"Such a nosy guard."
...Blades' work...
...this ain't your jurisdiction...
Regulations exist for a reason...
We should leave law enforcement...
...leave this to the professionals...
We're nothing but soldiers...
...damned soldiers, is what you are...
You're not a Flame at heart. Not really.
Deep down, you're one of them.
But he wasn't. Not really. No matter how much he wanted it to be so, it wasn't, and wishing wasn't going to change that. He was what he was. He was what every wandering step had made of him. And those steps, praise Oschon, had brought him here, from across the sea, to stand here, now, as a soldier.
Such a nosy guard...
Guard...
Guard...
Time folds, space rewinds, and reality bends as the barely-lit hallway of wood and stone peels away, strip by strip, until nothing is left but the sun and the blue sky over the green fields of Noscea.
They picnic just outside of Zephyr Gate once a cycle, and these are the happiest times of little Osric's life. His mother is chasing Tabby across the plain, and their laughter makes for the sweetest music. He sits up, no longer content to lay back on the grass to take in the sun, and turns to his father. The lonely times are coming again soon, and he has to know why, so he asks.
"Da, why y'always goin' 'way so much?"
Cenric chortles as he reaches over to pluck his son up into his lap. "Because," he says, "da has to work. I'm a caravan guard, and that means I have to follow the caravans."
Little Osric frowns in thought for a moment before tilting his head back to stare into his father's chin. "Sounds borin'."
"Oh, it's anything but," says his father as he turns a smile upon his youngest. "Very interesting. Lots of new people to meet. Places to see. Monsters to fight. Aye," he nods in mock seriousness, "it's a very important duty."
The seven-cycle-old boy scrunches up his face. "Like... like chores?"
"Aye," his father laughs, "exactly like chores! Now listen, Osric, because this is important. Da doesn't just guard the caravans. Oh, no! He guards the people, too. Lots of mums and da's of other kids, just like you. It's up to me to protect them, keep them safe. Sometimes they get hurt, or lost, and it's up to me to bring them to their kids. Because people need them, you understand? And because they need them, they need me. So you see, your da is actually a very important person."
"Like them knights in Tabby's books?" Osric asks, excited. He loves knights, and does his best to get his sister to read him her books, every chance he gets.
"Well, yes, in a way. I do what I do because it's the right thing to do. But I'm also like a soldier; I do it because it's my job, and I'm proud of my job. Do you understand?"
He thinks he does, but before he can say so, a voice booms across the sky.
inferior inferior inferior inferior inferior
The scene dissolves, and then he was back in the dimly-lit hallway, staring down two complete strangers.
I've hated ya a long time, Da. Always blamed ya for what happened to Tabitha. Still do. But looking back, now....
Looking back, that doesn't mean you were wrong.
When he'd first walked in on the shambles that were the captain's living quarters... well, his first thought had been that the captain had fled. That his own report had still leaked, somehow, and that word had reached Mynhier, who would have sent his daughter off to safety and then fled the city himself. That the captain was still guilty of aiding and abetting a suspected murderer. Â
Now, though... if you wanted to off a potential tail, you would hire local assassins competent enough to not reveal themselves, not crazed Elezen thugs who prefer idle chitchat.
So Peak had been right after all, gods damn him. Peak was always right. Jealousy, indignation, outrage... these things had blinded him, biased him against the man for no reason other than because he had sought to assuage his own wounds. Â
Was Mynhier innocent, after all?
...did it matter?
He's disappeared. Lost.
People need him. She needs him.
I'm going to get him back. Bring him home.
Because it's my job. Because it's the right thing to do.
He caught himself flexing his fingers, muttering under his breath as he gradually backed away. "Aye... aye, come on, come on, y'bastards, bring it, bring it!"
"We'll make this quick and painless," said the one on the left.
They came on, drawing their swords, and in his mind's eye, Osric saw himself turn, saw himself reach for the handle of a door that wasn't there, open it, and stride on through, door slamming shut behind him.
There were five of them, standing there in the captain's cabin as the brig rolled gently back and forth over the waves. The child. The gutterborn. The soldier. The man. Himself.
There was also a padlocked chest bolted to the floor in the far corner of the room; an eerie amethyst mist was rolling out from under its hinge. He paid it no mind. Instead, He focused on the four in front of Him.
He knew what was needed. He didn’t have to speak. They didn’t have to hear. They were each a part of Him, after all; they could no more fail to understand Him than He could fail to understand Himself.
The child left first, exiting the room by way of the cabin door. Innocence, curiosity, a sense of wonderment… these would only serve as meaningless and perhaps fatal distractions. They had no purpose here.
The man left next. Pride, shame, hope, despair, love, hate… the tide and ebb of emotion was what made Him human, made Him Hyur, but there was no place for humanity in what was to come.
The soldier stayed. Arms crossed, perfectly still, he stood there, waiting, his uniform a perfect match for His own.
The gutterborn - small, filthy, dressed in rags - stepped out for a moment… and then came back in, leading another by the hand. Came back in with the boy.
The boy was taller, older than the gutterborn, dressed in very similar rags... but there, the similarities ended. It was evident in their postures, in the way they held themselves.  The younger lad was mischievous but wary, shifty, always looking for an out. The boy, though… there was a tension to the boy, a wildness to his eyes, something that spoke to the arrogance of all young men in knowing that they are, however fleetingly, the best.
The boy was different. The boy was savage. The boy was His trump card.
The room suddenly darkened as a large shadow fell across the window blinds. Four sets of eyes widened simultaneously.
No. No, I am not letting you in here.
The door rattled in its frame. They looked at Him, His chosen three, and He shook his head. The gutterborn dove for the cover of a large, oaken desk; the boy and the soldier barred the door, their shoulders up against the wood, legs straining.
I need them alive. I need at least one of them alive.
This time, the door shook, and it was the walls that rattled.
At least one of them alive, and if I let you in here, THEY WON’T BE, GODS DAMN YOU.
There was no third impact.
THEY WON’T BE, WILL THEY?
The shadow receded.
He turned from the door to find them beside Him. He nodded, and the three of them - gutterborn, boy, soldier - nodded back. He took twelve steps across the cabin, opened the door, and stepped back out into the world.
The boy stepped forward to find himself stepping back.
He took in the scene at a glimpse. He was standing in the small alcove at the end of the hall, the one that opened up on the bedroom. The Elezen assassins, in their idiotic hoods, were still in the hallway… but not for much longer. Soon they’d be on him. Their swords - not gladii or spathae - were held out before them, the edges gleaming in the soft light.
Amateurs.
He went with it, backing away slowly, eyes darting back and forth, looking for advantage, and he found it. He dove for the nearest corner of the bedroom, knees bent, seizing the legs of a small coffee table as the two men dashed towards him. He spun in place on the balls of his feet, using the moment from his lunge to drag the table with him and hurl it at the Elezen. Nonplussed, they flowed around it, letting the piece of furniture pass between them as they pressed forward into the alcove, ready to skewer the young Hyur where he stood.
The young Hyur who was no longer there. The young Hyur who was now somehow between them.
Common convention dictated that, when up against superior numbers and superior weaponry, one was to play for time, distancing themselves by any means necessary until opportunity presented itself. To engage with a line of steel blades was to ask for death. No sane person would therefore ever dash right into the waiting arms of the enemy.
Pugilists are not sane people. Sane people as a rule do not bring their fists and only their fists to a swordfight.
There is one downside to a sword that is often neglected, at times outright forgotten, and that is this: though the point may be used for thrusting and the edges used for slashing, a sword is rather dependent on a particular economy of motion, which in turn requires a certain amount of space with which to work in. Even the pressureless act of drawing a long blade lengthwise across the skin requires a fulm for the arm to draw back. Swords are not a weapon that are particularly effective at a range of mere ilms; indeed, there are few weapons that are.
Of those, Melkire was proficient with all of them.
His hands fell to the grips of the brass knuckles at his sides. He tore them from the tassels that tied them loosely to his belt, and the soldier went to work.
He exploded into motion, striking out, using the confined space to his advantage, aiming to rebound his would-be assailants off the very walls of the alcove that had turned against them in trapping them here with him. An uppercut to a sternum, a knuckle to a face, an elbow to an arm; every attack was a defense designed to keep their blades at bay, as he continued to pummel them with the thick bands of steel that were his weapons of choice. They seemed to realize their error - not amateurs after all - as they began trying to break away, to either fall back into the hallway or else win through to the bedroom. He wouldn’t let them. He kicked a leg out from underneath one of his opponents, stomped a kneecap belonging to the other, reached up with two fingers and a thumb to tug down hard on a hood, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, the bands, the knuckles, the steel that was now cutting flesh with its sharp edges… but the small cuts and abrasions didn’t matter. What mattered was the sheer aching exhaustion they were bound to be feeling from the unholy beating he was giving them.
And then it happened: the one to his left staggered out into the bedroom.
The gutterborn took over instantly, dropping the knuckles to the floor, pressing up against the other Elezen, left arm up against the assassin’s collarbone, right hand searching under the buckles of his left armguard and coming up with a small custom knife. The knife was not special in any particular way, save that its blade was a mere ilm long past the hilt. An ilm was enough. He held it in a reverse grip, placed the point of the knife against the Elezen’s throat, hooked his left foot behind the man’s right, and fell into him.
Leg trips had been fairly common in the rough-and-tumble society of Lominsan street urchins. The lesson went something like this. A man on the ground is a dead man. Need a man dead, make him fall. Makin’ them fall at an angle was good; making’ them falls backwards was better. Hyur, Miqo’te, Elezen, Roegadyn, Lalafell, it doesn’t matter, they all have the same knees. No race in Eorzea has a natural resistance against falling backwards at an angle. Their legs simply aren’t built that way.
They fell to the floor, and the impact did his work for him, driving the knife home into the Elezen’s throat. He rolled to his right, wrenching the knife along with him, tearing the throat open as the other assassin returned to the fight, plunging his sword down and missing, embedding his weapon in the wooden floor. The gutterborn scrambled to his feet… only for an arm to wrap itself around his neck and the ice-cold prick of steel slide into his back.
His eyes widened as he reached back behind him and pulled the boy forward.
he got me he’s got me in-out-in-out-in-out one two three stab stab stab what do I do what do I
The boy grabbed at the arm with his right hand, reached over and around the Elezen’s neck with his left arm, and cried out as threw himself forward to his knees, just as the dagger was drawn out of his back. The height and weight difference contributed, but what it really came down to was build, and no Elezen had ever been built as stout and as sturdy as even the leanest and greenest of midlanders.
The assassin was thrown forward onto his own back, crying out in pain as Osric came to his feet, the whole of him intent on this gods-damned bastard. He stomped on the man’s right wrist, and the dagger went bouncing free; he scooped it up and slammed it down, driving it point first into the Elezen’s palm, pinning the hand to the floor. He pivoted as he fell to land with his knees between the assassin’s arms, ignoring the shrieks of pain emanating from below him. He grabbed the man’s neck in a chokehold with his left hand, and the Elezen’s left, that had just now been scrambling to free his right, now grasped the sergeant’s wrist in a futile attempt to win free.
Osric leaned in close, snarling. “Gods-damned misfortunate, ain’tcha? Ain’t a Blade y'can bribe to letcha go. Ain’t a Sultansworn, either, honorbound to take y'into custody and keep ya in good health. Nah, lad, I’m a Flame, and that means you’re piss outta luck,’cause y’are goin' t’give me what I want, and y’are goin' t'tell me what I wanna know.â€
He pulled his own dagger from its sheath beneath his jerkin, wrapped his fist around the hilt, and held up the wicked serrated edge for the Elezen to see.
“Now. Let’s get started, shall we?â€
He drew his fist back and decked him.
((THIS STORY CONTINUES HERE.))
...Blades' work...
...this ain't your jurisdiction...
Regulations exist for a reason...
We should leave law enforcement...
...leave this to the professionals...
We're nothing but soldiers...
...damned soldiers, is what you are...
You're not a Flame at heart. Not really.
Deep down, you're one of them.
But he wasn't. Not really. No matter how much he wanted it to be so, it wasn't, and wishing wasn't going to change that. He was what he was. He was what every wandering step had made of him. And those steps, praise Oschon, had brought him here, from across the sea, to stand here, now, as a soldier.
Such a nosy guard...
Guard...
Guard...
Time folds, space rewinds, and reality bends as the barely-lit hallway of wood and stone peels away, strip by strip, until nothing is left but the sun and the blue sky over the green fields of Noscea.
They picnic just outside of Zephyr Gate once a cycle, and these are the happiest times of little Osric's life. His mother is chasing Tabby across the plain, and their laughter makes for the sweetest music. He sits up, no longer content to lay back on the grass to take in the sun, and turns to his father. The lonely times are coming again soon, and he has to know why, so he asks.
"Da, why y'always goin' 'way so much?"
Cenric chortles as he reaches over to pluck his son up into his lap. "Because," he says, "da has to work. I'm a caravan guard, and that means I have to follow the caravans."
Little Osric frowns in thought for a moment before tilting his head back to stare into his father's chin. "Sounds borin'."
"Oh, it's anything but," says his father as he turns a smile upon his youngest. "Very interesting. Lots of new people to meet. Places to see. Monsters to fight. Aye," he nods in mock seriousness, "it's a very important duty."
The seven-cycle-old boy scrunches up his face. "Like... like chores?"
"Aye," his father laughs, "exactly like chores! Now listen, Osric, because this is important. Da doesn't just guard the caravans. Oh, no! He guards the people, too. Lots of mums and da's of other kids, just like you. It's up to me to protect them, keep them safe. Sometimes they get hurt, or lost, and it's up to me to bring them to their kids. Because people need them, you understand? And because they need them, they need me. So you see, your da is actually a very important person."
"Like them knights in Tabby's books?" Osric asks, excited. He loves knights, and does his best to get his sister to read him her books, every chance he gets.
"Well, yes, in a way. I do what I do because it's the right thing to do. But I'm also like a soldier; I do it because it's my job, and I'm proud of my job. Do you understand?"
He thinks he does, but before he can say so, a voice booms across the sky.
inferior inferior inferior inferior inferior
The scene dissolves, and then he was back in the dimly-lit hallway, staring down two complete strangers.
I've hated ya a long time, Da. Always blamed ya for what happened to Tabitha. Still do. But looking back, now....
Looking back, that doesn't mean you were wrong.
When he'd first walked in on the shambles that were the captain's living quarters... well, his first thought had been that the captain had fled. That his own report had still leaked, somehow, and that word had reached Mynhier, who would have sent his daughter off to safety and then fled the city himself. That the captain was still guilty of aiding and abetting a suspected murderer. Â
Now, though... if you wanted to off a potential tail, you would hire local assassins competent enough to not reveal themselves, not crazed Elezen thugs who prefer idle chitchat.
So Peak had been right after all, gods damn him. Peak was always right. Jealousy, indignation, outrage... these things had blinded him, biased him against the man for no reason other than because he had sought to assuage his own wounds. Â
Was Mynhier innocent, after all?
...did it matter?
He's disappeared. Lost.
People need him. She needs him.
I'm going to get him back. Bring him home.
Because it's my job. Because it's the right thing to do.
He caught himself flexing his fingers, muttering under his breath as he gradually backed away. "Aye... aye, come on, come on, y'bastards, bring it, bring it!"
"We'll make this quick and painless," said the one on the left.
They came on, drawing their swords, and in his mind's eye, Osric saw himself turn, saw himself reach for the handle of a door that wasn't there, open it, and stride on through, door slamming shut behind him.
There were five of them, standing there in the captain's cabin as the brig rolled gently back and forth over the waves. The child. The gutterborn. The soldier. The man. Himself.
There was also a padlocked chest bolted to the floor in the far corner of the room; an eerie amethyst mist was rolling out from under its hinge. He paid it no mind. Instead, He focused on the four in front of Him.
He knew what was needed. He didn’t have to speak. They didn’t have to hear. They were each a part of Him, after all; they could no more fail to understand Him than He could fail to understand Himself.
The child left first, exiting the room by way of the cabin door. Innocence, curiosity, a sense of wonderment… these would only serve as meaningless and perhaps fatal distractions. They had no purpose here.
The man left next. Pride, shame, hope, despair, love, hate… the tide and ebb of emotion was what made Him human, made Him Hyur, but there was no place for humanity in what was to come.
The soldier stayed. Arms crossed, perfectly still, he stood there, waiting, his uniform a perfect match for His own.
The gutterborn - small, filthy, dressed in rags - stepped out for a moment… and then came back in, leading another by the hand. Came back in with the boy.
The boy was taller, older than the gutterborn, dressed in very similar rags... but there, the similarities ended. It was evident in their postures, in the way they held themselves.  The younger lad was mischievous but wary, shifty, always looking for an out. The boy, though… there was a tension to the boy, a wildness to his eyes, something that spoke to the arrogance of all young men in knowing that they are, however fleetingly, the best.
The boy was different. The boy was savage. The boy was His trump card.
The room suddenly darkened as a large shadow fell across the window blinds. Four sets of eyes widened simultaneously.
No. No, I am not letting you in here.
The door rattled in its frame. They looked at Him, His chosen three, and He shook his head. The gutterborn dove for the cover of a large, oaken desk; the boy and the soldier barred the door, their shoulders up against the wood, legs straining.
I need them alive. I need at least one of them alive.
This time, the door shook, and it was the walls that rattled.
At least one of them alive, and if I let you in here, THEY WON’T BE, GODS DAMN YOU.
There was no third impact.
THEY WON’T BE, WILL THEY?
The shadow receded.
He turned from the door to find them beside Him. He nodded, and the three of them - gutterborn, boy, soldier - nodded back. He took twelve steps across the cabin, opened the door, and stepped back out into the world.
The boy stepped forward to find himself stepping back.
He took in the scene at a glimpse. He was standing in the small alcove at the end of the hall, the one that opened up on the bedroom. The Elezen assassins, in their idiotic hoods, were still in the hallway… but not for much longer. Soon they’d be on him. Their swords - not gladii or spathae - were held out before them, the edges gleaming in the soft light.
Amateurs.
He went with it, backing away slowly, eyes darting back and forth, looking for advantage, and he found it. He dove for the nearest corner of the bedroom, knees bent, seizing the legs of a small coffee table as the two men dashed towards him. He spun in place on the balls of his feet, using the moment from his lunge to drag the table with him and hurl it at the Elezen. Nonplussed, they flowed around it, letting the piece of furniture pass between them as they pressed forward into the alcove, ready to skewer the young Hyur where he stood.
The young Hyur who was no longer there. The young Hyur who was now somehow between them.
Common convention dictated that, when up against superior numbers and superior weaponry, one was to play for time, distancing themselves by any means necessary until opportunity presented itself. To engage with a line of steel blades was to ask for death. No sane person would therefore ever dash right into the waiting arms of the enemy.
Pugilists are not sane people. Sane people as a rule do not bring their fists and only their fists to a swordfight.
There is one downside to a sword that is often neglected, at times outright forgotten, and that is this: though the point may be used for thrusting and the edges used for slashing, a sword is rather dependent on a particular economy of motion, which in turn requires a certain amount of space with which to work in. Even the pressureless act of drawing a long blade lengthwise across the skin requires a fulm for the arm to draw back. Swords are not a weapon that are particularly effective at a range of mere ilms; indeed, there are few weapons that are.
Of those, Melkire was proficient with all of them.
His hands fell to the grips of the brass knuckles at his sides. He tore them from the tassels that tied them loosely to his belt, and the soldier went to work.
He exploded into motion, striking out, using the confined space to his advantage, aiming to rebound his would-be assailants off the very walls of the alcove that had turned against them in trapping them here with him. An uppercut to a sternum, a knuckle to a face, an elbow to an arm; every attack was a defense designed to keep their blades at bay, as he continued to pummel them with the thick bands of steel that were his weapons of choice. They seemed to realize their error - not amateurs after all - as they began trying to break away, to either fall back into the hallway or else win through to the bedroom. He wouldn’t let them. He kicked a leg out from underneath one of his opponents, stomped a kneecap belonging to the other, reached up with two fingers and a thumb to tug down hard on a hood, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, the bands, the knuckles, the steel that was now cutting flesh with its sharp edges… but the small cuts and abrasions didn’t matter. What mattered was the sheer aching exhaustion they were bound to be feeling from the unholy beating he was giving them.
And then it happened: the one to his left staggered out into the bedroom.
The gutterborn took over instantly, dropping the knuckles to the floor, pressing up against the other Elezen, left arm up against the assassin’s collarbone, right hand searching under the buckles of his left armguard and coming up with a small custom knife. The knife was not special in any particular way, save that its blade was a mere ilm long past the hilt. An ilm was enough. He held it in a reverse grip, placed the point of the knife against the Elezen’s throat, hooked his left foot behind the man’s right, and fell into him.
Leg trips had been fairly common in the rough-and-tumble society of Lominsan street urchins. The lesson went something like this. A man on the ground is a dead man. Need a man dead, make him fall. Makin’ them fall at an angle was good; making’ them falls backwards was better. Hyur, Miqo’te, Elezen, Roegadyn, Lalafell, it doesn’t matter, they all have the same knees. No race in Eorzea has a natural resistance against falling backwards at an angle. Their legs simply aren’t built that way.
They fell to the floor, and the impact did his work for him, driving the knife home into the Elezen’s throat. He rolled to his right, wrenching the knife along with him, tearing the throat open as the other assassin returned to the fight, plunging his sword down and missing, embedding his weapon in the wooden floor. The gutterborn scrambled to his feet… only for an arm to wrap itself around his neck and the ice-cold prick of steel slide into his back.
His eyes widened as he reached back behind him and pulled the boy forward.
he got me he’s got me in-out-in-out-in-out one two three stab stab stab what do I do what do I
The boy grabbed at the arm with his right hand, reached over and around the Elezen’s neck with his left arm, and cried out as threw himself forward to his knees, just as the dagger was drawn out of his back. The height and weight difference contributed, but what it really came down to was build, and no Elezen had ever been built as stout and as sturdy as even the leanest and greenest of midlanders.
The assassin was thrown forward onto his own back, crying out in pain as Osric came to his feet, the whole of him intent on this gods-damned bastard. He stomped on the man’s right wrist, and the dagger went bouncing free; he scooped it up and slammed it down, driving it point first into the Elezen’s palm, pinning the hand to the floor. He pivoted as he fell to land with his knees between the assassin’s arms, ignoring the shrieks of pain emanating from below him. He grabbed the man’s neck in a chokehold with his left hand, and the Elezen’s left, that had just now been scrambling to free his right, now grasped the sergeant’s wrist in a futile attempt to win free.
Osric leaned in close, snarling. “Gods-damned misfortunate, ain’tcha? Ain’t a Blade y'can bribe to letcha go. Ain’t a Sultansworn, either, honorbound to take y'into custody and keep ya in good health. Nah, lad, I’m a Flame, and that means you’re piss outta luck,’cause y’are goin' t’give me what I want, and y’are goin' t'tell me what I wanna know.â€
He pulled his own dagger from its sheath beneath his jerkin, wrapped his fist around the hilt, and held up the wicked serrated edge for the Elezen to see.
“Now. Let’s get started, shall we?â€
He drew his fist back and decked him.
((THIS STORY CONTINUES HERE.))
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)
