Kannadi's Family [story] - Printable Version +- Hydaelyn Role-Players (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18) +-- Forum: Role-Play (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=27) +--- Forum: Town Square (IC) (https://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/mybb18/forumdisplay.php?fid=21) +--- Thread: Kannadi's Family [story] (/showthread.php?tid=6824)

Kannadi's Family [story] - Kannadi - 04-02-2014 “Hey Kanna, watch this!”   “Don’t, Father!”   Torrent Albedo flicked his wrist and the blade shot out, or would have if it fully occupied the same physical dimension as the hilt. Instead, reality split along a black seam and the blue of eternity followed to cauterize the wound and form the weapon’s edge. The Zantetsuken waggled as the curator showed it off to his daughter, who had, lightning-fast, taken refuge behind a titanic fossilized whelk.   “Cool, huh?” The tall man said.   “Cold as death, Father,” Kannadi said.   Torrent sighted along the blade. The displays of rare animal bones at which the blade pointed appeared to skew in his vision; the left-behind weapon of Odin sliced the light like water in a glass.   “Got it from Ro just the other day,” he said. “Finally traded in those bits you sent me. Good thing the hilt’s the only part with apparent mass. Pretty sure the blade would just fall through any display bar it touched.”   Torrent drew his thumb to the light blue edge, slow enough for the intended effect as Kannadi burst from behind the shell and shouted “Don’t touch it!”   Torrent grinned, flicked his wrist and sent the primal blade tumbling in the air. The universe snapped shut over the fatal length before its spin could take it through his torso lengthwise. As it descended he caught it without looking and twirled it over the back of his hand.   “I know what I’m doing,” he said.   The museum was the History’s Torrent, and history was a long and broad subject. Torrent Albedo, current heir to what remained of the family fortune, zigzagged it in bridges anchored on whatever rare pieces he could find.   Now that he was in his fifties, his “finding” was limited to legitimate purchase, but it had once been more of a euphemism. He had been an adventurer before the Guild made that word a respectable profession. His rusty red hair had shortened and faded and a few glancing scars had morphed into wrinkles, but his gray eyes were still as sharp and, thank the Twelve, his hands were still as quick.   “First of all,” Kannadi said, “those ‘bits’ were pieces of Odin’s mantle! Aether spun into cohesion by forces beyond modern thaumic science!”   “And she wanted all five, can you believe it?” Torrent stuck the weapon in his long brown coat.   Kannadi wagged an index finger that wished it had the nerve to be a middle. Her coat, too, was long and brown, but layered over black and embellished with antique brass.   “And a Zantetsuken is not a toy!” she said. “It’s an eldritch object of unspeakable power and mystery! No one understands why body parts of primals persist after they expire, let alone weapons! Waving it round like that is only slightly less stupid than juggling bombs!”   “Oh, have you got some? Used to be a dab hand at it.”   The place was closed at the moment. The bag Kannadi had brought, a tied-off tube the size of her leg, still lay on the floor where she dropped it in her duck for cover. Torrent bent to it as his daughter bent her arms over her chest.   “Honestly, Father,” she said, “you could have had a much more impressive display by stitching them together.”   The bag was full of stones, faintly greenish gray lumps of masonry, none bigger than a hyur’s fist. Torrent sat on the hardwood floor and picked through the ones at the top.   “And drape them over some hideous copy of his head and sword like on all the estates these days?”   “No, I thought it would appropriately ominous as a backdrop for a display of other primal... er…”   “Bits?”   “’Remnants’ may be more appropriate.”   Torrent removed a stone, held it to the light and put it back in. “Don’t have enough for an ensemble display yet. You kids keep mutilating them into furniture.”   All adventurers were “you kids,” even though Kannadi knew of a few older than her father.   “It’s how the fashion is,” she said. “Museum pieces one can sit upon, or mount on walls.”   Torrent snorted and tied the bag shut. “Fashion’s for hobbyists. Professionals don’t need it. Help me up?”   Kannadi took her father’s hand and he leapt to his feet quite without assistance, though with a pop and click of grudgingly aging anatomy. Kannadi frowned at him as he shook her hand, conveniently already there.   “Thanks for this batch, hon,” he said. “Nice size for restoring the lanterns.”   Kannadi primly withdrew her hand. “I could probably lever an actual lantern out of the wall the next time I’m there.”   “It’s not the same.” Torrent hefted the bag. “I’ll take these back to my office and be right out. Won’t be a minute.”   And it wasn’t.   --   It was, however, a great many minutes between the walls of Ul’dah and the prayer site at Nophica’s Wells. Kannadi’s mother was already there, and had been there all day. The Sultanate’s tiny Nophican community would have been there with her but for the fact they were all visiting Gridania for the observance of changing seasons. Avani Albedo had chosen to observe it in her own way, alone, in a place where seasons were mostly optional. It was much harder. That was the point.   Kannadi and Torrent had time to talk on the private coach ride. Kannadi had time to read and converse simultaneously. Their driver, a mustached lalafell, politely ignored the conversation.   “So,” Torrent said, “any boyfriends yet?”   “No.”   “Girlfriends?”   “No.”   “Need help with either?”   Kannadi turned a page. “No.”   “All right then.”   The sun was declining toward a set. The chocobo cart moved on, suspended under its lift-balloons, floating just above the dirt path. Stone and soil and scrub brush bordered the road.   Torrent glanced at Kannadi’s book. It was all geometric nonsense. The ink shined like oil, easier to see where it laid thicker on the page.   “You sure?”   “Yes, Father.” Her voice rolled its eyes.   “Well good.” Torrent sat back. “Don’t rush it like your cousin. I hear she’s made up for lost time, jumping beaus like dragons.”   “Typical of her.” Kannadi’s smirk shaped her tone. Kannadi had four cousins whose whereabouts were known, but between father and daughter Leyla was the only one who was “my cousin” or “your cousin” instead of a first name.   “And I hear Dima’s pregnant.”   “Well! Good for her.”   “Life goes on,” Torrent said.   At which point the cart’s starboard balloon tried to explode.   A long-headed arrow pierced the cart’s tarpaulin and the balloon spat light gas directly onto the burning rag wrapped around the arrow’s shaft. It was therefore fortunate for the riders that non-wheeled carts had years ago transitioned to a gas that didn’t burn.   The driver heard the thump and hiss. “Again?” he sighed.   “Bandits, folks, hang on,” he said louder, whereupon the cart’s balloon successfully exploded, not from combustion of gas but a fiery bloom of well-applied magic. The burst spooked the chocobos, which fled at speed without prompting from the driver.   Kannadi and Torrent had already vaulted the side. Half a dozen shadows in the rocky landscape looked out of place. Father and daughter surveyed the field impassively.   “Six, perhaps,” Kannadi said, holding her book open one-handed. “Rather shy for bandits.”   “Bandits would have run at us by now,” Torrent said.   A second arrow flew at him. It stopped short a fulm away from his body and a ripple of light revealed, briefly, a few glassy hexagons. The arrow dropped to the dirt, its momentum spent.   “Not bandits, evidently,” Kannadi said coolly.   “Seems not,” Torrent said, equally chill. He drew the Zantetsuken from his coat.   Seeing that their prey was armed, the possibly-not-bandits slunk from their hiding places, each of them armed with blade or bow. At least they did camouflage well, Kannadi thought; one was a roegadyn who had somehow hidden behind a tree half his width. A pity to waste such talent, but holding to pity was a liability.   “Six, then,” Kannadi said.   “Won’t be a minute,” her father said.   And it wasn’t.   It had been far, far too long since father and daughter’s last little bonding experience. In that dungeon. With those monsters. The free days in their respective careers simply hadn’t aligned in… five years for me, ten for him, Kannadi realized. Something in her heart, that frustrated organ buried under so many books tumbling from her brain that they had cascaded over it and spilled into her stomach, twanged alive in the too-brief fight. This was… fun.   None of the six were left standing, but one remained alive. The hide-and-seek-champion roegadyn stared at the fatally curving tip of the sword last owned by an alleged god.   Torrent smiled like a shark, fixing his gaze on his captive. Kannadi had seen with her own eyes how he had moved like a shark as well, all efficient motion and hit-and-runs where one hit was all it took. He had shed twenty years when in action, but despite his flawless poise, Kannadi thought, surely some joint or other must be aching like hells. She kept her grimoire open, just in case.   Torrent raised his voice. “Oh Kannadi, sweet child of mine?”   “Yes, dear father?” Kannadi called back sweetly.   “How much do you enjoy distractions?”   “I would say I don’t enjoy them at all, Father!” Which was true.   “And wastes of time?”   “Oh, horrid things!”   “They make you mad enough to kill, don’t they?”   “Quite nearly!”   Torrent smiled down his sword. The roegadyn bandit had gone cross-eyed.   “She got all of her mother’s patience,” Torrent said. “You’d better make yourself useful in a hurry.”   The roegadyn swallowed.   “Whatcha want, guv?” He asked, risking a smile.   “Your employer.”   “Hyur fella. Never saw him good, never got his name. Bonny Lem did the arrangements.”   “And where might I find Mister Lem?”   “Well, can’t see where his head landed, guv, but it can’t’ve got far.”   “That might be it there, Father.”   “Yes, thank you,” Torrent frowned. “And the motive?”   “Dunno, y’honor.” He swallowed. “Paid good.”   “But not enough to deal with a mark that fights back?”   “Hells no.”   “It never is,” Kannadi said. “Honest work pays best, doesn’t it, Father?”   “Too true. I suggest you find some, friend,” Torrent said, lifting the blade enough for the bandit to crawl away. “And get yourself some culture. Visit a museum sometime.”   The bandit fled, trailing wet “yessir”s. The obsidian blade of Odin vanished.   Kannadi closed her book. Torrent inspected a body that wasn’t his, but for which its owner had no further use.   “You’ve kept in practice,” Kannadi said.   “Sometimes the best treasure is the one you hunt yourself,” Torrent said.   “How often do men try to kill you?”   “If the treasure’s not theirs? Never.” Torrent crouched and bent close to a body. He gently tugged at the collar of the body’s tunic, seemingly unbothered by the lack of head beyond. “Well, there’s a thing.”   “Don’t keep me in suspense, Father.”   “The stitching’s Ishgardian.” He rubbed the collar between his fingers. Sluggish, tardy blood continued to ooze from where a collar was now quite unnecessary. “New, too. And in finer cotton than you’d see in dumb paid thugs, unless it was bought for them.”   That was her father, Kannadi thought. The kind of man who would coolly identify minutiae of craftsmanship an ilm away from a severed neck.   “Well,” Torrent said, clapping his hands on his knees, “we’ve kept your mother waiting long enough.”   He was squatting low, balanced on his toes. Kannadi watched him try to unfold.   “Help me up? Serious this time.”   --   Avani Albedo stood in water up to her knees, eyes closed and hands out in supplication, facing upstream because that was what was proper. She was darker than her daughter, and thicker, and shorter, and had more reason to war with her sideburns. She mostly resembled Kannadi from the skull inwards.   The current swayed her dark green dress. A wooden wand in full flower hung at her hips.   “I certainly hope you didn’t leave the bodies like that,” she said to the air.   Kannadi and her father sat at the water’s edge. Torrent said, “Some Brass Blades came up pretty quick, actually, when they heard from the driver.”   “No doubt they’ve enriched themselves off the corpses,” Kannadi said.   “One does what one can,” her mother said.   “All day, evidently,” Kannadi said.   They were silent a while. The sun touched the horizon, then sank below, but Avani wasn’t facing it. That would have made her Azeyman, Kannadi suspected. Nophica the Matron governed abundance, among other things. And so Avani faced upriver, toward the source and greener places, until the sunlight had ebbed enough to her satisfaction.   “It is easy to believe in the Matron in a land of abundance,” Avani said, wading out. “In greater desolation, one finds greater faith. Earth and water, striving together. Never indolent.   “Like both of you.” She smiled to her husband and daughter, beatifically, a picture of contentment.   At which point an arrow tried to strike her in the head.   It cracked thin air. The space between the cracks flashed a stony brown texture. The arrow fell.   Kannadi and Torrent’s gaze followed the trajectory. An archer stood atop the cliff shadowing them.   Avani closed her eyes and sighed through her nose.   She unhooked the wand from her belt, turned to the cliff and swung her arm. A crack of dust raced over the soil, up the rock, over the curve. Stones erupted underneath the assailant, knocking him off his perch and into open air.   Mother and father and daughter together did him the courtesy of watching him land.   His bow bounced. He did not.   Avani alone clasped her hands and bowed her head.   “We seem popular today,” Kannadi said. She looked to her father, expecting some sort of quip, but he had turned away with his hand over his ear.   “It’s me, Mom,” he said. “Are you safe?” He paused. “Through your window?”   He paused again for longer, now the center of his family’s attention. “Twelve,” he said eventually, “you’d think they would know you had a range down there.” Another pause, and he laughed in relief. “Four shots and a haymaker? What, were you asleep?”   Kannadi listened with one ear as her father relayed confirmations and explanations over the linkpearl. The sharpshot seemed to have been alone. Inspecting corpses didn’t bother her unduly; she had made many in her adventuring.   Kannadi, though not half the appraiser her father was, knew an Ishgardian hem stitch when she saw it.   “Right, Mom,” Torrent said at last, and lowered his hand. “Couple guys came after her too. Said she’ll have her people look into it.”   “The archer’s tunic is of the same make as the others,” Kannadi said.   “Did you rip it off him?”   “Goodness no!” Kannadi looked aghast. “Just a mess of mud and blood, not worth a thing.”   “And his pockets?” This was Avani.   “Mother! I thought you hated looting the dead.”   “For personal gain, dear. But evidence is needed now. I fear this business may be… political.”   The dead man’s pockets were empty, as it turned out. Torrent had several choice words with the nearest Brass Blades, and a fresh cart was provided. Kannadi teleported home ahead of them; her parents, skilled as they were, simply couldn’t exercise aethernet travel after the Calamity. Kannadi had quietly attributed it to their bodies being unable to cope with the way the aether had subtly changed. Age, perhaps.   --   Kannadi paced her apartment, arms crossed behind her back. Someone somewhere wanted her parents dead. But was that all?   She had contacted her cousins upon arrival. Leyla was safe and between tasks in Revenant’s Toll, while the others were safe in the Phrontistery, there for either their jobs or a pre-natal examination. No one had so much as bumped them all day.   So it had been her father’s side of the family. A “hyur fella.” Some vague connection with Ishgard, perhaps. Political?   Her grandmother had no shortage of foes in her prime, but most were dead and many stopped caring once she quit the Syndicate. Quit, voluntarily. So easy to do, no one had done it before.   Kannadi glanced at a cabinet. Buried in there were some rare foreign effects that her father’s younger brother had brought back from one foreign continent before setting out for another. He was probably safe. Linkpearls wouldn’t reach him that far away, so confirmation was impossible.   That estranged uncle had caused her grandmother’s retirement. He had fallen out with her, loudly and legally renounced his inheritance, and departed for places distant. For once in her life the Silver Giant had felt regret, cut her Syndicate-admission wealth into thirds and given two to her remaining sons --   One of whom was already dead --   Kannadi paced quicker yet thought slower. She pinched the thread of thought and tugged it carefully, lest it snap.   Unless specifically withheld in one’s will, one’s wealth goes to one’s eldest child through the sieve of taxes. That’s how it is. If no eldest child remains, then it goes to the eldest grandchild. That’s how it is.   Father is the eldest child now. Should Grandmother die, her remaining wealth would be his. But he was attacked too. If he were dead, the eldest grandchild would be Rasim --   Kannadi froze, in motion and in temperature. Rasim, kind and brilliant alchemist and chirurgeon who ran out of body at the knees, was not the eldest. He was just the eldest who had been seen in five years.   Kannadi braced herself on her desk.   That man.   He had once drawn Kannadi into a duplicitous scheme to claim and hatch a terrible subterranean dragon, to be tamed by his hand and used against the then-fresh threat of the Garleans’ return. He had fallen in with a cult of dragon-worshippers, all fangs and claws in shadows, a true danger not the least bit like the modern lunatics. By no means, Kannadi knew, would he have stopped at serving his country with such a pet.   And so she had destroyed the egg, and weathered his rage as he swore to kill her and her side of the family if she ever told the story. She hadn’t, except in her safely-kept will, wherein she told all as a form of insurance in case her cousin thought to silence her.   But the scheme was still half successful. The opening phase had killed that man’s wife, who willed him a great wealth of land in Coerthas. Land which, Kannadi had learned, he had sold off before the ice claimed it. But wealth had no upper limit, nor did his ambition.   If he were to return miraculously alive when Karen and Torrent Albedo were freshly and simultaneously dead. . .   “Zulfiqar,” Kannadi growled.   But would he return? Kannadi’s family was still alive. And wouldn’t a man of such means have been able to hire a better class of assassin? Perhaps not, if he was in it for the money. . .   Well. Today’s ambushes proved her parents could still defend themselves at least as well as her. Why had she ever believed that they would diminish with age, they who could handle adventures of their own in addition to each other, they who were her own better aspects?   Her heart twitched with pride, under all the books.   Should Zulfiqar show his face again, he would find her much less compliant.   But first she had to tell everyone, should he expand his sphere of revenge one day. Where to start? Her whole family would have gone to bed already, but there were others still awake and aware. . .   She touched a blue and yellow linkpearl.   “Colleagues,” she said, “I have a story to tell.”