Jackscarab

The waltz melody picked up a second source: a practiced hum, precise in its timing as a clock. Kannadi approached with typically perfect poise, carrying the tune as well as her posture. She stepped into the shade of the gate not far from the stranger with the apple, only stopping the tune where it stopped itself. "One of the more tolerable waltzes, if I had to judge them. Though they all look better in person than in the skin of a stolen apple." She paused exactly long enough to emphasize herself. "Here for the assignment, sir, or just the shade?"

Thanks! She may be slightly elusive, but she'll be there.

[To consume time until next week, I'm posting stories previously written two years ago on Kannadi's Lodestone blog. This one happened because it was cute.] Kannadi Albedo, age seven, poured a cup of invisible tea for her guests. “It’s a special tea I got from the Sultana,” she lied creatively. “It’s her very favorite and she only let me have it ‘cause her chocobo was sick and I made it feel better.” She scooted the cup towards a plush dodo sitting on a cushion opposite her. The little hardwood table between them was tiled black and white on top. “It’s real good, Alcibiades, take a sip.” Alcibiades gave the cup a glassy stare. Kannadi reached her bare foot under the table, grabbed the plush bird’s leg with her toes and tilted him. Alcibiades toppled forward and his beak plunged into the cup. “There, you see? Isn’t it good?” Kannadi sipped from her own cup, a gold-rimmed floral-painted porcelain treasure which had no business in the hands of a seven-year-old. She cast a practiced glower over another guest at the table. “I don’t know why you don’t like it, Mister Salad.” A solid jadeite statuette of a peiste stood on the table and hovered its hooded head over a cup. Mister Salad had an estimated value of just over nine hundred fifty thousand gil, but was never so busy that he missed a teatime. “He’s just im-possible, isn’t he, Alcibiades?” Kannadi shook her head. “He won’t even try it. He’s so rude.” Mister Salad’s permanently open mouth caught a passing mote of dust. “Oh, well why didn’t you say so?” Kannadi smiled. “You know we have plenty. Could you pass the sugar, Grandmother?” Karen Albedo sat cross-legged on her cushion like a mountain, daintily holding an empty four-figure teacup in the same hand that had written men’s death warrants. For a hyur, she was immense in height and build and intimidating in her one-fourth roegadyn features. Kannadi (who would, in the fullness of time, inherit nothing physical from her except above-average height) knew her only as the biggest, kindest playmate in the world. “Certainly,” she said, and scooted a bowl full of white cubes toward her granddaughter. Kannadi transferred the sugar to Mister Salad’s cup with tiny silver tongs. “Mister Salad really likes sugar,” she explained. “He’s a peiste, and Missus Trepe in the nature class? She says if they find a beehive and a dead aldgoat at the same time they actually will really truly eat the hive first. And honey’s mostly sugar so there you go.” “Really?” Karen asked. “Really really.” Mister Salad’s cup quickly mounded with sugar cubes. “So how did you cure the chocobo?” “Huh?” “The Sultana’s.” “Oh, oh. Well!” Kannadi took another sip of air. “What happened was, he ate the wrong kinda greens. They were the Super Poison Gysahl Greens!” “Odd, I’ve never heard of them.” “Well they’re really rare,” Kannadi said evasively. “But they look and smell just like regular ones except they’re poison. Like, super sick poison for anybody, but even worse for chocobos.” “I see. Go on.” Karen sipped her imaginary tea. “So the Sultana came to me and said—” with a high, noble drawl, evidently— “oh Miss Albedo, please help! My dear sweet Lord Maplefeathers is so very sick! I need him to be healthy for the big chocobo show I’m having with everybody today!” “Goodness. What ever did you do?” “Well…” Kannadi looked pressed, for just a moment. “I, uhm, I had to talk to an esspert! So I did! Alcibiades was glad to help ‘cause he’s a bird too, so he knows all about everything about chocobos.” Alcibiades remained beak-first in his cup, glassily regarding his surroundings. “He said,” Kannadi continued in as low and therefore boyish a voice as she could manage, “’Kannadi! You must go to the mountains of Coerthas and find the Remedy Flower to cure Lord Maplefeathers!’ So I did.” “All by yourself?” Karen raised a graying eyebrow. “Well no, of course not. I took Mister Salad ‘cause he’s from Coerthas. Peistes live there, you know.” “They live here too.” “Well yeah but, but he’s different, he’s a mountain one. They, um… they live in mountains.” “I imagine they would.” Kannadi took Mister Salad from his place at the table and bounced him lightly in front of her grandmother, coming dangerously close to breaking his meticulously-carved claws. “So anyway,” she continued, “I rode on his back right here between the spikes. It wasn’t really uncomfortable but I had to hold on a lot. Then we went to Coerthas and saw the mountains and the spine trees--” “Pine trees.” “Pine trees, and took a swim in the rivers and it was really cold ‘cause the rivers there are made of ice water, you know.” “I’ve heard.” “So after we swam I started looking for the flower and there was this…” she paused long enough to skim her mental inventory of mountain animals, “this squirrel, and he was holding a Remedy Flower! So I asked him may I please have it and he said no because his mommy was sick, but he was real nice and he led me and Mister Salad to this hyuuge field of flowers!” “Huge, was it?” “Hyuuge!” Kannadi gestured wide, swinging a million gil worth of jade statuette by its hind leg. Her gesture bumped Alcibiades and he tipped over, teacup and all. “There was, like, every kind of flower in the world!” She continued, too caught up in her story to notice. “Not like here where we only have bushes and things. Real-life flowers in all the colors ever. Oh, and there was like a million Remedy Flowers. A million bazillion.” “That many? Oh my.” Kannadi’s youthful excitement built with her own narration. She interrupted herself occasionally with carried-away gasps like sharp hiccups. “So we went there,” gasp, “and Mister Salad helped me pick a bunch of the Remedy Flowers ‘cause he has big claws,” gasp, “but we left a lot behind so the squirrel and everybody else can use them. Okay and so then we came back and gave them to the Sultana. And she said,” gasp, “she said ‘Oh Miss Albedo, thank you so much! There are so many here, no chocobo anywhere will ever be sick again!’ So she cured Lord Maplefeathers and she won first prize and she was so happy she gave me this tea and that’s how I got it.” “Well!” Karen looked at her empty cup as if it were full of diamonds. “I’ll have to ask her for some too, the next time I see her.” “Um…” Kannadi carefully put down Mister Salad. “Well she’s real busy so she mighta forgot.” “Oh, I doubt if the Sultana would forget someone having an adventure like that just to help her.” Kannadi bit her lip and picked her feet under the table. She glanced at Alcibiades, still vacantly enjoying his tea despite it being sideways, and whispered to her grandmother behind her hand: “I didn’t really avenshure. I made it all up.” Karen whispered back, behind a hand as hard as a garden spade: “That’s okay. One day you’ll grow up strong enough to bend the world to your will. Just like me.” Kannadi continued to whisper. “Thank you.” “Kannadi, dear?” “What?” “Why are we whispering?” “’Cause Alcibiades doesn’t know I made it up.”

[To consume time until next week, I'm posting stories previously written two years ago on Kannadi's Lodestone blog. This one follows "Heat and Arrows." 1572 was certainly a busy year for her.] The Quicksands was full of its usual bustle of adventurers when the young elezen waitress brought Kannadi a mug of something frothy, steaming and brown. Kannadi, conspicuously alone at her table, tilted her newspaper, prepared to say thank you but instead said “What’s this?” The waitress fumbled for a slip of paper in her pocket, flapped it straight and squinted at it. “Hot chocolate, table four. Is there a problem, ma’am?” Kannadi folded her copy of the day’s Mythril Eye. “No, just that Miss Momodi doesn’t always tell new hires how to decipher my penmanship. I’m afraid it’s a bit florid.” “Huh?” “I wrote chamomile, not chocolate.” Kannadi laid a stack of coins on the table. “Here’s the cost regardless, and the extra is for you to keep if you can add a twist of lemon to my original order.” “Oh, uhm, but this is….” “You know what a tip is, don’t you? I’ll double it if you leave the lemon slice in.” “Th-thank you!” The waitress scooped up the coins, bowed quickly and shuffled away. Kannadi opened her paper again. Footsteps approached, making a deliberate slapping effort to be heard above the bustle. “Ever so kind to the help, Kannadi,” a woman’s voice sneered. The steam off the chocolate disappeared. Kannadi did not lower her paper. Only one person she knew could tilt the word "help" as though it were a tankard of aldgoat spit. “Leyla,” Kannadi said. It was not a greeting. “Won’t I sit down? I’d be glad to.” And she did. Kannadi engrossed herself in a weather forecast. The unwanted seat-occupant sniffed, and Kannadi could hear the arched upper lip. “Chocolate? That’s so… middle-class.” “Mistaken order. Cheap stuff. Drink it all, I’m allergic.” Kannadi glanced up from the reports of more rain. There sat a lance of a woman, long and sharp and thin, already sipping from the mug. The actual lance on the back of her jacket only accentuated the hard angles of her face and build. She herself would call her features austere; Kannadi called them hacked-out by a scimitar. Kannadi glared icebergs over the paper, keeping it upright as a city wall. “I assume you have presented yourself for a reason, cousin.” “Oh, just a minor issue,” Leyla said, setting the mug down with the absolute minimum finger contact. “I’ll be brief. You were aware, I’m sure, of my father’s impending birthday?” “As a ship is aware of shoals.” “Well, my sister took it upon herself to not purchase but… craft her present.” The word came out drenched in disdain. “Which sister?” “The fat one. She planned an elaborate birthday cake, multi-tiered, primarily chocolate -- only the finest, mind you,” Leyla tapped the table for emphasis, “from the finest ingredients.” “And this is a problem?” “You do know where the finest kukuru beans come from, don’t you?” Of course she did. They grew natively in the southern continent and wild in a few corners of Eorzea, but the highest-quality ones were steeped in the digestive fluids of…. Kannadi at last lowered her paper. Leyla cocked a knowing eyebrow. “So Dima went off to hunt flans,” Kannadi said. “She can take care of herself.” “She hunted them in Mistbeard Cove.” “I repeat my statement.” Leyla raised her voice only slightly. “She has been missing two days, cousin.” Kannadi kept her voice steady. “Then you failed to find her yourself? Or did you even try?” Leyla rose and shouted. “There was a tonberry in there!” Silence spread among the bustling adventurers in a reverse explosion. All eyes turned to the table. The waitress set a cup of chamomile tea by Kannadi and hurried away from the scrutiny of the crowd. There was a lemon slice stuck on the rim. Kannadi laced her fingers. “You are lying,” she said. “I know what I saw.” “You saw a bent, shriveled sahagin and fled in terror, leaving your sister to her fate.” “I – I retreated! And from a tonberry!” Leyla slammed her long hands into the heavy wooden table. It shook from the blow, betraying the strength of her thin arms. Kannadi sat unmoved. “Was it riding a white buffalo? Leading a battalion of dwarfs, perhaps? Can’t you just imagine one in a little helmet?” Kannadi mimed twisting a knife. “Rally ho, stab stab?” The spectators chuckled and smirked and most went back to their business. Leyla sat with some effort to keep from exploding into knives. “So full of doubt, are you? I thought monsters were your… area of study,” Leyla said, tight as a bowstring. “Monsters are, yes. Wholly mythological creatures, the existence of which is supported by no conclusive evidence which has ever crossed my sight or hearing, are not.” Leyla lowered her voice. “Look at me, Kannadi. Are you willing to risk that I am not lying? Are you willing to risk that I won’t pay a dozen brave and stupid adventurers to storm the place while I rescue my sister and destroy a specimen for which your father’s, ha-ha, museum, would pay millions?” Kannadi and Leyla locked eyes. Snow could have fallen in the space between. “Why haven’t you already?” Kannadi asked. “I felt magnanimous today. Besides, you being technically family, I needn’t pay you for the same service.” “I will go,” Kannadi said, sipping her tea, “for Dima’s sake. And for no other reason. You may come along if you wish.” “Then let us depart this commoner’s haven at once,” Leyla shot upright, “lest we find her body riddled with stab wounds.” “Ones you didn’t put there yourself?” Leyla’s face twisted into a haughty scowl. Kannadi smiled back and drank her tea, pinky extended. - - - Kannadi and Leyla were born in the same week. Both were Albedos through their fathers, to whom they served as a war by proxy. Every high mark, every achievement, every fingerpainting by one girl was a nocked arrow for her father to politely loose at his brother. As the girls matured and diverged in their interests, the brothers always maintained that the other one’s daughter was wasting her life on trifles. Both men had sent their respective girls to the prestigious Saint Branford’s Academy for Young Ladies, a highest-brow school made of a mansion and tower in a corner of Ul’dah strictly off-limits to the public. The brothers openly stated, repeatedly, particularly in front of their wives, that they wished only for Kannadi and Leyla – no, Leyla and Kannadi – no, K comes before L, would you just – for the girls to grow to be the best of friends. And on the first day, even across the first week, that seemed possible. The girls got along in arithmetic and arts. They got along better in etiquette. They sat quietly side-by-side at story time. They even played nicely at parley. It was in the first Domestic Sciences class, which Kannadi later felt used the second word of its title like a chigoe used an aldgoat, that the first crack between the cousins appeared. Both of them were all of eight years old, and had absorbed completely the essences of their respective fathers’ worldviews. The purpose of Domestic Sciences was to impart the skills and virtues of housework to very young ladies of quality, one or two of whom already had an arranged marriage in the offings. The day’s lesson was identifying and arranging by size all manner of forks and spoons and then setting them out properly. The teacher set a box of mixed-up utensils on the floor and Kannadi eagerly reached in, adding to the silver-on-silver cacophony of seven other girls all fumbling for the shiniest dessert-or-maybe-salad fork. Leyla refrained from participation, standing far away with her arms crossed. “What’s the matter, Miss Leyla?” The teacher sweetly intoned. “Mama never sets the table. I’m not gonna.” “It’s only proper for young ladies to learn the ways of the table,” half-sang the teacher, “and we must start the learning somewhere.” “I don’t need to learn. Mama said the help will do everything.” Kannadi looked up from the utensil-scrambling and had to shout to be heard. “What if you don’t have help?” “I’m always gonna have the help!” Leyla shouted back, bending her wrist to touch her chest with only her fingertips. “I’m rich, and I’m gonna marry a rich prince, so we’re gonna be super-rich, and we’ll never have to do anything!” “That’s dumb,” Kannadi said into the clattering. Leyla stomped a little red shoe. “What was that?!” “I said that’s dumb! Why’d’ya wanna sit around and do nothing? You’re gonna be old and lazy and… lazy!” “Nuh-uh!” Leyla strode toward Kannadi. The teacher observed, smiling serenely. “My daddy’s rich,” Leyla continued, “and he’s not lazy! He makes everybody work for him all the time!” “My daddy’s rich too,” Kannadi pointed a spoon at her cousin, “but he does everything himself! And if you don’t do something yourself, you’re a lazy bum!” The other girls, some with little fistfuls of forks, gave a trouble-anticipating crescendo of oooohs. The teacher clapped twice, but her pleasant tone remained somewhere near the ceiling. “That’s quite enough of that sort of language, Miss Kannadi.” “Sorry, ma’am.” Behind the teacher’s back, Leyla stuck out her tongue. Domesticity eventually had nothing left to teach but practice, but the abrasiveness between the girls continued, with varying periods of hot and cold war, for the next decade. The battlefield and weapons shifted as the cousins grew, ultimately ending in firebombs and siege engines when it came to romantic interests. Graduation came and went. Kannadi pleased her father by pursuing higher education. Leyla infuriated her father by pursuing Ishgardian knights. Kannadi picked up a government job and became a scholar; Leyla picked up lancing from her beaus and liaised with whatever handsome and/or powerful brothers they had. The meeting in the Quicksands was the first time the cousins had spoken more than two words directly to each other’s faces, of their own accord, in eight years. That wasn’t the only source of Kannadi’s suspicion. Despite Leyla’s preference for getting others to do her work, the situation with her missing sister was the sort of thing she would handle on her own, and then write to Kannadi about with no shortage of arrogance. The Champion’s Lance she carried wasn’t for show. So why did she flee, even from an alleged tonberry? Something strange was at work…. Kannadi tightened her gloves as she and Leyla vanished from Ul’dah’s aethertye plaza. When wasn’t there? - - - The sky over Mistbeard Cove was overcast. Kannadi and Leyla arrived at the mouth of the cave before either of them said a word since the Quicksands. “I never knew you were allergic to chocolate,” Leyla said, apropos of nothing. “Yes you did. You tried to get me sick from it once.” “Did I?” “Year five, end-of-session cotillion. You spiked my tea with the darkest chocolate you could find when you thought I wasn’t looking.” “Oh, yes, that. But nothing came of it.” Leyla walked ahead into the wet gloom of the cove. Kannadi followed, adjusting her hat. “That,” Kannadi said, “was because you didn’t use the cheap stuff, which is cheap by virtue of being cut with milk. You always did make uneducated attempts on my health.” “Ah-ha ha ha, uneducated? And whom, might I ask, made top of the class in first form?” A slug lifted its antennae at the women heedlessly passing it. “Oh, yes,” Kannadi allowed herself some bitterness, “the year that formal dancing weighed heavier on the grades than mathematics and biology combined. An excellent accomplishment you achieved, truly.” “Better than excelling at scrabbling in the dirt,” Leyla bit. The glowing spire of the Cove’s aetherial gate turned the damp stone around it a sickly shifting blue. The women passed right through it, neither breaking pace nor glancing at the other. “Which itself was better than excelling at scrabbling for boyfriends,” Kannadi said. “I’m wounded, cousin.” Leyla sniffed, mockingly. “They came to me of their own free will. Joyfully.” “As buzzards to a permanent corpse.” “Who could blame them for wanting a little respite and refreshment after flying clear over a glacier like you?” “And how many had their beaks in you? Ten? Twenty?” “It was seven.” “At once?” Leyla swung her hand. Kannadi raised her own to block, but the slap tilted upward and knocked off her hat. She caught it behind her back, swung it around front and adjusted it on her head, all without a twitch in Leyla’s direction. “My, such low clearance in here,” Kannadi said to the walls, and in the same breath continued, “has that lantern always been there?” There was indeed a lantern on the ground, lying on its side, casting a strong yellow glow. “Oh there's that lantern I left behind,” Leyla said to the ceiling. “How prescient of me to leave some as markers, should I have needed a quick retreat. No ignorant hypothetical cousin of mine would have thought of that.” The women walked somewhat awkwardly past the light, turning with the contours of the walls yet keeping each other out of even their peripheral vision. “And here I expected you to say it belonged to the tonberry,” Kannadi said. “I am nothing if not truthful,” Leyla said, still staring upward. “I suppose that one over there is also yours?” “Of course it is.” “Are the flans hers too?” Leyla looked down. There, gathered around another tilted lantern, were two plain-pudding flans staring raptly at the flickering flame inside. Their flabby mound bodies made no motion but curious eye-tiltings at the strange artifact they had found. Kannadi fingered her brand, but Leyla shot straight ahead. So quick that Kannadi could’ve missed it if she blinked, Leyla drew her lance and thrust it clean through the flans in a single blow. Their pinprick eyes turned toward her, showing not a flicker of pain. Leyla adjusted her grip and, obeying strict principles of leverage and muscle tone, flung the monsters overhand and splatted their gelatinous bodies on the nearest wall. “Scourge Two!” Kannadi shouted, and the pierced oozing blobs warped and shredded under the twisting force of umbral magic. Leyla gave a conceited sniff and holstered her lance. “Gruesome things.” “Precisely how many lanterns did you leave behind?” Kannadi asked, still gripping her brand and eyeing the gushy pile of former flan. “Enough to light my way,” Leyla said. “They were only only two thousand gil each.” There were nine more lanterns, as it turned out. And six puddings, four crabs, fifteen wisps and a gnat, each drawn to the foreign lights and therefore to the women who followed them. All through the fighting that necessarily followed, the cousins spoke not a word that wasn’t an invocation for a spell. Finally they came to an upright lantern, well back in the cove, at a closed door in the end of a tunnel. “This is it,” Leyla said, lifting the lantern. “I heard a voice further in, and went to see, and….” “And you fled. That is the only clear evidence.” “Just proceed, will you?” “Why should I go first?” “So when it comes at you, I’ll be in a better spot to leave you to its mercy.” Kannadi assumed that was about as truthful a statement as she was likely to hear. She opened the door. Inside, the cavern room was black as ink. Kannadi stood and waited for her eyes to adjust. She called back over her shoulder. “Bring that light in, would you?” Leyla turned the lantern off with a soft squeak of metal. Kannadi blinked in the sudden primordial dark. “Mature as ever, hm?” The door closed. A second lantern lit a short distance in front of her. It rose in the hand of a diminutive hooded figure and glinted off a dagger blade. “Fire Two,” Kannadi spoke plainly to the darkness. The cavern room burst into light from the flash of flame against its ceiling. Half a dozen cries of surprise and anguish echoed off the walls, and in the brief illumination Kannadi saw the same number of lalafell, marauders by the look of them, cover their eyes and recoil. And there in the corner, as the flame quickly died, she saw her bound and gagged cousin. Dima was dressed only in her smallclothes, lying among lumpy, man-sized canvas bags in a fair attempt at camouflage. Her chubby face clenched in a squint at the light. The light of the cave returned to the solitary lantern. Kannadi stared straight ahead at the central figure, the only one besides her who wasn’t moaning and arghing. Knife, lantern, cloak, hood, short stature. Not bad. “Fair effort on the details,” Kannadi said, “but tonberries in the old stories always stabbed in the back. Isn’t that right, Leyla?” Leyla propped herself against the door and rubbed her eyes with her forearm. “They were her favorite stories, you see,” Kannadi continued to the unreactive hooded figure. “I don’t,” the alleged tonberry said in the deep voice of a man three times his height. He tilted his head out of its hood, and the light of his lantern shone off the deadest eyes Kannadi had ever seen. The elderly lalafell’s cataracts were so thick, his eyes had nothing but whites. “And you are?” Kannadi asked. The focus of the lantern blinded her to the remainder of the room, where some of the men still moaned. “The terrible Tom Berry,” the lalafell grinned. His wrinkles stood out like chasms in the close, sharp light. “Bit of a pun, or play on words. Makes a pirate such as meself stand out among the locals. Puts a bit of respect in the damned malm-high competition, you see.” “I do. Would you like to explain your presence before I blind your men again?” More moaning came from the darkness. “Love to,” said Tom Berry. “We harpooned that whale over yonder while we was poachin’ the puddings what we stuffed full of kukuru some suns past. And whaddya know, there’s gold to be had under that fat.” Muffled protests came from one corner of the darkness. Kannadi was sure they were assertions about muscle weight and bone width. “So you held her for ransom,” Kannadi said, “and as luck would have it, her sister came in search of her.” She looked over her shoulder, where Leyla blinked back to the world of the seeing. “And you, cousin, thought slaying them with me would be cheaper?” Tom Berry laughed, as did his compatriots lurking in the dark. “Hardly,” Leyla answered, and raised her voice. “Listen, you brigands! The one you have is the fourth of six children born to parents who wouldn’t drop a gil to save any of them but the first! But here,” she pointed at Kannadi, “here stands a firstborn and only child, beloved by her father and mother! Ransom her instead and release my sister!” Kannadi clenched her jaw. Leyla’s position as third of six didn’t matter, right that hot second. Anger boiled away Kannadi’s pity. “You’re in no spot to make trades,” Tom Berry said coolly, “now that we got three Albedo daughters to sell off….” Kannadi pointed her brand at the pirate but her legs suddenly collapsed, knocked down at the back of the knees. Tom Berry’s associates had rubbed out their blindness and struck in force. Kannadi swung out her brand arm as she fell. “Dia!” She shouted. Sharp white aetherial light stabbed the recovering eyes of her two assailants and cast enough side-glow for her to see the four others swiftly tying Leyla’s legs together. Leyla struggled furiously, and Kannadi let her. “Fire Two!” Kannadi shouted, and flames burst over the ceiling. A trailing arc of fire landed among the bags by Dima and set one of them alight. “Clever girl,” Tom Berry said, sniffing the air, “but I works best under a time limit!” Kannadi looked down too late. The hooded lalafell was worlds faster than his name implied, and a dagger thrust cut her leg before she could register his level of threat. Kannadi limped a step back and leveled her brand at him, but the word of her spell caught in her immediately swollen throat. Silencing potion. Clever bastard. Tom Berry chuckled. “Muted the new one, lads! Get ‘er!” Four of the marauders struggled against Leyla’s thrashing. The two with Dia-abused eyes drew their axes and stumbled in Kannadi’s direction. Kannadi sidestepped the wild axe-swings until the first marauder stuck his axe fast in the rock floor. The second came at her more accurately, but tripped over his comrade’s weapon. Kannadi cracked her brand across the forehead of the first, lifted the second by the belt and hurled him bodily across the room. The flames licked and crackled in the bags, filling the air with the scent of burnt chocolate. The thrown pirate landed hard against them and rolled down the slope they made. His axe clattered on the rocky floor. Tom Berry parried a stab from the pointed end of Kannadi’s brand and multiple blows from the business end. “Settle yourself!” He taunted. “Else I’ll send your ear home in a box!” If Kannadi were able to speak, she would have carried on battle banter regarding how a blind old lalafell could move like a galago. If she were able to yell, she would have called Leyla -- now rolling about on the ground, arms and legs restrained by only the strongest efforts of four hip-high pirates -- an insufferable cow who wasn’t worth a single gil of ransom. But she couldn’t, so she made do with using her brand as a club. Disoriented by both light and smoke, the lalafell who hit the bags shuffled and patted the floor for his axe. “Looking for this?” Dima asked. Severed ropes hung from her thick wrists. What took two hands for a lalafell to hold took her only one. “Lads wanna get that damn fire out?!” Tom Berry shouted, dodging the swing of Kannadi’s brand. “We got our hands full with the skinny tart here!” “How dare you!” Leyla shouted. Kannadi backed her quarry to the wall. Tom Berry leapt against it and vaulted off, smashing his lantern against Kannadi’s hat. It cracked and leaked burning oil. Her voice returned in a grunt and she staggered, dazed. The blind old lalafell landed and threw his lantern aside. “What do I keep you gits around for then?!” He turned and bumped into what felt like a pair of legs. Dima swung her miniature axe, fetching him clear off the floor with a resounding clang. He landed by his remaining men, bearing a diagonal gash in his cloak and a similar dent in the armor underneath. “Boss?!” Said the one holding down Leyla’s right arm. His next word was an airy explosion of a fist meeting his solar plexus. Kannadi furiously stomped out her blazing hat. She looked toward the fire and saw Dima, an axe in one hand and a bag in the other. “You all right?” Dima asked. “Never better,” Kannadi said. The three conscious lalafell huddled together away from Leyla as she thrashed her way out of the ropes holding her. “The fat one’s free!” One said. “And she whacked the boss!” Another said. “I ain’tn’t dead!” Tom Berry groaned. “What do we do?” Said the first. “You’ll get your filthy selves out of my sight lest I rip you apart!” Leyla screamed among her flailing. Two of the three hauled their boss up by the arms and legs. The third kicked Leyla in the hip. She positively roared and he threw open the doors, fleeing ahead of his partners. “Be seein’ ya, y’damn sand-suckin’ wenches!” Tom Berry spat, carried out by his underlings. The fire spread faster over and through the bags. “Let’s go before we suffocate,” Kannadi said to Dima. “What’s in the bag?” “Only the finest flan-aged kukuru beans,” Dima smiled, slinging the overstuffed bag onto her shoulder as though it didn’t weigh as much as a man. “They won’t miss ‘em. You coming, sis?” Leyla kicked the ropes off her legs. “If I ever see them again, I’ll--” Kannadi slapped her threat short. It wasn’t a slap so much as an open-palmed punch. Leyla tilted from the blow and nearly tripped on the rope as she righted herself. “If I ever see you again, Leyla Sandra Albedo, it had best be on your knees in forgiveness, lest I tell Grandmother what you tried to do.” Leyla held her cheek and glared. “C’mon, sis,” Dima said, “let’s just port back and--” The air around Leyla thrummed and shrank and winked her out of sight. Dima awkwardly rubbed the back of her head with her axe handle. “All right then.” - - - A week passed. Alicanto Albedo turned fifty-five years old amidst a celebration which saw ninety guests, one short yet polite congratulatory form letter from the office of the Sultana (stamped with her seal by a nameless bureaucrat), one life-sized ice sculpture of a chocobo, and one chocolate cake of the same height. Kannadi and Leyla both attended, as neither of them could escape certain obligations of high society. Neither of them registered the other’s presence in the slightest way. Among the toasts given was one from the guest of honor to his “now quite eligible” daughter Dima, thanking her for her brave, selfless, and completely solo efforts in acquiring the ingredients to make a cake “to outshine those fish-roasting alleged culinarians of the Thalassocracy.” Neither Kannadi nor Leyla said a word in response. Dima eventually caught up with Kannadi in the Gold Court when the party let out that evening. “Hey,” Dima said, out of breath. Her dress didn’t flatter her, but unfortunately, not much did. She was much more at home in an apron. “Hello, Dima,” Kannadi said. “Doing well?” “Just wanted to thank you? For the thing with the kidnapping, and the pirates? And the saving?” Dima was full of question marks when she was excited, a habit that twenty-one years in the world hadn’t yet broken. “It was my pleasure.” “And for not telling my folks?” “Again, my pleasure.” “And for not murdering my sister when you totally should’ve?” “I assure you I had no intention of that,” Kannadi lied. “Yeah, well, I wanted to thank you? ‘Cause it was really all my own dumb fault? So here.” Dima thrust a flat square wooden box at her cousin, plain black with the top and bottom meeting at a diagonal. Kannadi had seen similar ones contain necklaces, and made the obvious assumption. “Oh, I have enough already, but thank you.” Dima opened the box, grinning. “You sure?” Inside, twenty-five snail shells of pearl-white chocolate caught the light of the court’s lamps. Kannadi instantly recalled Tom Berry’s pair of cataracts in the light of his lantern. “I had a lot left over,” Dima said, clearly proud of herself. “They’re my latest thing, white chocolate on the outside and only the darkest truffle in the middle. They melt in your mouth like you can't believe. Write me sometime and tell me how they are, ‘kay?” Kannadi closed the box, hoping that they wouldn’t glint so much at home, but a thought made her hand pause on the lid. “Only the darkest?” She asked. “Yeah,” Dima said. “Leyla told me you’re allergic to the cheap stuff.” Kannadi blinked. “Why would she?” “Didn’t want you to get sick, I guess.” Kannadi took the box with a polite “Thank you very much.” Dima smiled. Waited. “And?” She prompted. “And, your sister will have to do better than that to make up for attempting to hand me to pirates.” Kannadi heard a loud offended scoff from around a corner. “But I acknowledge the gesture as a fair first step toward abject contrition, and expect more such acts in the near future!” Kannadi called over Dima’s head. Kannadi turned to leave with perfect timing to miss Leyla storming down the hall after her. She smiled at the sound of Dima restraining her sister with angry whispers and strode away home.

[To consume time until next week, for the next several days I'll be posting stories previously written two years ago on Kannadi's Lodestone blog. This one follows "Rain and Monsters." 1572 was certainly a busy year for her.] The sun beat upon Camp Horizon in a rare break between the unnatural yet lately common rains. Heat drank the pools of standing water and turned the air into soup. Black and gold flags celebrating the Saint Daniffen School’s Thirtieth Junior Hunter’s Competition had no wind in which to flap. Most of the children had thus dispensed with their archer’s hats and left their clothes as open as they could. “Notch!” Shouted the thick-shouldered battlewarden. Ten teenagers’ sweating hands flew to their belt-mounted quivers and fumbled with loading their bows. “Draw!” Ten strings pulled. Two arrows slipped and were hastily nudged back into place. “Loose!” Ten arrows flew, six hit their marks, and one little boy cried out in pain. The event’s medic rushed to the line of competitors. Part of a white fletching was stuck deep in the boy’s index finger. Sitting among the audience in the collapsible two-level bleachers under the shading tarps, Kannadi winced in sympathy. “Oh my,” she said. “He stuck out his finger.” Next to Kannadi sat a short teenage girl with bows in her boartailed hair. She sucked her teeth in shaming disappointment, snapped out a fan and fanned herself. “Dumbass,” the younger girl said. “He was on a freakin’ roll. Mom’s gonna chew his ass off if he loses ‘cause of it.” Kannadi did not fan herself, which many among the sweltering audience found odd. The shade allowed the more lightly-dressed spectators to hover at the edge of comfort, but Kannadi was covered neck to ankle in her gray robe. She hadn’t removed her broad black hat, let alone her thigh-high toadskin boots. “Don’t worry, Nadra,” Kannadi said, not the slightest bit uncomfortable. “He built enough of a buffer in points.” “Yeah, watch him blow that too.” “You ought to have faith in your brother.” “Tssch.” And that ended the conversation. While most children of Ul’dahn wealth spent their private school days on manners, business, and how to meet and defeat powerful people, Haytham Albedo had spent his childhood in Saint Daniffen’s. It was a snooty conservative institution which valued the sort of physical education that Ul’dahn aristocrats enjoyed: power from afar, delivered with precision, by pulling a string. To call the competitors “hunters” was self-flattering high-brow hyperbole. The event utterly lacked the cultural value it might have had in Gridania. It was a game in which children served as proxies in their rich parents’ constant one-upsmanship. The biggest creatures the competitors had ever shot were marmots in a pen. Still, being freshly fifteen years old, it was Haytham’s first eligible year. He had to participate,thanks to the enormous pressure from two parents, five siblings and one nearly deified grandmother. Only Nadra, the youngest of his elder sisters, bothered to brave the humidity to serve as the strict and criticizing immediate-family representative. That fact was not lost on him. Fortunately, his cousin Kannadi was there too. He greatly preferred her to his siblings. They hadn’t given him all those books on archery, for one thing. “Were you trying to shoot your finger off, you stupid dodo?” Nadra snapped as he approached. Haytham made a fist to hide his injury. The bandage was pink, for some Twelvedamned reason. Kannadi tapped her chin. “The Satrapi boy did it,” she said, “so you thought it might be advantageous.” Haytham nodded. “Except that chicken feathers are softer than eagle feathers,” Kannadi continued, “and glue of drake scales dries both harder and grittier than that of animal bones. Such abrasiveness at launch velocity would snag in anyone’s finger.” Nadra blinked at Kannadi. “Huh?” “I’m just comparing the simple and efficient construction of common bronze arrows to that of those ridiculously overpriced things your father gave him.” “Hey!” Nadra stamped her foot. “Those were the finest red coral arrows, I’ll have you know! Heads like razors, shafts like iron!” Haytham’s head jerked between his sister and cousin as they traded barbs, apparently oblivious to the rest of the spectators around them. “Then why not pin them to his tabard?” Kannadi calmly bit back. “All your side of the family wants is to flaunt its wealth, after all.” “Oh, like you’re any better? What about that robe?” “This is my work robe, cousin.” “And it cost a mint!” “But it’s effective.” “And Dad’s arrows aren’t?” “Yes, they are--” “--Hah!” “But--” “But nothing, I won!” Haytham risked an “Um.” Nadra haughtily flipped one of her bows. “See? Haytham agrees with me.” “The battlewarden’s coming back out,” he said, pointing his pink bandaged finger. - - - “Ladies and gentlemen!” Shouted the warden at the aetheryte. “We will now begin the final event: the Trophy Hunt!” The men and women in the shaded stands applauded, if only to stir the air. The warden gestured to the line of sweating boys and girls behind him in the sun. Each had an adult at their backs; Haytham had Kannadi. “These fine competitors,” he shouted, “will now range with their designated chaperones, hunt the most impressive game they can, and teleport back, all within the next hour! Depending on the prey taken down and the cleanliness of the kill, massive amounts of points may be awarded! It's still anyone's game! “Now, boys and girls!” The warden spun on his heel to face the line of competitors and spoke, for once, without shouting. “The fewer strikes you make, the better your score. Our game inspectors came all the way from the Quiver’s Hold at great expense to your mommies and daddies, so don’t think you can trick us by pulling arrows out.” Several children gulped. “That goes for you too, chaperones,” the warden continued with a practiced glare. “No tricks. We know what arrow holes look like. Fresh wounds on the carcass made by anything else means disqualification for your young charge. Understand?” Kannadi had her ice brand by her side. The other adults were armed with anything but a bow. They nodded or grunted acknowledgment. “Very well.” The warden spun back around to the audience. “The Trophy Hunt will now commence! Competitors, best of luck!” The audience clapped and the line shattered, each child and adult running off in all directions. Kannadi held her hat down and dashed after Haytham, mildly regretting teaching him how best to sprint. Once the youths were out of sight, the warden resumed shouting. “Now while we wait, ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy a special performance paid for by the generous contributions of Saint Daniffen alumni! Join me in welcoming Gridania’s favorite musical troupe, the Homunculi!” Nadra and several other young girls squealed with delight. Payment for tolerating the heat had come. - - - Haytham finally ran out of breath after a half of a malm and took refuge in the shade of a rock. One of Western Thanalan’s famous weathered-out chasms yawned nearby. Kannadi waited in the sun, hat and robe and boots and all. “How can you stand it?” He asked. “You’ll have to be more specific.” “The heat!” “It’s an acquired temperature. I don’t mind it.” “Oh.” She decided to leave the discussion about loose clothing and air convection for another day. Heat shimmered the muggy air. Haytham flapped his school uniform tabard. “Thanks, by the way,” he said. “For being here. Y’know.” “You’re quite welcome.” Haytham filled the silence with more ventilation flapping. “Dad’s got a lot of trophies,” he said at last. “I know.” Kannadi bit her cheek to restrain her opinion that her uncle had purchased several of them. “He doesn’t teach me anymore.” “I know.” “This one time? We were out hunting? And he shot a dodo right in the eye at twenty -- no, thirty yalms.” “Impressive.” “It ran around all squawking and flapping, fell off the cliff edge and landed on its face. When we found it, the arrow’d gone right through the back of its head.” “I suspect it would.” “It was awesome.” “I bet.” Haytham stopped his flapping and picked up his bow. “Know where to find a really fat dodo?” He asked. “I do, as a matter of....” Kannadi let her sentence trail off. She looked at the sky, then toward the chasm. “What is it?” Haytham stood up. “Listen,” Kannadi said. He listened. He heard buzzing. Haytham’s whisper came laced with excitement. “Gnats.” They came as if on cue. Twenty vile gnats buzzed out of the chasm, headed away from the shady rock. Their collective buzz set Kannadi’s teeth on edge. The recent bizarre aetheric disorder in the land had enlarged many monsters, but few by such a degree as the common gnat. They were bigger than her, now. Haytham breathed excitedly. “I never saw Dad shoot a gnat. He’s scared of them.” “As well he should be,” Kannadi said. She could nearly feel her teeth rattle. One gnat in the swarm split away and alighted on a rock bridge spanning the chasm. Kannadi could see it had something wriggling in its grasp. The gnat began eating its prey, and it stopped wriggling. Haytham gripped his bow and began stalking towards the rock bridge. Kannadi seized him by the shoulder. “No,” she said. “It’s right there!” Haytham protested. “Then leave it there.” “But I can kill it in one shot!” “All respect, cousin, I doubt that.” “I just want one shot at it! If I make it I’ll win for sure, and if I don’t, I’ll only have wasted one arrow and then we can find a dodo.” “And when the gnat turns aggressive on you?” “Then you can show me how strong you are by killing it yourself. And I’ll pay you a lot.” Kannadi blinked, exactly once. He was certainly his father’s son. “You have a fine career ahead of you in Ul’dah, cousin,” she said, laboring to not let sarcasm slip in. “Now watch your footing and stalk downwind.” Haytham’s stalk was more of an eye-drawing lurch across completely open terrain. He was about as hidden as a mountain as he approached the gnat on the rock bridge. Kannadi kept both eyes on him, but allowed her attention to drift to the thing the gnat was eating. She had thought it was a marmot, being about the same size. The problem was that marmots weren’t that fat. Or white. She squinted. The prey was bald, too. And clearly too long to be a diremite larva. “Darkness descendeth,” said a man’s voice behind her. Kannadi turned around, taking up her brand in the same motion. No one was there. The voice continued regardless. “Open thine eyes, ye seeker of truth!” Kannadi heard an electric sizzle behind her. She spun to see her cousin alone on the bridge. “Haytham?” The gnat had vanished. Haytham looked back at her, genuinely confused. He shrugged. The gnat reappeared between them in a burst of electricity. It aimed itself at the boy. “Chainspell Stoneskin!” Kannadi screamed. Aetheric stone enveloped Haytham an instant before a violet beam of lightning blasted him off the bridge. He shed insubstantial shards of the protective spell as he arced into open air. The gnat descended after him. “Shadowsear!” The gnat exploded. Kannadi sprinted toward the rock bridge. She stopped short at the edge. “Stoneskin,” she muttered. And she leapt into the chasm. - - - Kannadi hit the ground. Her spell absorbed her impact, freeing her of bits of rock that were invisible before and after they fell off. Haytham lay still on the ground. Before she could call out to him, he stirred. “Kannadi?” She strode to her cousin’s side. “I’m here, Haytham. Hold onto me, I’ll teleport us back to Horizon.” Haytham smacked her outstretched hand aside. “You can’t! I haven’t got a trophy yet!” “Your life is more important.” “Nadra’ll tell Mom and Dad I screwed up!” “We can’t stay here, Haytham, the chasms are rife with deadly monsters!” “Oh yeah? Where?” Kannadi paused and looked around for the first time. She and her cousin were alone, save for the plants that had capitalized on abundant water and relative shade. A thin blue spire of glowing light stood out some distance away. “There… well, there ought to be something. That’s the Footfalls node over there, there should be diremites crawling about.” Haytham dusted himself off and walked to where his bow had fallen, luckily unbroken. “Big ones?” “Their tails are taller than you.” “Really? I bet that’d be worth a ton of points.” Haytham bent to grab his bow. Only then did he notice the thing it had landed on. It looked like a giant white sausage with teeth -- or rather half a sausage. Something had chewed on it. Haytham, exercising typical juvenile foresight, picked up the curiosity and brought it closer to his face for inspection. The thing twitched and he jumped clear off the ground. “Ew, ew! What is that?!” The offending sausage turned over and over in apparent agony, oozing thick yellow-brown gel from a jagged wound where the rest of its body once was. Kannadi covered her mouth. Haytham stared slack-jawed in the disgusted awe typical of his age. “This is serious, Haytham,” Kannadi said behind her hand. “Do you know what a sandworm is?” Haytham maintained his wire-tight gaze on the writhing annelid. “That?” “Sandworms are enormous beasts that roam the empty quarter of the desert. That, cousin, is a newborn. A sandworm would have to tunnel through bedrock to reach here and lay its eggs.” Haytham grasped his bow and used it to poke at the stricken white thing. “Is it still around? The mom, I mean?” Kannadi scanned the chasm. Suddenly the absence of monsters made terrible sense. And yet…. “No. Sandworms don’t rear their own young. They deposit eggs and leave forever. Those gnats must have found the cache and made off with it.” She exhaled. “There’s no danger of encountering a sandworm here.” “Aww,” awwed Haytham as he retrieved his spilled arrows. “Don’t aww me, cousin. I couldn’t so much as scratch one. Luckily the gnats took care of—” Kannadi bit off the rest of her thought and started a new one aloud. “Why were they fleeing?” “They got full?” “Gnats never swarm away from food! There had to be a predator! And down here, there’s….” Kannadi looked to the nearest cave and found herself correct. A reptilian head fringed with rainbow feathers stretched into the sun on a long hooded neck. The monster seemed to slither even as it walked. “A basilisk peiste.” Kannadi drew her ice brand. Behind her, unseen, Haytham wordlessly notched an arrow. “Haytham,” she said without turning, “I want you to run to the node. I’ll keep this creature at bay. Do you understand?” An arrow whizzed past her hat. It struck the dirt between the basilisk’s clawed toes. “That’s rather the opposite of running, cousin.” The basilisk lowered its head and charged, baring its needle teeth. Haytham nocked another arrow, breathing rapidly to keep from shivering himself apart. “Kannadi,” he said, “I have an idea.” “Hang your idea! Slow!” Black light cascaded over the basilisk without effect. Haytham shot his arrow and fled before he could see it miss. The basilisk veered to chase him. Kannadi pointed her brand. “Paralyze!” Yellow light sparkled across the long spiked scales of the basilisk’s back. The creature spat a hiss over its needle teeth and jerked to a standstill. Haytham hid behind a tall weathered-out pillar of rock and nocked another arrow. He glanced at his quiver; he had two shots left. “Kannadi!” He shouted. “Don’t pull it off me!” Kannadi ran straight towards him. “Nonsense! I’ll drag you out if I have to!” “Shadowbind!” Haytham shouted. He loosed his arrow at a low arc and pierced Kannadi’s shadow. Black thorns erupted from the shade and bound her painlessly in place. “Why you insufferable little…!” Kannadi struggled, pinned upright. Of course the stupid boy would bindher out of range of the basilisk. “How did you learn that?!” Haytham fumbled with his last arrow. “Dad paid for really good tutors! And your books really helped! I’m sorry, I really need it mad at me!” “Then tell it you’re its cousin!” Haytham circled the pillar halfway, putting him squarely between it and the monster. The bulging eyes focused on him with murderous intent, and he could see the restrained twitching of the basilisk’s muscles set to sprint at first opportunity. Haytham’s legs trembled, but his hands didn’t. He nocked his final arrow. He drew the bowstring. “Hawk’s Eye,” he whispered. “Hawk’s Eye!” He yelled. “Haytham, don’t—!” The yellow light broke its hold. The red coral arrow flew. Freed from paralysis, the basilisk drew back its head to strike, meeting perfectly the arc of Haytham’s too-high shot. The arrow sank into the basilisk’s right eye. Reptilian blood spurted. The enraged creature charged. Haytham’s wobbly legs stepped him slowly and carefully to the right of the pillar. Blinded in its right eye, the basilisk aimed its strike with its left, which in its surge of predatory rage did not register the stone pillar as a collision hazard. The toothy jaws snapped shut so close to Haytham, his hair moved. It was the creature’s last action. The full force of forward momentum and wood-tough striking neck muscles hammered the arrow from its eye to its brain. The basilisk’s mouth, neck, shoulders, legs, tail, and body slackened and flopped to the ground one after another. It was a long and magnificent collapse, like a crumbling tower. Kannadi finally broke free of her bound shadow and dashed to her cousin, too shocked to even scream. To her amazement he remained absolutely stock-still without so much as an eyelid twitch, the basilisk’s forked tongue lolling out between his feet. In a spreading pool of liquid, she noticed. - - - Four marmots, three dodos, one mole and one tiny cactuar were in the process of being measured and weighed as the music stretched into the climax of its allotted hour. A golden-haired hyur, lead singer of the Homunculi, tossed his head at the end of his song, throwing off beads of sweat which sparkled in the air and on his exposed chest. The older members of the audience politely applauded. Nadra and seven other girls in the stands bounced and screamed and wept and vibrated their gleefully-clenched fists close to their chests, squealing incoherent vowels of adulation. The bard and two backup players each gave an extravagant bow. The air thrummed. A very dead basilisk suddenly lay directly behind the performers, limply gawping as Haytham and Kannadi stood on its back. Haytham held onto a dorsal spike taller than him. The bard's adoring fans continued screaming. - - - “Presentation is nine-tenths of victory,” Kannadi said later under the setting sun. Haytham had insisted on walking back to Ul’dah with his cousin, despite the weight of the first-place trophy he carried over his shoulder. “Dad’s gonna flip! And Mom! You know what Mom’ll do?” “What, Haytham?” “She’s gonna backflip!” “And what will your siblings do, somersault?” “Oh the heck with them. Now they can’t ever say I’m the weakest.” Haytham threw back his head and shouted at the sky, “I killed a basilisk with one shot, Twelve! Give me a sandworm next!” Kannadi sighed. “Darkness descendeth,” she muttered. There was no telling how long ago the sandworm came. With all the recent climate changes, monsters even worse than that were bound to be stalking closer to civilization. But they would have to contend with her and scores of other adventurers. And also, she thought, with that phenomenally lucky, bandage-fingered boy shouting hubris to the skies.

[To consume time until next week, for the next several days I'll be posting stories previously written two years ago on Kannadi's Lodestone blog. 1572 was certainly a busy year for her.] Rain dropped into the fountain of the Gold Court, plinking and splishing from far above. Accompanying the sounds was a rapid tapping which couldn’t have had less to do with water. “It's their basements,” the Hellsguard said somewhere near the taps. “Flooded, from all the rain.” Kannadi focused on her hammer, chipping imperfections off a rock at the edge of the upper Gold Court. “How deep?” She asked between bouts of tapping. Tree-trunk arms crossed behind a broad back. “On up to the door, last I heard.” “I distinctly remember,” tap tap tap, “having warned them against precisely this event.” Tap tap tap. “One rudimentary pump could've prevented this.” Tap tap. “They don't much like intervention, Miss.” Kannadi moved her rock to her grinding stone. “There's that Phrontistery woman, Catriona.” “That's different. She helps the refugees, she's no tinterested in capitalizing on them.” Grind, grind. “The matriarch is not interested either,” the towering roegadyn continued. “I didn't say she was.” Grind. “And yet it's you who tells me this, Mister Rubali. You, of all her employees.” Grind, grind. “What other assumption am I to make but that Grandmother wishes to expand her influence to the helpless?” Khal Rubali took off his darkened glasses. His hair, beard, and eyes were shades of yellow, practically radiant next to his dark red skin. He only looked more threatening in such a proper doublet. The intimidating effect of his presence was lessened somewhat by the surfacing of his street dialect, normally kept under by his shades. “You could ass-sume, Miss, that your grandmama just wants to keep friendly with the 'fujis. You could ass-sume she'saskin' a thing of you 'cause you got a habit'a helpin' them now and then. You could ass-sume this's got not a bloody thing to do with business, but's so up your alley it's got a storefront, like. An' you could ass-sume your grandmama knows enough not to trust it to some git what might get eaten.” With a final grind, Kannadi held a fresh heliodor to the light. It sparkled. “Go on,” she said. - - - It rained all over Thanalan. Thankfully Kannadi's hat was practically an awning. There was no airship service, for fear of the Garleans. Chocobo rentals had been halted for half a year. Caravan service had shrunk to once weekly, and wouldn't go as far as Little Ala Mihgo in the first place. So she walked. Little Ala Mhigo, the hamlet of refugees. Those without luck or interest in Ul'dah ultimately moved there, for where else could they go? The naturally hollowed rock formations of Halatali linked to the vast cave system just underground, where shelter, water, and safely edible moles could be found in abundance. And so the lingering scraps of the fallen polis moved in and settled. Kannadi sought them out now and then. Their intimate knowledge of local monsters proved invaluable in her research. She paid for the knowledge (and any interesting samples they gathered) in the detritus of a thousand guildleve targets, none of which she needed but all of which the refugees could use. Her grandmother often attempted to wedge herself into the exchanges; on rare occasions, Kannadi allowed it. Today, for instance. She was to be an emissary, of sorts.... The wind shifted from the south and the rain went nearly horizontal. Kannadi hurried to an outcrop and crouched in its shadow, letting the rain blast around her. The road was a river, surging from the canyon pass. Kannadi squinted. A cactuar flailed jerkily in the current. She began undoing her boots. So much rain in such an arid region meant flash floods. With no outlet to the sea but high inclines to steep cliffs, all that water had to go somewhere. And Kannadi knew exactly where. The tunnels under her feet were likely torrents. Subterranean caves were becoming new aquifers. Mr. Rubali had said Little Ala Mhigo was set to become one. Water had burst through the lowermost gate and risen to overtake the storehouses. Most of the perishable material had been moved, but there was still so much rotted food and waterlogged material remaining. It seemed that men who went in after it were turning up dead. And eaten. There was a monster down there. One they couldn't reach. They needed an expert. The wind let up, but the rain didn't. Kannadi stuck her boots under her arms, hiked up her robe and waded into the flood. - - - It stopped raining just as she approached Little Ala Mhigo. Of course. Her boots squelched as she walked in. She wiped her ice brand on a sleeve. A man approached, dressed in a dalmatica and coif. “Good afternoon, Mister Jalani,” Kannadi said. “Just Grifiud is fine, Miss Albedo,” he nodded. “This way.” Kannadi dripped after her guide through the weathered-out crags of the hamlet. Tents stood wherever space was ample enough. Carpets hung across the narrow crack-passages in the rock, intended to provide some measure of shade when the sun was at its peak. They sagged and dripped. The guide and guest passed the hamlet’s natural water pool -- in that they sloshed through the shallower edge. The pool had swollen such that nearby tents were sandbagged for self-defense. “Madam Albedo claimed you would assist as a goodwill gesture,” Grifiud said. “You seem skeptical,” said Kannadi. “Of the Silver Giant? Why ever would I be?” “It is entirely goodwill,” Kannadi said flatly. “Catchless, stringless. What are the facts?” Grifiud led her into another narrow path through the rock walls. More carpets sagged wetly above. “Three dead, one body recovered,” he said. “All in the basements -- or rather the one basement we have left. There is something down there.” “What were the conditions of the four?” “Dead.” “Well yes, but how?” “If I knew, I would say.” “Did you inspect for stings?” “There was no sting. The bodies were broken, brutally. And eaten, partially.” Kannadi adjusted her hat. “Crabs, perhaps. Some live in the aquifers. Rising waters connect more tunnels, expanding their range. Things we might never see are now as close to our daily ranges as marmots.” Grifiud reached into a pocket. “And crabs have teeth like this?” It was undeniably a fang, curved and long as his hand. A bit of dried purple material still stuck to the root. Kannadi blinked. “No, on the whole crabs do not have teeth.” “This was found in my cousin's chest.” “I'm sorry.” Grifiud pocketed the fang and moved on. The third portion of Little Ala Mhigo was two-tiered. Water dripped from the edges of the top to join a trickle leading to the basement door. “He went to check on two others,” Grifiud said. “I went to check on him. There was a shape over him, but it withdrew when it saw my lantern. It pulled away too fast, it seems.” “Could you tell anything about that shape?” “It had a long tail, that much I saw. Perhaps you could see it too.” They were at the door. Kannadi stared at it. “Might I have a lantern?” “You’ll need one. I'm going to close the door after you go in.” “I appreciate it,” Kannadi lied. - - - It was wet, but Kannadi kept her boots on. She paused at the stairs. The lantern was little comfort. The door had led to a short tunnel, down into the flooded cave. Crates floated. Food floated. The floor, Kannadi knew, was slanted slightly. Somewhere underwater on the far side of the room was an open door, she also knew. She tried not to imagine eyes peeking around it. Kannadi placed the lantern on the lowermost dry step, drew her ice brand and dipped the pointed tip. She pulled it back up and licked it. No salt. So the mystery monster wasn't a transplant from the ocean. Stingless, strong, aquatic, and with a tail. And teeth. “Angler, perhaps. But they're too small...” Kannadi waded in. Ripples bumped the floating debris. Monsters had been changing lately, she mused. Not only in size, as noticed by guards as far afield as Riversmeet, but in fundamental shifts of behavior. Marked rises in intelligence. Aggression. Would it not be possible for a monster to mutate, say? Kannadi speared a floating zucchini with her brand. It showed no signs of nibbling. Probably a carnivore, then, whatever the culprit was. She flung the vegetable aside and heard a soft crash-tinkle. She waded toward the sound to see what she broke. It was an open box, stacked on another one underwater. Crystals lay inside, disturbed by the vegetable assault. Kannadi stared. She plucked up one of the crystals, waded back to the stairs and held it to the lamp. The crystal was gray and dull. “Deaspected,” Kannadi said aloud. “Darkness descendeth,” said a man's voice behind her. Kannadi put the crystal down. She rested her hand on her brand, but didn't turn. “Hear my words if you are in search of truth….” That made her turn. A Duskwight elezen in a white and black cowl stood on the water's surface, over the deepest point. Kannadi gripped the blue orb of her brand. “Shall I assume you are a ghost?” Kannadi asked, utterly casual. “You could make a woman freeze on the spot, sir.” The elezen stood perfectly still on the water. “Ne'er till land consumes sun can sea bear moons. Heavens spew crimson flame, hells seep black dooms. The senary sun yields the septenary moon -- expelling the Astral, beckoning the Umbral. So saith the eternal wisdom of Mezaya Thousand Eyes.” “Well, good for her.” “Open thine eyes, ye seeker of truth! Stand and bear witness to the path that must be trod!” Kannadi lowered her eyebrows. “And what precisely–” Something took her underwater by the ankles. The grab and pull were instant. A long arm coiled around her knees. Kannadi's hand flew to her weapon, but her voice escaped her in a geyser of bubbles as a third arm gripped her waist. She grasped at the arm and it felt like leather over wood. It tightened further and squoze out the rest of her breath. Under the water was dark on dark, but Kannadi's acuity of terror used what light there was. Arms drew her in. Teeth flashed. A mouth opened. Kannadi’s mind raced. Too fast. Too fast…. And half the room froze solid. Rock sheared off the walls from the force of expansion. Lamplight sparkled off the ice. Kannadi burst up for breath and threw her arms atop the ice. Her legs screamed. Her lungs wanted to, but the breath caught in her throat. The ice was clear as glass, and she could see her attacker. It was purple -- rich, royal purple. Tentacles reached every which way. And somewhere down there -- yes, teeth. A carnivorous grin of them, frozen in place. Kannadi stabbed her brand into the tentacles around her legs. They slackened. Kannadi kicked herself away. She shivered violently. Her breath hung in the air. The elezen was nowhere to be seen. Kannadi's hat floated. She picked it up by the plume and stuck it under her arm. - - - “Sudden visitors where they oughtn't be were not unexpected,” Kannadi said later over tea. “For all I knew, the culprit was a sahagin.” “I see,” said her grandmother. “The elezen's presence had given me a target. His words had filled the delayed reaction. And my Freeze spell hit the very spot where he stood. That the spot was filled with a different body was of no consequence to the spell.” “Good that you've kept up your magic, then.” Karen Albedo sipped her tea. She was a thick, gray-haired, severe yet refined woman of seventy-nine, still over six fulms tall after the shrinking of age. “But are you certain there was a flesh-and-blood body to be targeted?” “Not entirely,” Kannadi said. “That spectre has evidently been seen all over Eorzea. Another portent, surely.” Karen bit into a scone. “Mm. And the creature?” “It was an orthrid.” Karen coughed explosively and took a gulp of tea. “More tea, Mr. Rubali?” Kannadi called sweetly. Rubali stepped into the sitting room with a tea kettle and filled his employer's cup first. Kannadi laced her fingers. “You were right to send me, Grandmother. I wouldn't have recognized it if I hadn't seen the arrangement of its teeth myself. The reconstruction in Father's museum is entirely the wrong color.” Rubali departed silently with the teapot. Karen flushed down the errant bit of scone with another gulp of tea. “Are you certain?” She said at length. “Positive, Grandmother. Mister Jalani and his men chipped and chopped the corpse out and burned it, but not before giving me the jaws and two of the tentacles -- symbols of good faith, of course.” “I imagine they’re worth millions.” “Possibly. Father's at the Phrontistery by now, asking how best to preserve them.” “Do you suppose there are more of those beasts about?” “I haven't a clue. Prehistoric cave octopi are, by virtue of alleged extinction, difficult to find.” “Could there be a population somewhere in the aquifers?” Karen rubbed her chin with thumb and forefinger. “Or do you suppose...?” Kannadi placed the deaspected crystal by her teacup. “The aether in such crystals as these has been drained,” she said. “But to where has it gone? I believe the aether of the land is somehow leaking from its former housings and finding its way into lesser beings. Changing them. But that is mostly conjecture at this point.” Karen took a tiny silver spoon from a sugar bowl and prodded the crystal with it. “Quite. If you ask me, the more pressing question is, why has it gone? Is it a natural phenomenon? A symptom ofthe procession of ages? Is there some intelligence directing it? What do you suppose could be happening, Kanna dear?” Kannadi allowed her grandmother the nickname. She took back the crystal and stuck it in a robe pocket. “That, Grandmother, is a question for adventurers.” “But one which affects ordinary people.” Kannadi stood. “Well then. Being of both groups, I shall pursue it. If you'll kindly excuse me....” - - - The rain resumed once Kannadi lost sight of the Silver Bazaar. Of course. Her grandmother spent most of her time there, away from the bustle of Ul'dah. She always claimed it helped her see the world better, as the best places to stand a telescope are away from city lights. “But only,” Karen once said, “with distant mirrors such as you showing me the world.” If I’m so important, Kannadi thought, you could have sprung for a chocobo. Kannadi sloshed through an ankle-high surge in the canyon road back to Ul’dah when a peal of thunder rolled. She looked toward its source and caught sight of a hooded figure atop the canyon wall. She blinked once and the figure vanished. Kannadi tilted her hat back down and moved on. And the rain faded to grim silence, draining away all sounds but the squelch of her boots.

Thanks, and you're welcome! Most of my writing has an... economy of language. I've had a lot of practice with television screenplays, so it blends into my prose. It helps to have an audience who already knows as much as possible about the setting.

I'd like to give it a shot. Put me down for test-run assistance.

I thoroughly approve of this idea. To add to the pile of other ideas, how about a relay race? It would work like this: Everyone starts at the same spot on a mount of their choosing, carrying a specific item to be designated as the "baton" -- something unusual that hardly anyone would carry around. Relay partners would be stationed at specific locations. First-leg riders would dismount and quickly trade the item to the next rider, who would then run to the next location. This could continue as far as desired, ideally through slightly dangerous areas, with as many teams and relay stops as needed to maintain the fun. The first relayer to trade the "baton" item to a waiting game official at the designated finish line would win. I envision a mad race of chocobos, goobbues, coeurls and whatever else tearing through field and stream, chased by aggressive monsters now and then. Relay stops would probably need to be at aetheryte camps in the event of unexpected rider death. Anyone else like that idea?

Cartenau Flats weren’t, at the current place of rest. The cliffs dividing Thanalan from Mor Dhona stretched and crumbled into the plains region where the Allied Forces planned to make the evening’s clash. A full thousand soldiers hailed from Ul’dah alone. Kannadi observed them from atop a boulder atop a cliff. A breeze caught her vanya-silk robe and fluttered her flared gray sleeves. She reached up to secure her hat. Joint military operations, she thought. A fine misdirection for the public. She had risen to Chief Sergeant by virtue of a handful of dead Garleans, a respectable number of healed adventurers, and an awful lot of dead monsters. Her specialty, she felt, was and always had been detailed observation; the slinging of spells both soothing and scouring was more of a hobby at which she excelled. It seemed that the Immortal Flames valued the latter more than the former. She felt it was a pity. Observation was clearly the more important skill. If not by astute examination, how else could she know with which spell, on which body part, how far away, at what strength and what speed she might destroy a given foe with maximum efficiency? It astonished her how many of her fellow adventurers thought Bombs were weak to Water spells…. Down in the allegedly flat lands below her, before the next sunrise, a clash to end an era would occur. That was the plan, anyway. Plans. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to simply make plans, to step back and a little ways above the field and issue orders. Kannadi imagined a grid laid over the Flats, populated by individual units who had come to an agreement that only one would move at a time. How simple and sensible it would be, how much cleaner it would be, if all wars could play out like that…. “How’d you get up there?” Came her cousin’s voice below. “It isn’t so difficult to climb, Leyla,” Kannadi said from on high. “Just a matter of upward momentum.” Leyla Albedo, a Chief Sergeant herself, leaned on her lance. Her armor was all chain and black leather, draped on her narrow frame like a limp flag. She and Kannadi had a long-standing rivalry, grown friendlier in recent days. But not too friendly. “Well get down then, Kanna,” she said. “Rider wants you.” Kannadi descended the boulder like a goat, a controlled fall made of short hops from tiny foothold to tiny foothold. She landed with aristocratic grace, bent her knees and dusted the hem of her robe. “For what purpose?” Kannadi asked, casual as could be. “Damned if I know.” At that, Leyla swept her lance on her shoulder. Its arc knocked Kannadi’s hat off her head, but Kannadi deftly caught it at the brim and donned it again as she rose without a break in the single swift motion. “Move like that and you just might survive today,” Leyla continued, smiling. “No Garlean worth his ceruleum would swing a shallow blow like that, cousin,” said Kannadi, smiling back. “Oh?” Leyla rotated her lance off her shoulder and struck like a heron. The very tip of her weapon went tink, ever so gently, against the black pearl of Kannadi’s left earring. Kannadi, still smiling, and precisely as gentle, moved the lance-head away with the tip of her finger. Her middle finger. “Strike like that and you may well survive too,” Kannadi said. - - - “Promoted?” Kannadi asked, suddenly bewildered in the Free Brigade’s command tent. “I don’t believe I stuttered, Second Lieutenant.” Jakys Rider slid a long paper across what passed for a commander’s desk during field operations. “Functional Area Fifty-Nine, Strategic Plans and Policy, which means deciding who goes where with what and how -- or it would, if there weren’t already plans put in place by better officers.” Kannadi snatched up the document. Rider rolled his wrist and turned his body to the map hanging on the tent wall behind his desk. “The Sultana thanks you, blah blah blah,” Rider droned. “Enjoy the view from the rear tents.” “Now wait just a moment!” Kannadi read quickly by habit and skimmed the paper at lightning speed. “I had no say in this! Who in….” At the bottom of the sheet, signatures already filled horizontal lines. Kannadi recognized a name. She closed her eyes. “Commander Rider, sir?” Kannadi maintained her composure with some difficulty. “Yeah?” The High Flame Commander’s attention remained on the map. His posture declared that it was there to stay. “I was not aware that my grandmother had attained any rank in the Flames whatsoever.” “She hasn’t. Thanks to the fortune she moved into our coffers, she’s earned a couple official favors.” Rider dragged his thumb around a rise in elevation on the map, tracing a troop advancement that only he saw. “I’m not sure I want to know where she got the money so fast.” “Usury, mostly,” Kannadi grumbled unpatriotically. Only in Ul’dah could wealth buy influence and get a receipt. “But your name is here as well,” she flapped the paper down, “and you are not the sort to promote without merit. May I ask what I’ve done to deserve this?” Rider shrugged one shoulder, eyes still locked on the printed terrain. “Look,” he said, “you’ve served well so far, and Roaille said to go with it, so I did.” Kannadi dropped her jaw. “The Grand Flame Marshal? Why would she? I ought to be below her notice!” “It had something or other to do with your paper on Dalamud.” “What? I wrote no such--” But she had. Many weeks ago, after Dalamud had descended close enough for scrutiny, Kannadi became entranced by it. Something about the lines and circles in its surface had refused to leave her mind. And so she had become all but a shut-in, glued to her desk and shackled to her telescope by the mystery it presented, until at last the spell broke and she found herself the owner of great sheaves of painstaking illustrations and mostly-legible scrawling. Sheaves which she had shut away in an armory chest and deposited at her parents’ home for safe keeping, in the off chance that all those papers might come to some value one day. And her grandmother made frequent visits to her parents’ home. Kannadi took a steadying breath. “Am I to assume that my grandmother is present on the field?” “Hells no. She’s moving more funds from behind the walls. Haven’t needed to contact her yet.” Rider finally turned back to his desk, only to open a small drawer. A drawstring pouch sat inside: white and lumpy, bearing a shell crest. Rider, satisfied that it was still there, quickly shut the drawer. Kannadi’s eyes practically flashed at the bag’s brief appearance. She fought to keep her tone level. “Commander. May I borrow one of those linkpearls?” - - - “I thought you would be pleased, Kanna dear.” Kannadi paced angrily, alone, near the excellent vantage of the cliff-edge boulder. “And why precisely would I be pleased about you forwarding that poorly-assembled pile of half-mad chocoboscratch to the Flames?! Could you even make a gil’s worth of sense out of it?” Karen Albedo, safe and secure in her home on Garnet Street, lowered a stemless brandy glass. Her seventy-nine years hadn’t tarnished any of the stately class with which she carried herself, even when seated. Her free hand pinched the white linkpearl pinned to her earlobe. “I couldn’t,” she said, “and they were simply going to waste with your mother and father, so I showed them to Rasim, and he seemed quite taken by your conclusion.” Back at Carteneau, Kannadi pinched between her eyes. Rasim. Another cousin, an alchemist of higher rank in the Flames than her. Of course her grandmother would have shown him. “I don’t even recall my conclusion.” “That the lines in the moon resembled the motion of aether through one of those crystal-sheet things you used to enjoy.” Kannadi blinked. That sounded familiar. Yes, the little panes of aetheric glass in the special frames, not unlike guildleves. Strike a spot on the edge with the little pointed hammer and irregular spectral lines would spider out through the glass in a flash of light. They were costly toys for wealthy children, intended to delight the dim and stoke curiosity in the bright. If a spell were shot through such a toy rather than the force of a tiny hammer, the lines would always include circles -- but no spell had ever been rigorously tested in such a manner, since almost invariably, spells destroyed the glass. Those surpassingly rare examples of non-breakage had been recorded in minuscule detail in one of the books passed on to new thaumaturgists as required reading. Kannadi had read them all, of course. And Dalamud’s surface, as much as could be seen through a telescope, bore a strong resemblance to one of the recordings. She knew this because of the endless hours she spent drawing each and every line she could see. She had hardly even blinked in the perpetual red light, unsure if it promised or threatened…. “What spell is it?” Karen’s voice snapped her granddaughter out of her reverie. “Excuse me?” “Those were the last words on the last page of your mountain of notes. They concluded an avalanche of surprisingly detailed and -- if I may say so -- exhaustive speculation which you seem to have sourced from several of the Ossuary’s heavier books.” Karen gently swirled her glass. “What spell is it? A fine question to bother the finest minds in the Flames for at least the near future. None of them know, though it’s still much too soon to expect results.” “Oh. Yes.” “You could try to sound more enthused, Kanna dear. Think of the possibilities. Your one question may well be the start of an investigation into new applications of magic -- perhaps even a new school. There were some in the Flames who were… intrigued. Myself included. And so I used my influence to nudge you out of harm’s way in the coming battle.” Karen sipped her brandy. Kannadi’s annoyance came across the linkpearl loud and clear. “You ‘nudged’ me off the field entirely,” Kannadi said. “To keep you safe, dear. It simply would not do to let one of the Sultanate’s best and brightest meet an ignoble end so early in what promises to be an illustrious career. The Marshal agreed with me.” Kannadi wished she could scowl across the link. “And how much did you donate to the cause before she agreed?” “Six figures,” said Karen, utterly unabashed. “Come now, Kanna, don’t be so cross with me. It was your fevered scribbles that purchased you a nice safe officer’s commission. All I paid was the filing fee.” Silence fell over the link. “Thank you, Grandmother,” Kannadi said after a moment. “I will use my new rank well.” The white linkpearl disappeared into Kannadi’s fist. She strode around the boulder. Leyla stood on the opposite side, arms and ankles crossed, her back against the rock. “Off to hide in the officer’s tents, Kanna?” Kannadi stopped short. “I am off, cousin, to attach myself to a unit. By chains if need be.” “What?” Leyla uncrossed herself, plainly astonished. “Plans are already in place for the attack. But no plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Kannadi swept her arm out over the view. “Someone out there will need a field strategist today.” Leyla arched an eyebrow at her cousin. Kannadi stared back. - - - Steel clashed and magic flew. Leyla leapt and skewered a rider off his magitek armor as the rest of her unit, ten adventurers in all, assailed nearby Garleans on foot. Kannadi, the temporary twelfth to the party, watched her cousin pin the rider to the ground. She shook her linkpearl in her hand. The sounds it made buzzed and spat fractions of words. Kannadi could hear the battle far afield to the south even without the little device. “Commander!” She yelled into it. “Commander Rider! Respond!” A legionnaire charged Kannadi from behind. One hand to her ear, she pointed her ivory staff and blasted her foe off his feet in a localized gale. He sailed into the path of a magitek armor’s main cannon, took one hit and was seen no more. Kannadi clenched her jaw. Two armors remained, and twenty enemy soldiers besides, in the narrow pass between the cliffs. The rock walls stretched so high she could only see the uppermost curve of the nemesis moon. “Flats indeed,” she practically growled at the lying terrain. The linkpearl remained unresponsive in the erratic aether. There was little chance of any word getting out. “Confound it!” She shouted. “We’ve lost contact with the main host!” Leyla yanked her weapon free as the riderless contraption sagged. “What was that about plans, Kanna?” She shouted back above the din of battle. Kannadi smiled. Ducked a whizzing arrow. “Rally the unit! Pinch those walking armors! One by one, cousin!” An earthquake struck to punctuate her command. The sheer force jarred Kannadi to the bones. Rocks crumbled from the cliffs. “Run!” Both cousins shouted. The serendipitous quake freed hundreds of stones large and small upon the fighters in the pass. Kannadi, Leyla, and Leyla’s unit fell back in time. The Garleans did not. In a matter of seconds, the pass was closed with stone and corpse. “Commander?” Kannadi tried the linkpearl again. More buzzing, and nothing but. “Comman--” The last syllable froze in her mouth. The small portion of Dalamud that still crested the cliff broke apart. Something rose inside. Wings? Leyla shouted something at her. She didn’t hear. Didn’t care. What spell is it? A foolish question, in retrospect. What Kannadi never asked, what should have commanded her attention, was one step deeper. On what was the spell used? She learned in short order, as did every living eye in Carteneau. Kannadi remained still amid the calamity of flaming stones, statuesque in stunned serenity, wishing only that she had a better vantage. Gradually she became aware that her cousin was shaking her violently by the shoulder. She hadn’t finished processing that sensation when Leyla slapped her full across the face. Kannadi held her cheek. Her hand glowed. All parts of her did. Her senses returned enough to wonder why her cousin was glowing as well. The ground and sky dropped away, not only from sight but from all sensation. And she wondered no more.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/62075-Letter-from-the-Producer-LIVE-Part-VII-Q-A-Updates?p=998027&viewfull=1#post998027 So it seems that Balmung will still exist as Balmung, and will be one of the many "Legacy Worlds." This is good news! It means we don't have to worry about the RPC's current server changing on everyone. One less thing to worry about.

Your new thread looks good so far! And with some excellent images to start it off.

After some consideration: Demoiselle Crane.

"Reflective Scholar."

Well I'm glad to have made a character worth your attention! Though now I find myself slightly impatient to get back into the game for RP purposes...

I love it! Excellent grasp of character there, great linework as always. Very well done. Now I have a full-body image of her to show off that isn't a cropped screenshot! Edit: I stuck it into Kannadi's art references post for additional visibility.

Small flies sang of luck, in their fog around the corpse. Vultures braved the buzzing weather, tearing at gashes already opened. Some of the rats were becoming too fat to turn around in the tunnels they gorged through the body. Beetles dabbed greedily at the seepage. The gray hill was now arguably more alive than when it had lumbered Vylbrand on all fours that morning. Its horns were missing. Kannadi counted two circles of flesh carved neatly out of its flank, the point of ingress for so many of the little opportunists. “Sometimes, Alcibiades, I dislike people,” Kannadi said. “Kweh,” Alcibiades said. “It’s easy to blame Dalamud, of course, but I’ve seen similar sights for years.” Alcibiades preened himself under his rider. High above, clouds swirled about the red moon Dalamud. The ugly bruise it made in the sky had become little to remark upon after Kannadi’s exhaustive personal study of its lined surface. That dire herald of disaster and the shifting of ages had intrigued her once, even entranced her, but now she found it quite normal… one pile of notations later. Other subjects demanded her attention now. What if the world didn’t end? When the smoke cleared, someone would find edge-of-eras monster data valuable, even if it was only her. A kobold, safely distant, clicked beads across an abacus, looking up only to squint at the great buffalo corpse and make estimations. The armored black beastman had glared exactly once at Kannadi on her chocobo when she arrived five minutes ago, but a clear lack of initiative on the adventurer’s part indicated she was merely a spectator and therefore unprofitable. Kannadi produced a notepad and pencil from the recesses of her robe. There she noted the estimated height and weight of the late beast, the distance the battle had ranged, the exact site of demise, the time of day, and the direction and estimated velocity of prevailing winds. “Of course it scarcely helps that I’m a person myself,” Kannadi said to her ride. “May I borrow your head?” “Kweh.” Alcibiades held his head still. Kannadi leaned her notepad on him as she drew a toothed line. Above the line she wrote shorthand headings for "Species," "Totals," "Demography" and "Ingress/Egress." Below the line she wrote abbreviations and numbers. “The beastmen use every part the scavengers don’t eat first, you know,” she said. “Hair to bone. Even if it’s just to burn for fuel. But us? All the profitable bits, and nothing but.” Kannadi steadied her notepad and filled her free hand with a pocket abacus fetched from her dark sarouel pants. Beads flew and clicked under her left thumb as her right hand went back to writing. Multitasking when gathering data paid when such a large kill could attract less patient predators. “Never mind the fact that more measured care in the assault could have preserved much more of the hide. I can’t imagine a horn hacked off like that would fetch more than sixty…” Click, click. “No, sixty-five percent of a clean break.” Alcibiades didn’t have a head for numbers. “Gwark?” He ventured. “It’s wasteful. Inefficient. Disrespectful.” The abacus disappeared into a pocket. “And completely predictable of a species simultaneously short of sight and easily satisfied.” “Then why are you here?” Came a voice close to the ground behind her. Kannadi paused writing long enough to think, which was not long. She resumed her task without the slightest quiver in her hand. “I suspect,” she said after a moment, “that the only thing standing between me and an unpleasant display of kobold thaumaturgy is your curiosity toward my opinions.” The Mendicant, second kobold to the scene, patted the minaret bulb of a cudgel. “You are knowing that I am a mage?” He, or possibly she, said. “Your common tongue could benefit from a more active voice,” Kannadi said. She took a deep breath, then spoke as long as her lungs allowed: “But yes, I know you are a mage, since clearly you are sufficiently educated enough to respond to me, to say nothing of you approaching me from downwind and outside my chocobo’s range of vision, nor of how you seem to have padded what I assume to be cotton in the joints of your armor, so as not to be heard above the happiness of the flies, which as I understand it is what passes for a stealth tactic much in use among your people.” The Mendicant continued patting its weapon with the same vague menace. Kannadi returned to writing, as if she had just spoken to herself. “You are using many words,” the kobold finally said. “Is that a problem?” “No.” Pat. Pat. “But why are you here.” Kannadi finished writing. She patted her mount’s head. Alcibiades relaxed, stretched his neck and saw the kobold not six fulms behind him, its fuzzy black tail flicking in the wind. Alcibiades tensed to panic, but Kannadi stilled him with a touch. “I came to record data like your friend over there,” Kannadi said. “Is that some sort of affront?” “No. Now be explaining your first words. You are hating your people?” “Hate is such a strong word.” Kannadi pivoted Alcibiades in place, carefully, so as to better converse with the newcomer. Ah, she thought. Typical armor, typical skin tone, hair coverage indicative of relative middle age. Menacing red eyes owing more to biology than personality. Gender impossible to tell. Weapon-patting behavior a common attempt at intimidation. Fight? Flee? The visitor was nothing she couldn’t handle, Kannadi decided, but when would she have a chance to converse with one again? “Do you know of disappointment?” She continued aloud. “Stupid little things your people do that embarrass you by proximity?” Pat. “Yes.” Pat. “My people have many of them. Inefficiency aside, they have no appreciation for ecological balance. None. How many Great Buffalo are left, for instance? Not enough for herds, so the creatures adapted to solitary lives. Easier to hide, but easier to pick off. And behavioral adaptation has not yet made them sufficiently timid to run away from adventurers instead of trying to fight them off.” The mountainous vermin-shot buffet had certainly fought, that was clear. A lost rat attempted valiantly to chew its way out of the titanic ribcage. It would need time. “And yet my people hunt them still, for sport or physical training, heedless of the likelihood of extinction. And not just buffalo, mark you.” Kannadi gestured to the horizon. “All across Eorzea, rare monsters, many notorious, are slain before they have the chance to reproduce. One day, all that remain will be only the most vicious and the truly threatening, beasts who will roam beyond set territory and harbor enmity toward the innocent. And my people alone will be to blame.” “Hyur are doing this?” The kobold asked. “Oh, certainly. Hyur, lalafell, all of us.” Red eyes inside a black helmet squinted. “But you had said your people.” “I did. I meant adventurers, of course. It’s all I can do to record the kills, to salvage some data out of the horrid waste, to educate my people as best I can. I intend to instill some respect for ecological balance and the creatures who compose it, in the event that Dalamud doesn’t end us all. That way, I will ensure there will always be such fascinating creatures in our shared continent.” The kobold drummed its fingers on its cudgel. Its tail flicked in thought. “Why?” “If I don’t, who will?” Drum, drum. Pat. “Write your numbers somewhere that is not here,” said the kobold. “I shall,” said Kannadi. “Good day to you.” Alcibiades practically tore the ground to bedrock as Kannadi rode him away. He took his rider’s share of fear for himself and then some. Kannadi merely adjusted her notepad to secure it in the inner pocket of her robe. “Fascinating indeed… sapient or otherwise.”

I suppose that's possible but I'm afraid I forgot! Still, thank you!

I'd be interested in a pearl, as always.

Name: Kannadi Albedo Race: Hyur Midlander Skin: Light to medium brown, trending darker on sunny days of field study. Hair: Very neatly kept. Dark brown, shoulder-length and gently wavy before the Calamity; may or may not change in coming months. Eyes: Gray Build: Respectably fit. Demeanor: Polite, serious, educated, observant, and reluctant to engage in frivolity. Dislikes being made the center of attention unless it's on her terms. Clothing: Generally conservative and expensive. Doesn't typically show skin outside of her face and hands if she has things her way. Prefers cool colors to warm ones. Imagery: Crafting/casual: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v486/Jackscarab/Final%20Fantasy/kannadis.jpg[/img] http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v486/Jackscarab/Final%20Fantasy/kannadi22a.jpg[/img] http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v486/Jackscarab/Final%20Fantasy/kannadi20.jpg[/img] Mage gear: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v486/Jackscarab/Final%20Fantasy/Kannadi18.jpg[/img] And then of course there's her wiki page. Edit: And a recent drawing from Gerik! Edit: And a full-body drawing by Xenedra! Edit: Some Dragon Age 2 representations. Edit: A drawing from Zeyith!

Damn, not quick enough on the uptake. I look forward to seeing how this project turns out!

Books and jewelry. Great hunting for a Summoner.

Good idea! The short version is, Kannadi's job/class developed organically, to where now she's difficult to pin down, but closest to Red Mage. The (much) longer version: Three years ago, I devised Kannadi as a Blue Mage. Blue Mage is my favorite FF job, so I sat down and asked myself, "Given the essence of the job, how would a realistic Blue Mage act?" Well, Blue Mages use monster skills, so this character knows all about monsters. Okay, how did she learn that? Well, she's smart enough to have read all about them and did a lot of study. Okay, that implies a lot of education -- how did she get it? Well, her family's wealthy, so they could afford to give her highest-level education. Okay, how did that affect her growing up? What classes did she enjoy, and why? And so on... What came out the other end of that long branching tunnel of extrapolations was "High-Class Mage." I set aside Blue Mage, obviously not a class or job at 1.0's launch, in favor of her being every Disciple of Magic with some casual study of all Disciples of War. For her own education, of course. So, White Mage + Black Mage + Melee + Classy = Red Mage. If and when "Monster Skills" can wedge itself into that equation, she'll be Blue Mage faster than you can blink. Summoner, of course, is right up her alley. If ever we get a Beastmaster equivalent, she'll pursue that too.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/26/square-enix-ceo-yoichi-wada-steps-down-as-the-japanese-video-game-publisher-reveals-as-an-extraordinary-loss/ Tough times for Square-Enix. It really puts FFXIV in perspective. We are participating in a game whose popularity could preserve or destroy not only the franchise, but the company. No pressure. Here's hoping that Matsuda can rebuild/repair Square-Enix as well as Yoshi-P seems to be doing with FFXIV. (Go for the gold, Matsuda.)

I'll just leave this here... Okipuit The development team is currently looking into this!