little breed of sparrow that liked to roost along the walls of the city in those better times long since gone by. He sang once more, a drab colored little ball of downy feathers that finally caught her sight. She watched as he turned his head about, dark little eyes scanning her and their surroundings.
How many years had it been? She thought back, remembering the smiles of yesteryear. In migration already?  She thought: he lives to the north, there food must already be growing scarce with the arrival of cool winds.
She canted her head slightly, in unconscious mimicry of the little bird. Dangling earrings jingled with the slightest movement of her head. Could he have toughed it out in Coerthas? It seemed so unlikely. Where had he been? Had he too escaped that land? Had he flown from home to find succor? To escape the endless life-and-hope-swallowing snow? A slight smile pulled upon plush, carmined lips. Â
She wondered: could he have found a new home? Gyr Abania perhaps? She smiled somewhat more broadly, the thought of this little bird having reversed her own course in life brought an excited glimmer her eyes.Â
"If I were as free as a bird..." she voicelessly mouthed. Wondering still.
He was gone. The quick little rustle of tiny wings and he was out of sight into the denser foliage just beyond the edge of the landscaped clearing that was the boarding house's garden.Â
The more terrestrial bird closed her eyes. Her wings were limited to her imagination, which briefly flew to the hillsides and open spaces of her birthplace. To the Highland forests of Gyr Abania of which she could only dream.Â
The dream could not long last, though, and soon she rose from the comfort of the forest chair. She drew a pocket mirror to check that her hair was still all in place, that her makeup was still perfect. She was worried about the show that evening, but, on her way back inside she turned back to take one long look back to where she had been lounging. To the bushes where the birds sang. To the spot the little sparrow had perched. She closed her eyes and heard his song. She closed her eyes and imagined his flight. She closed her eyes and saw her home as she'd have seen them as a bird free flying amidst the clouds. She saw both of her homes; no, there had been so many more in her own long migration: all of them. Unfolding beneath her as she soared upon the winds of memory, through the breadths of time and distance
She opened her eyes slowly. And with a soft, genuine, smile she tuned about once more. Her eyes were upon the evening that awaited her. But her mind still thought of home, of memory, and of the little bird who reminded her of it all.
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 10-07-2015
[Meeting Weylan - Crimes Against Nature Part Six]
Another day... it was like purgatory. For a soldier of his ability an assignment to patrol the city was anything but satisfying. He let out a sigh, slightly ruddy cheeks puffing beneath the wooden carved mask that covered his eyes. His free hand pulled back through strands of dirty blonde, kept just kempt enough to avoid the attention of his temporary superiors. Temporary was right, he reflected for a moment, they wouldn't long keep a soldier of his caliber down, no, no.Â
He stopped by a still puddle, a remnant of the torrent that had fallen that morning. In the full brightness of the afternoon sun he glimpsed his reflection. That combination of soldierly wear upon his features, with that hint of devil-may-care decorum. "Now that," he thought to himself, "is an elite soldier." The wood wailer turned back toward the route of his patrol with the morose manner of the habitual underachiever, metaphorical hands stuffed firmly in his pockets. He ambled with an unconcerned air, leaving the amphitheater behind as he approached and then passed the grinding rumble of the millers industry.Â
The suddenness of the sight was what seemed to catch the breath in his throat. Of course, Weylan was not unaccustomed to the sight of lovely women. But, that sight of the shapely blonde poised against the railing of the small bridge ahead wasn't just just a pretty girl. He'd been staring at this girl over lunch nearly every day. That lovely, smiling blonde from the poster. It didn't really take much to bring Weylan's lackadaisical stride to a halt, and this certainly qualified.Â
He peered a bit closer, squinting behind the mask. From this vantage he could only see her from behind, but that figure, the long light, blonde hair that fell across her back. He sucked in a breath through pursed lips before pulling them back into a grin, an unnerving expression, as he regarded the girl from a distance. It was her, he was as near to certain, the girl from the poster in the Sleeping Boar.
He pushed his shoulders back as he started again for the bridge. Now there was a purpose to his step, but no hint of the usual Wailer cadence. He sauntered onto the first few planks of the slightly arched wooden span. It was her, no doubt about it now. She seemed preoccupied, gazing out into the flowing stream without a care in the world.Â
He paused for just a moment to take in the outline of her figure once more. She was wearing something of a huntress' outfit: tight forest green leggings, and a white tunic belted near her waist. A leather hunters harness, or a facsimile of one, looped its straps around her far shoulder. But, the cut was altogether more risque: the tunic hugged her feminine curves below the shoulders, holding fast to narrow waist and then the curve of her side as it widened toward her hips. And then the boots, high and dark leather with steep heels that screamed of the provocative wenches of Limsa rather than the quiet forest paths of Gridania.
He stepped to the right side of her, setting his spear against the railing as his eyes turned their attention upon her. There opened before him another pleasant surprise: where a shroud huntress would have tightly cinched the bodice of her tunic, this one stood loose. Not just loose, but open, seeming like it must have beet cut for the purpose of exposing the form of the decolletage that seemed so barely contained within its confines. He watched as it seemed to swell, rising against the fabric as the woman took in an audible breath of surprise.
He slowly pulled his eyes up, not wanting to allow them to waste a moment of this opportunity. Up and up they drew scanning further than he'd anticipated to take in her full height. At last his eyes settled on her eyes, nearly at his own height. Oh, but there they were: those lovely blue eyes wide, and looking right at him. For a moment he imagined that poster and the way she seemed to smile right at him as he gazed longingly at her for minutes on end from the bar, "Hello miss." He greeted her politely, a light but amused smirk on his features. Â
She smiled softly, there it was, he thought, and then looked him over, eyes quickly scanning up and down, seeming to pause for a moment upon the mask he wore over his eyes which lead to a little hesitation upon her carmine lips. Slender feminine fingers tapped gently against the wood railing, until after a moments pause she shifted her hips, and offered a warm smile his way. "its just a perfect day isn't it? Nothing quite like a little sunshine is the afternoon."Â
That voice!! He liked it even more than he had imagined: the light silky tone, and the play of her delectable Ishgardian accent upon every word! He nodded, "Good spot." He turned toward the railing and leaned heavily against it, elbows resting there as he hung his hands out over the water. "Good company too..."
She let out a soft laugh, comfortable sounding he thought, as she gazed back out toward the water wheel that turned majestically over and over on the other the small pool. With her right hand she pulled stray strands of her bangs back behind her ear, unable to contain a little smirk of her own, though it was not directed his way. "Well, that's as good a reason as any to take a break on a busy day, right?" She grinned a bit at the suggestion, glancing his way as she released her hand, a flicker of playful mischievousness in her expression and voice.
He barked a laugh, showing her his broad grin. "Aye, that it is!" His gaze appraised her again. Appreciative of that little smirk and the curve of her face, now exposed. He felt a little flush of pride, "These day's it's just patrol the city. Just waitin' for a new assignment, of course. New elite group to have an opening." His voice was confidence, and he puffed up his chest a bit, turning slightly toward her to emphasize the broadness of his muscular shoulders.
The brightness of the smile she turned his way was just what he had hoped to see. And then there was the way she raised those blonde eyebrows with an impressed curiosity, signalling just how badly she wanted to know more about him, he though. "Elite?" she asked with fascination.
He grinned back, proudly, and stood up to his full height to offer an authoritative nod. "One of the sixteenth. Well, was anyway. Unit's gone so I'm waiting for a new assignment." He grimaced, "'Pending review' they say. Troubled times like this, you need people out in the field protecting the city. Protecting people like you."
She took in another breath, listening and watching his display looking all the more impressed for the telling. "The Sixteen?" she asked mistakenly in her innocent, fascinated way, "That does sound elite!"
He puffed up even more, grinning with the broad intensity of a man who sees everything going according to plan. That said, despite his best efforts, he hardly looked old enough to be elite. "Yeah. Best of the best. Gotta be, to hunt the poachers that risk the deepest parts of the Shroud."
"Yeaaaah...?" came the dazzled reply of her light feminine voice. She leaned closer toward him, eyes widened with those blonde eyebrows still raised as she seemed to hang upon his every word. There was a taste of her perfume... vanilla, peaches... "You've hunted in the deep shroud?".
He nodded a bit, slowly. His gaze drifted downward. The combined effect of her fragrance and the enticing view offered by her bodice, especially as she leaned his way, was enough to momentarily bring a stop to his train of thought. He couldn't really help it, after all, They were right there. He wasn't even quite sure just how long the savoring moment lasted, but he was brought back out of it by the sound of her voice. "Are you okay?" she was asking with concern.
He whipped his eyes back to hers, followed by a quick downward double-take, before nodding emphatically. "Oh, aye, aye. As I was... sayin' I plan to go back to the deep shroud again. 'ventually. Once the higher ups get outa their own asses. Just tryin' to make the best of this lull. He paused for a moment, his eyes glancing downward for a moment again as he resisted the urge to stare. Then he tilted his head just a bit, returning her quizzical gaze as he gestured slightly toward her, "How about we go get some drinks? I'll tell you 'bout how I got into the Sixteenth."Â
The woman lifted her head back up, while the fingers of her hands crossed on the railing. She seemed to be considering his offer for a moment before she offered an energetic little nod, "Oh that does sound interesting! I'd love to hear!" She beamed that bright grin of hers right towards him, "Where did you have in mind?" she turned toward him for the first time giving his eyes the sudden pause of distraction once more.
"The Canopy is nice, but it's so full of adventurers these days." he said with derision. "Nothing but trouble for the Twelveswood if you ask me." He paused for a moment, drawing a hand along his jaw before speaking thoughtfully, "I know a few better places, but they're a bit rough for a fine woman like yourself."
She giggled softly at his last comment. And with a glance away she bit her lower lip and thought for a moment herself, while Her right hand idly played with the cinch string that tied (or didn't) her bodice. "Well..." she cocked her hips a bit, before looking back, "There is a nice spot for tea nearby."
"For you? he announced with an air of chivalry, "I'll drink tea."
She laughed, looking terribly excited in the way that she moved, "Perfect!"
He seemed to puff up even more, casting an immensely proud grin her way as he drew his hands up towards his face, "Ah, just lemme take this off." His fingers unhooked the mask, and drew it off. Freshly revealed blue eyes scanned up and down the body of the woman in front of him with admiration. "Much better. Let's go find this spot of yours."
She grinned with a nod, "Oh!" she stopped suddenly in the middle of her turn to leave, "I'm Aya! she smiled brightly back toward him.
"Weylan," he grinned back.
[Credit to Nihka for the RP scene this was drawn from!]
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 10-10-2015
[The Rabbit Hole - Crimes Against Nature Part Seven]
While the pair strolled casually through Old Gridania, the young women was given a moment to collect her thoughts. If she had known her date better she would have recognized the change in how he carried himself. The swagger, the air of superiority and success. As it was, she tried not to fidget with her small purse as her mind wandered through the possibilities of the afternoon. For weeks she had suspected that an unseen hnd in the Wailers was moving things behind the scene to cover up the events at Toto-Rak. In this opportunity there was a hint of hope, accompanied by the ever-present whiff of danger. Her recognition of the stakes was something she did her best to conceal behind the cheerful confidence that so often seemed a blissful lack of awareness to others.
It was the charms of her feminine allure that had found her in this situation; the manners of which came more than naturally to her. Some were learned: the natural hip-swaying motion of her walk had been perfected in the tunnel-like streets of Ishgard's deep Foundation, and was emphasized further by the steep heels she always favored. The selection of sweet and simple fragrance was one borne of experience as well as preference. The natural shapeliness of her form only provided the core of a figure shaped by the rigors of conditioning and the demanding life of a dancer. The character and manner were all her own: the natural girlishness that seemed to draw those of a certain persuasion toward her without the need of ever casting a hook.Â
And so it was that she now found herself in the company of one enamored Wood Wailer: Weylan, the last surviving member of the crack unit known as the Sixteenth Spear. She had heard of their grim end: met out by the hands of a mad woman— void-touched ghost of an innocent woman framed for the heinous slaughter of children. She had met the father of one of Weylan's fellow soldiers. She had heard more of the tale than she wished. And now she wondered why this man had survived. By what miracle or design he had escaped the fate of the others. And by what fortune he had fallen into her lap, firmly caught on one of those unintentional hooks.Â
As they walked his mind was similarly occupied, but by a very different character of musing. His eyes focused rather intently, and unbashfully upon the sight of her exposed cleavage, bared in such un-Gridanian fashion. The challenges he pondered were how to keep his step, and not trip, while maximizing his time for ogling.
The name of the open-air cafe that Aya guided them toward was "The Rabbit Hole." It could be found tucked away beneath young trees in what was once a forest clearing along the northern end of the Old Town. Charming and rather quaint despite its recent vintage. there was always a quiet energy about the place as patrons gathered under the branches and at tables and benches sipping the tea and other warm drinks or sampling the chocolaty confections that are their specialty. As the pair entered the space, Aya slowed their walk and announced their arrival, "We're here!"
Her companion only temporarily drew his eyes away from the objects of his fixation so as to nod along with her, "You're right. Perfect spot."
She turned toward him, swiveling side to side on her hips in an expression of pent up energy as she turned that bright grin upon him. "What about something to drink? I think I'll have some honey-tea, its their specialty!"
Weylan nodded, regarding that grin with a chuckle as he drew his hand up to his face, pulling fingers down both sides of his jaw he seemed to think about it.
"Yeah, guess I'll have one too. See if they'll throw in a shot of whiskey for me." He cast a glance around her at the small covered pavilion that was the center of the 'Hole. It was built around a large trunk, the rafters of its crafted roof taking on the look of large boughs, the entire structure looking perfectly at home in the forest. The sight did not fill him with optimism, but worth a shot, right?Â
The blonde let out a cheerful laugh, as if he'd been joking with her. She covered her lips with her fingers as she turned away from him and walked slowly toward the pavilion. Though she wore a bright smile, there was as internal chagrin: "He's going to make me pay for the drinks? Some date!"
Weylan took a few steps, choosing a spot with a particularly fine vantage point. He relieved himself of the burden of his spear, leaning it against the back of the bench before taking a seat. His eyes had never let go, their focus shifting side to side as he watched the curvy sway of hips.Â
As she reached the counter she pushed her left toes near against the bottom of the counter and leaned forward, bent at the waist as she offered a friendly grin to the young woman behind the counter. The motion was most intentional, a favorite from evenings as a barmaid, and one made all the more effective by the snug fit of her leggings upon the shapeliness of the form outlined by her hips.Â
Her companion hadn't missed a moment, and once more drew his hands along his jaw once more as she seemed to so nonchalantly lean across the counter. It really was his day wasn't it!
The pause at the counter gave her a moment to collect her thoughts. She had a good idea who he was, but he seemed to have no idea who she was beyond a pretty face. This gave her an advantage. Few men ever suspected her of an ounce of cleverness, but fewer still who were so infatuated upon just meeting her. She would just keep this up to see if she could learn anything... besides, she glanced back at the young man with his confident features and his shock of dirty-blonde hair, he was kind of cute! It could be worse.
It was a few moments before she joined him at the bench, his smile greeting her grin as she approached him. "Ah, take a seat!" He gestured to the spot beside him, before taking a wincing taste of the tea.
She straightened the skirt of her tunic under her as she took a seat, crossing her legs and slipping her free hand between them. "Now where was I..." he continued. "Ah, yes! The Sixteenth. They only took the very best, so getting in wasn't easy."
She turned awestruck blue-eyes upon him again, "I just can't imagine! There were only sixteen of you?" she asked with all the intentional manner of innocent curiosity.
He looked back with an eyebrow cocked before letting out a hearty laugh as he shook his head. "The Sixteenth," he repeated with extra emphasis, "The Sixteenth Spear." He reached to his side drawing out a leather-covered metal flask. Meanwhile a look of wide-eyed realization came ever her; soft lips hanging open for a moment before she seemed to flush in embarrassment.Â
He chuckled lightly and then nodded along as if helpfully walking her through something that she already knew, "You know, the First Spear, they stay at home and sit on their asses. But the sixteenth?" He swelled up with pride, "The Sixteenth takes the fight to where it belongs. To the poachers and criminals who're ruining the Twelveswood!"
She nodded along, keeping up her well honed part as the clueless blonde. She looked downward toward her lap as she drew her free hand up, thumb touching to her lips, "So there are more than sixteen of you..." she said with a voice just above a whisper.
Weylan cast his blue eyes toward her again, giving an amused smirk that was endearing in its own way. He unstoppered the flask, pouring some amount of the liquor within into his tea. "Aye, so you see, to get into the Sixteenth you have to prove your skill in the line of duty. No easy feat, as they've got strict requirements."
She sipped from her tea, regarding him through the tops of her eyes as she looked over the rim of her cup.Â
"Right, so you see, we were out in the Near Shroud, when we saw some tracks. Bird tracks." He leaned toward her, "Now the other lads wanted to return to base and report the tracks, instead of doing anything about it. Not me though." He sat back up, lips pulled partly to the side. chin lifted with a stern pride. "No, not me. See? Me 'an the Ixal we've got a history. Attacked my home. Killed a few of my friends. I don't run from any chance to fight Ixal, and I wasn't about to let them get away that easy."
He continued with his story. How he had followed them, alone braving the hostile wilderness to track down an enemy camp and surprise them. "I came across a group of about five of 'em, with two of those wolves they like to train. Savage things..." She listened intently. Eyes often widened, looking at him with some intensity. It wan not entirely feigned, "Lousy squad left me on my own. What else was I supposed to do?"
She knew that he might have exaggerated. Perhaps he wasn't as brazen as in his telling. But, as she looked at him she saw a young man not much older than herself. He had been through much. The Sixteenth would not have taken on such a young soldier without good reason. "Aye, I found the Ixal. Cutting down trees! They had one of their balloons there, loading it up with poached timber."
As the telling continued she found herself unwittingly enthralled by the tale. By the thought of this young man and the danger he faced that day in the wood. Of the valor he mush have shown, even if he put the old solider spin on it now. "I made chase! These were Ixal, remember? Savage beasts, worse than poachers, if anything could be. What sort of protector would I be if I suffered even a single one of them to live?"
He slipped his hand to her thigh, giving it a good squeeze. The sensation brought her back to reality. The valiant warrior gave way to the bore. She tried not to gasp. She squirmed slightly but he seemed not to notice. He continued to regale her, working his way through his tea faster than she did her own. She wondered if there really was anything in his tale quite worth it after all.
As he finished the story of his adventure, she brought her hand up to her chest, laying it flat above her heart. He gave her a delighted smirk, "Got a commendation for that. Proactive justice. That's when the Sixteenth started asking about me. They need good trackers, people who can work independently." His hand lifted from her thigh and she almost breathed a silent sigh of relief, but it soon slipped around her back and settled upon her opposite hip. "So aye, I was a perfect fit."
Rather than relief, it was a surprised gasp that escaped freely from her lips and for a moment she tried to wriggle free. But, Weylan either didn't notice, or didn't care. His hand pulled her tighter, drawing her hips against his. She looked to him for a moment, almost aghast, but she she was still curious just what he might know. She took a soft, deep breath and recovered her composure. She regained her smile, softly tuning it toward him more of her curiosity, "They came and recruited you after that?"
"Yep," he nodded with a huge grin. "Came to visit me at the barracks. Whole host of interviews with the new squad captain. Damn fine man. Fuckin' shame.
She lifted her blonde eyebrows, leaning slightly toward him as she cast an inquisitive gaze. She knew, but tried to give him the opposite impression.Â
"Such a shame that he had to die, and some lousy fuckin' adventurers can't even be bothered to get him a proper burial. If it weren't for them— wouldn't have this mess in the Shroud to begin with."
She canted her head, taking on her most confused expression.Â
"You haven't heard?" He looked at her more closely, keeping his snug hold upon her hips as if to comfort her. "The whole Shroud is full of void-corrupted criminals. And half the damn adventurers are helping them, not that the authorities won't stop denying it." He looks at her more intently yet, his hand wandering slowly up her side. "But let me tell you. I'm doing something about it."
She did her very best in that instant to hide her surprise. There it was... her intuition had been right. But, just what had he been up to? She pressed him further, in her own manner.
"But..." she stammered in a light, but concerned voice, her blue eyes looking at him filled with a mixture of worry and impressed curiosity, "That sounds dangerous!"
That's just what Weylan liked to hear and he sat up tall, gently stroking her side with a firm hand. "It is. But I would do anything for the Shroud."
She leaned a bit closer, curiosity winning the struggle over her expression, "What are you going to do abut it...?"
He lowered his voice, a tone of seriousness coming over it. "Corruption spreads even to the highest levels. I can't tell you much. But we're cutting out the rot right at the core." His hand continued its rough embrace, pulling the fabric of her tunic all out of place. He seemed to gaze off into the distance as if contemplating the enormity of the task before him.
Aya seemed somewhat taken aback, feigning the same irritation he had already shown to nudge him into revealing if he were working with anyone, "You're not working with adventurers are you?"
He retorted, sneering, "No, of course not. Its just us Wailers. We're the real protectors. And don't you worry, we're taking care of it. Right to the very top."
"Oh?" She turned toward him, drawing her hand to his shoulder. "Like the ones you're patrolling for, or is it one of those elite units you were talking about joining?"
He nodded slowly with his chin proudly out-thrust. "The most elite. Veterans who still remember what it was like before." He smirked with an undisguised pride, as if he already counted himself among their number. "Not like these others. The ones've got me patrolling? They're part of the problem, too. All their bureaucracy gets in the way of real justice."Â
Aya drew in a deep breath, offering those wide-eyed impressed eyes up to him like bait upon a hook. They glanced downward, as if she were thinking, and then back toward him as he gave her side another squeeze. "They're such a special unit of the Wailers... and they want you?"
She thought of the old wailer: Arden Wood. He had lost his son in the Sixteenth. Could his son have been the Captain? He knew something of what happened it Toto'Rak, could he be one of these veterans?
He nodded, with delight in his eyes, "Aye. They know what's what, but they're old and they need someone young and strong to help. That's where I come in." He smirked, "And with my history of taking on rough jobs? Yeah."
So there were more... she made mental note of everything he said. She focused on keeping her demeanor relaxed, amused. Her eyes stayed wide and flirtatious, her movements playful.
She pursed her lips, giving a soft little giggle as she adopted a teasing tone, "So do you have any help with this or are you too worried about competition for joining the unit?"
He glanced a bit side-to-side as if scanning the area. "Yeah, yeah. Mmm, a few others. Just a few. Have to be careful, though. Never know who might be listening. Hey— just stick with me and I might introduce you." He emphasized the offer with a suggestive grin and a possessive squeeze of her side.
Hey eyes shone with an unfeigned excitement.Â
"Yeah...you mean it? Really?!" she leaned closer, fighting to keep her voice quiet in her excitement. "You'd introduce me to the most elite Wood Wailers in all of the Shroud?"  She narrowed her eyes, conspiratorially, "They're not like... the Grey Lances, or anything like that are they? I can only imagine what sort of secret code name they must go by!"
He grinned back, but there was a hint of something different in his expression: trepidation. "Yeah, really. I gotta make sure, though, y'know?"
She looked back, blonde eyebrows lifted with with a baffled disappointment lifts those blonde eyebrows, "Make sure of what?"
He grew slightly defensive. "Check with my friends. You know. Make sure they're okay with you stopping by."
She had to convince him to let her meet them, how could she let an opportunity like this slip her by?
She pursed her lips, pushing her head away from him and tilting it back his way and looked at him out of the side of her eyes. Clearly not impressed, "Where's that brave Lancer you've been telling me all about?"
He looked at her, his lips pulled taut for a moment before they drew back into a smirk. "You're right. Hah. He's right here." He nodded to himself and gave her another squeeze. "I'll take you to meet my friend. I'm supposed to meet him in a week or so at the Boar." He chuckled lightly, "He'll be happy to see you."
Aya's pursed-lip teasing gaze erupted into a radiant, ebullient grin. "Oooooh, I just can't wait!" she squealed excitedly. Her heart skipped a beat within her breast. She stood at the edge of a precipice, but she did not know how deep.
Weylan grinned broadly at hep excitement, giving her another gentle squeeze. "Aye. I'm lookin' forward to it, too. Though, think I need to get back to work. How about we meet for dinner sometime?"
She nodded in agreement, keeping the full begrudgingness of the request to herself, "That sounds nice! Monsieur Weylan, Brave Shroud Lancer!" she settled back into the seat and grinned at him.
"Lady Aya, beautiful flower of the Shroud. Fear not, we will keep you safe." He leaned toward her, his romantic offering no doubt deserving of a kiss, right?
Rather deftly, the girl slipped her finger before his lips. She canted her head and grinned brightly at him, "Oh Monsieur, not on the first date! It is a saying of ours!"
She girded herself, knowing that the charade must for now be maintained; clever improvisation would only get her so far. On the cheek, she thought, but make it good.
She leaned forward to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek. She allowed herself to linger for a moment, before opening her eyes slowly, long dark lashes moving before his eyes. At last she looked at him with own bright blues and slowly withdrew, a warm, purse-lipped smile upon her lips and a hint of her lipstick left behind upon ruddy cheek.Â
Weylan grinned like a boy, seeming to overcome his disappointment for now. He released her, stood, and finish.e the last of his tea in a single drought. "Aye, aye, fair enough. I'll come find you for our date!." He unhooked his mask from his belt.
Aya nodded, grinning as she watched him don the mask, and then waved to him as he returned to his patrol.
One bullet dodged. For Now. But just how deep can this all go?
[Credit to Nihka for the RP scene and her creepy character, Weylan!]
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 10-21-2015
[Meeting on the Pier - Crimes Against Nature Part Eight]
Music:
It was one of those Gridanian days that are found in catalogs across Eorzea. The sun hung high in the cloud-free sky all afternoon, filtering through the leafy canopies of the city that so naturally made its home within the high forestf. Despite the brightness of the sun, the air was warm, but not overbearing. The crisp of autumn hanging faint upon the horizon, but as of yet, just out of mind. It was the sort of day that made one forget the discomfort of other weather: past bitter winter and scorching summer days could not resist its lusty perfection; nor could those ever-present damp, rainy Shroud days that had seemed to be the norm as of late.
It was just the sort of day that the old rogue remembered from his youth in the forest. He drew in a deep breath, glancing either way upon the stream that the pier he stood upon over-looked. For a moment he regretted that he was not there to fish, before reminding himself that he did not actually much enjoy fishing. "Its just the thing you're supposed to want to do on a day like this..."
He'd made his way to the city earlier that day, leaving behind the young twin wards at his modest villa by the sea on the Vylbrand coast. On other occasions it may have been difficult to convince him tto swap the scenery of the beach for that of the Shroud, but he just couldn't wipe the Cheshire-like grin from his lipsÂ
Drawing in another deep breath he tasted the arrival of his friend, that welcome scent of vanilla, cream and peaches, and of course, of her beneath it all. Facing away from her, his cat-like eyes lit up with the glee of mischief as he correctly anticipated the loud sound of heels stepping upon the wooden planks of the pier.Â
Few things could have brought him so far and in such a hurry, but here was one of those things: Aya Foxheart. The alluring friend of his who never quite seemed to escape his mind. They knew each other far better than there all-too infrequent conversations should have allowed. There was simply a bond between them: it had caused him to risk his life for her before; and he had swiftly answered her call for help.
"I can always tell you're coming", he said as he turned his body slowly around. His grin had grown only more confounding as he turned his eyes upon her. He began with her shoes, as he always liked to. They often spoke more about her than any words she might choose to use: those dangerous heels, strappy shoes that suggested there was no outdoor adventure planned that evening. His eyes trailed slowly upward, admiring the toned legs that so well hid her power and strength, the yellow dress that matched the vivacious energy of her usual cheer, and the figure that made the dress so worthy of his appreciation. At last his green hunters eyes settled upon her own, and her smirking pursed lip grin greeted. "It's your perfume. No one else smells quite so good."
"C'kayah, C'kayah" she said with a slow shake of her head, "Never change. Please." She shone a radiant grin as she took the last few steps toward him, more that accustomed to his admiring gaze.
He beamed an amused, cheerful grin back toward her, his arms outstretched as she approached. Her heels left her somewhat taller, and she gladly wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he embraced her. He gave her an affectionate kiss upon her cheek, "I never thought you'd stay in Gridania this long", he said remembering the last time they had spoke. "Especially after that chocobo lead petered out."Â
She found an immense comfort in the embrace of his masculine form. She just held him tight, closing her eyes at the greeting of his affectionate kiss. With a slow exhale she leaned back, "One part Monsieur Vann, and another part the sort of curiosity that always gets a girl in trouble."
With his hands resting upon the outer-curves of her shoulders he just laughed, "Have you looked in a mirror lately", he drew his hand from her shoulder, brushing a lock of her blonde hair away from her perfect cheek. "You're the sort of woman that just exudes trouble. But you know I'll always watch your back, don't you?"
He watched her eyes glancing at him with a hint of bashful disbelief.Â
"And no," he added with a warm smirk, "that is not a euphemism..."Â He leaned his head toward her slightly, as if to emphasize the sincerity of his words.
She blushed, a hint of crimson warming behind cheeks already reddened with light makeup. Here she was a performer, accustomed to compliments of all sorts, having appeared on posters across the land of Eorzea: but somehow he always seemed to find a way to reduce her to a bashful schoolgirl, and he reveled in it.Â
Despite her best effort, she just couldn't hold back an expression of genuine shyness--that girlish demureness.  A warm smile tugged upon her lips. "I know..." she replied with a soft hint of delight, "That's why I've asked you here."
His eyes sharpened a bit as he apprised her expression. "I'm retired now, you know. I didn't think that I'd be able to stay out of the game, but fortune smiled upon me and gave me higher priorities to attend to. I have others to take care of now. Daughters."
"Well", he chuckled, "foster daughters. I don't think you've met Kia and Zyia yet, but you'll have to come when you get the chance. They're not old enough to travel easily yet."
He looked out over the stream, his thoughts firmly focused on the future, and his expression a hopeful, even satisfied smile. His sudden shift to his new quiet life seemed a rejoinder on whatever business she may have had for him. But that smile caused her to smile as well: rarely had he seemed so excited by something that wasn't a woman, or the game itself.
He noticed her apprehension, and with a quick little scratch of his nose continued. "Retirement is a funny thing, though." He furrowed his brow a bit, still looking away, "On the one hand, I have far fewer contacts." He turned his eyes upon her, that smirk of his returning in all of its glory, "On the other hand, I've got a lot more time. And sometimes I find myself bored and want to dip my finger into something exciting."
He leaned back a bit, exuding a welcome confidence, "So tell me, Aya. What is it you have on your mind?"
She canted her head in a mixture of confusion and amusement. At his final offer she just let out a little laugh, pursing her lips as she tried to contain a broader grin. "Retirement just doesn't suite you C'kayah..." she unleashed her playful grin upon him, "But I trust that you will enjoy your vacation. And the time with your family."
"I am. So tell me about it." he encouraged with a grin.
She seemed to hesitate, most of the playfulness going out of her expression as she glanced away, fingers fidgeting with the straps of her gloves. "You know I wouldn't have bothered you, C'kayah, if I thought you would forgive we if I hadn't".
There was a little flash in his eyes as he smiled mischievously, "I remember the first time you asked me for a big favor. Bringing a letter to your family in Ishgard. You almost couldn't do it. You've always wanted to ride on top of life, without making a deep impression. Like a water strider in a pond."
"I'm glad you've come to your senses and recognized that you're no ordinary friend, no ordinary acquaintance. I could no more not help you than I could not help myself."
Her fingers continued to play with gloves, worried eyes looking at them momentarily. "You are too kind, C'kayah, and you always have done so much for me. I won't say I can quite understand, but I will always appreciate our friendship more than anything else."Â
She returned her eyes to his. "C'kayah." she said, rather matter-of-factually, "I'm hoping to meet with some dangerous men. They do not know who I am. And I do not know if I will be safe."
His expression grow more serious to match hers, as he offered a slow nod. "Tell me about these men", he said. "Tell me everything."
"They're old Wood Wailers." she continued, with a bit of serenity finally coming over her troubled expression. "They've something to do with the events in Toto-Rak forty years ago. Or some things more recent..." she paused if thinking about something, "they're a danger to our friends and I am hoping to be able to learn something about them."
"Retired wood wailers?" He stressed the term as he turned her words over in his mind. "Wailers who were on active duty when whatever was unleashed happened, and when the dungeon was sealed?"
His eyes darkened and he furrowed his brow. "I read a book about it once. Terrible thing, that." He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "You think they'll see your interest as a threat? That they'll see you as someone trying to reopen that which they're trying to forget?"
"They're..." she paused as if thinking about how to express herself. "Its not just passive. They're up to something. They've recruited this young Wailer, his name is Weylan. He was a member of the Sixteenth, the unit that was all but wiped out by one of the Ghosts released from Toto-Rak. Do you remember the mad woman I spoke of before?"
He nodded, his eyes growing distant. "That's not the sort of thing you just forget", he said with eyes narrowing. He seemed to be lost in thought, the story mixing with his own recollections in a haunting brew. He blinked, and he seemed to return: back into the present with her. "I've heard some stories about those wailers. About what happened. Probably ninety percent fabrication, but it sounds like the wailers weren't simply reacting..."
She nodded along with him, "I don't know, what it all means, but I fear that it goes even deeper. They're trying to cover something up. The Toto-Rak records for that entire year are simply missing. And they're filling this Wailer's head with nonsense about adventurer's being the enemies of Gridania, and how they must be stopped. That is what has me worried most. That they will try to use him to inflict violence of one kind or another against our friends."
He paused, cocking an eyebrow as a question suddenly struck him. "How did you come to find out about these old Wailers, Aya?" He drew nearer to the woman, lowering his voice, his eyes flicking around as if he were afraid of listening ears. "What put you on their trail?"
"Weylan..." she blushed a bit while a playful pursed-lip smile drew across her carmined lips. "He seems to have found my posters rather fetching. That, or it was just the sight of me upon a bridge on a lonely afternoon."
C'kayah smirked. Then that smirk became a smile. Then that smile split as he began to laugh. "If I ever underestimate you, my friend, I'll deserve everything that happens to me."
she tried her best to fight off a grin, pursing her lips while drawing blonde bangs back behind her ear, one side at a time. She looked toward the water that flowed beneath the pi.er they stood upon. "He's invited me to meet these men. The Old Veterans whom he hopes will make him an elite soldier once more. After he helps them stop the adventurers, of course."
"Stop the adventurers", he repeated, sucking in a breath through his teeth. "I remember what Gridania was like. Before the Garleans came. Before they decided to welcome adventurers into the city. I lived in the shroud for years before the Calamity. Gridania was a closed door. Hostile to any who lived in the forest. You and I, we couldn't have stood here on this dock within the city. I don't want to see it go that way again."
Without looking back up, Aya offered a quick couple of nods. "So," she drew back another strand of blonde that had fallen forward with her downward cast gaze, "I'm supposed to have a date with him, sometime-I'm not sure when. At the Sleeping Boar, if you've heard of it. And he'll introduce me to these gentlemen."
"And you want protection," he astutely guessed.
She nodded, pulling her lips tight for a moment as her eyes moved back to his, "Don't you think that would be wise?"
"Oh, absolutely", he agreed. "But what form should that protection take? I can't exactly perch outside with a bow and a quiver of arrows. The Boar is a basement bar, is it not? A very shut-in place?"
She nodded along. "Mmhmm..." she blinked a bit as if trying to obscure that she had already thought this through a hundred times--as if there were any point in trying to hide that from C'kayah. "I had thought either indoors in disguise, or else just outside on a link-pearl."
"I can do better than that", he said with a sly grin. "How about both? Too many wailers recognize me, so I'll be outside on a link pearl, but I've got a reliable man in the area. I hired him to help out my cousins in the Shroud. Good fighter. Likes a close-in fight. He could come in as a wine merchant, bringing an assorted case for the bartender to try. That would give him an excuse to be there, just in case..."
She sighed quietly, shoulders relaxing as she tilted her head a bit with her eyes softening; looking thoroughly relieved.
"When is this meeting taking place?"
She shrugged by way of reply, adding a little shake of her head, "That's something that I do not know yet. I'll, of course, let you know when I do."
He grinned with a nod of his own. "That will give me another excuse to come back to see you. Though you really should pay a visit to me in La Noscea, too. I'm sure the girls would love you."
She grinned, all worry seeming to evaporate at the brightness of the expression. "Oh you know it doesn't take much of an excuse to find me at the beach!" she giggled excitedly, folding her hands together.
He brought his right arm out to rest on one of her slim shoulders. "My house is right on the beach. A perfect little cove. The tide goes out and you can just walk out for malms..."
She let out an audible breath, the lips of her grin slightly parted. She cocked her hips, canting her head tauntingly. "Are you going to make me beg?"
"The thought does have its appeal", he grinned teasingly. "But I love you too much for that."
"Do you have an overnight bag? You could come back with me until it's time for you to set up this 'date' of yours."
"I do..." she paused, letting out a soft sigh, "But I've just returned from Ul'dah. I have a show this very evening. Perhaps, once this job for Monsieur Vann is over, I think I know where my first stop will be."
"A show tonight?" His grin widened, his eyes flashing, and his tone becoming quick and excited. "Is it open to the public? I'm very public now, you know..." he purred jokingly.
She pursed her lips, shifting her cocked hips to the other side, "I cannot imagine that Monsieur Vann would abide your being turned away, would he? Still on friendly terms with the Syndicate, are you not?"
C'kayah grinned with a shrug. "Friendly enough", he said. "Though I think Vann still hates me. Blames me for some robbery of one of his gold caravans. As if I'd do something like that..."Â He leaned toward her, with a plaintive plea of innocence.
Blonde eyebrows rose and rose-red lips pursed, before she gave an amused little side-to-side head shake, "Mmmhmmm, as if."
She moved her hand to her stylish little purse, withdrawing from it and then slipping into his hand a firm piece of paper several ilms square. "Just in case they give you any trouble."Â She grinned as she used her fingers to close his hand around the guest pass.
He smiled at the feel of the paper, and the warm touch of her hands. "I'll be the very image of discretion, on my very best behavior."
"You'd best not get me into any trouble!" she laughed. Narrowing her eyes a bit she gently teased him, "I never took you much for a lover of fashion." She leaned in a bit closer, "Its almost as if you might have an ulterior interest." She leaned a bit closer yet, so that he could feel her body press gently against his, and then added a gentle soft-lipped kiss against his cheek.
As she leaned into him he firmly pressed his fingers against her feminine waist. And the kiss summoned forth a smile and a blush; blushing in a way that he did for no one else. "It's been far too long, Aya", he said with a soft earnestness. "I'll take any excuse to see you. Especially", he smirked, "to see you wearing the things Vann will likely dress you in. And if I can sweep you away after the show? How can I not?"
She grinned warmly, drawing her bangs back again after they'd slipped free of her ear, "Oh I think you'll find the outfits most enjoyable. Maybe even ravishing." She giggled as she lifted her eyebrows suggestively, and her front teeth come down slightly against the fullness of her lower lip.
She turned part-way away from him, but close enough still that it allowed his fingers to rest comfortably on the delicate narrowness of her waist. "I'll see you tonight then."Â She pursed her lips, and offered a close-eyed kiss in the air toward him.
"Count on it", he purred, his eyes drinking in the heart-aching loveliness of her face. "I'd say Menphina guide you, but there's little else she could do to improve you..."
Aya took a step away, causing his hand to slide down the widening curve of her hips as they swayed. His compliment brought forth a radiant open-lipped grin in reply, "Oh C'kayah!" She just let out an amused laugh, "I have no answer for that one!"
He returned tho laugh, offering no break from his cleverness, "You can have a few days to think of one! I hear good wine and home-cooked meals are excellent for the wit!"
She continued to giggle, "I'll do the best I can!" She turned and stepped away, his hand slipping free from her side. She raised her own to offer a little wave of her fingers. "I'll look for you at the show. Enjoy it!"
He gave a little bow, smiling with open affection. "Thank you. I'll see you there, Aya."
RE: Stranger in a Strange Land - Aya - 11-29-2015
[Interlude - Crimes Against Nature Part Nine]
Long fingers of sunlight seemed to stretch across the horizon, and played menacingly with the sharp mountain peaks rising imposingly in the distance—the final gasping attempt of the waning day to keep its grip upon the parched deserts of Thanalan.  The dark of night would soon swallow the landscape, quenching the heat of the solar-scorched landscape and basking it in the looming chill of silver moonlight, the herald of onrushing winter.
High above the landscape, perched upon the cresting crown of one of Ul'dahs high towers a spark flashed against the backdrop of falling night. Â Encouraged by several determined puffs, and shielded by the cupped fingers of a feminine hand, the ephemeral flicker gave life to a dull glow. Â A wispy string of smoke began to rise from the bowl of a long and slender pipe. Â Itself perched unnaturally upon the outstretched hand, and pursed lips of a young woman, who herself kneeled precipitously upon the curved surface of the turret. Â
A drawn hood partially shielded her tender features from the howling early-winter gusts, that bore up great clouds of sand and grit. Â Exposed finger tips had no such protection, and she tried not to wince as she carefully controlled the puffs of breath through the pipe stem, encouraging the embers within the bowl to light its contents.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd freed the pipe from its simple hiding place. Â It had been at least a year since she withdraw it from its quiet case, tucked beneath the intimate attire of her small chest of drawers. Â The tobacco itself had been surreptitiously pinched, all the better to avoid any suspicion of the vice.
She tilted her head back, forming her lips into a wide ring, breathing out a ring of smoke that drifted lazily upward for a merest moment before being blasted away by the fierceness of Thanalan wind.
Bright blue eyes scanned the horizon from behind the protective edges of the canvas hood. Â How long had she been gone? Â Moons, it seemed - and moons it was. Â She couldn't deny that something in her had missed the sight of that empty, barren desert wasteland. Â Missed the scorching sun, and the chill frigid nights that it left behind as it hurried on its daily cycle each evening. Â She tightened her lips around the pipe; even the Shroud was no longer enough for her to forget her adoptive home.
Despite the length of her absence, everything had seemed to quickly return to normal: Â Madame Momodi acted as if not a step had been missed, not a beat gone unnoticed in her barmaid's absence. Â She was already working shifts again nearly every evening, and making the rounds on market days. Â Routine, that's all it was: only her dancer friends seemed to make more of it, welcoming her home with a weeknight party on the town. Â That said: they seldom needed much of a reason for a good celebration.
She closed her eyes, lending focus to the feel and taste of the fine smoke. Â She allowed the fragrance to wash over her and felt the mild exhilaration of its touch upon her lips. Â
Despite these appearances, she knew things were far from normal. Â The trouble of the Shroud still upset the tranquility of her private moments. Â The horror of what she had seen: the way the Earth swallowed the most elite of Gridania's soldiery, the white-clad Twin Serpents, at the behest of a renegade Conjurer was too much to banish. Â A renegade, yes, what other term could there be? Â But a renegade with just cause: an impossible to forget truth that had been shared with her that unexpected evening upon the Float. Â What is a Padjal gone bad? Â A master of Succor and Void. Â A looming terror, a menace waiting to unleash itself upon the Shroud, as he already had his innocent, and not-so-innocent victims from Toto-Rak. Â
She opened her eyes, scanning the barren landscape as the last moments of sunset played out upon it. Â The conjurer, Liadan, seemed prepared to give up everything to deal with the threat posed by the villainous Padjal. Â But, her attention had its flaws. Â Compassion directed her every effort toward the impossible goal of saving the damned. Â Void-touched souls who were beyond the redemption of mortal hands.
No emotion played upon her features as she contemplated the situation. Â Her blue eyes were unusually cool as they surveyed the fresh nightscape. Â Her fingers now strained to clutch the pipe against the force of blasting wind, which whipped the aroma of pipeweed swiftly away from her perch.
No amount of effort to save the ghosts, as the pipe-smoking blonde referred to them, would bear fruit - and certainly it would not aid in the grand struggle unfolding in the deep shroud. Â No, Liadan's effort was compassionate, but misplaced, as was that of the Ishgardian Dragoon (as should be expected). Â There were mysteries to unravel, but more than that, there was a threat to stop - a threat to defeat. Â Vulnerabilities to seek out, plans to uncover, and plots to foil. Â While Liadan and her allies darted from symptom to symptom, the wily serpent worked his coils tighter around the Shroud itself. Â Keeping secret his darkest venom, which he would prepare and unleash at a time of his own choosing.
She clutched the pipe tighter. Â Lips tensed as her entire body clenched, while her free hand drew her coat tighter around her to ward off the chill that now hung in the star-lit night.
The Serpents protected him. Â What of the Adders? Â What of Hadrian, what of Arden Wood? Â The old wailer whose son was killed when Weylan's unit, the 16th Spear, was nearly annihilated. Â The old man had known something, something he was loathe to admit. Â Whatever they were up to: it seemed to escape others' notice. Â How deep their plotting went, or how much it mattered, she couldn't know. Â But, if not her, then who would look into it? Â Their knowledge was deep: perhaps deeper than any non-Padjal in the Shroud. Â They had been there. Â They had known. Now what?
She closed her eyes. Â When she slowly opened them, they were directed downward at the high rampart wall whose top was dozens of feet below her. Â She was no Hearer. Â No void-master, or studied arcanist. Â Neither a Dragoon, nor a Shroud hunter. Â Not even a bard, whose stories and songs could inspire others. Â But, she knew there was still more she could do. Â Would have to do, if conscience was to be her guide. Â It was a precarious position, like her perch, and similarly it would not be dangerous, provided she kept her poise. Â
She slowly drew the pipe away from her lips, letting out an audible sigh. Â At last she had to admit to herself what she already knew: this quiet return to Ul'dah was a mere interlude. Â
She would not stay away from the Shroud for long, even if her return would be more circumspect. Â She drew the pipe in once more, savoring deep as it worked like an energizing balm, calming her, while setting her mind free for contemplation.
"Just an interlude..." she repeated out-loud, speaking around the stem that perched on her lips, to no one in particular.