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jessipalooza · 5 years

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Run Home

It is night. Stars sparkle in the colorful river that is a far away galaxy. Breeze drifts over and under the home that is never in one place for long. It does as is its namesake: it Runs. But this night, it Runs slowly, inching its way through the sky and over the stretch of sea and land below.

In the heart of that home, the lights are dim. Some are asleep and some are not. Some are wrestling with thoughts and jobs, while others are wrestling with one another and enjoying the fight. Some are in their beds, some are in their rooms, some are in their common areas with a book and cup of hot chocolate or something stronger. But six women are together and not wrestling at all, not with thoughts nor troubles nor people.

They sit in an empty bar with the lights turned low. Three bottles have been taken and opened: one whiskey, one wine, one benedictine. Music plays. Notes pull themselves free from the strings of a mandolin, played by deft fingers that only allow themselves to touch the instrument when they truly wish.

The women are comfortable. They are dressed not for work, whether that work by to placate guests or toe the wrong side of the law. These women are relaxed, especially in this place where it is just them. Especially with no one but each other.

Yellow Rose is in one chair with a smile on her face and her green eyes lidded. Her glass is on the table and in her hand is her namesake. She plays gently with the petals, her large hand soft and careful in this private setting. She does not have to guard and thus, she allows herself to be glass and not stone. She listens to the music, but laughs as the woman across from her makes a sly joke.

That woman, that jokester, is Prisa Fontaine. She is neither concerned nor tense as she often must be in her profession and position. She is not in her white coat and gloves, ready for illness or injury. She is in loose pants and a loose blouse. Her hands do not hold a clipboard or a scalpel; they hold a glass of benedictine. She is not lecturing, she is talking and laughing with a care that is not for patients, but for companions. Her feet are bare and tucked under the woman that sits beside her on the couch.

That woman that warms the doctor's feet is Xiaohu Cao. She too laughs at the joke and adds one of her own to follow. It is her usual demeanor, jesting at the expense of others, but her smile holds something so much warmer. The smile is subtle and in that subtlety is rarely found honesty. She allows herself to be without her painted face and trained hospitality, even as she looks to the woman beside her with a chuckled thanks as her drink is refilled.

That woman that pours the drinks is E'leyna Summerstorm. Her enthusiasm is dim, but that is the sign of her comfort and trust in this circle of femininity. She does not have to serve, but she does so because she loves the women with her. That affection is clear in her freckle-dusted expression of serenity. She is silently overwhelmed with the companionship that surrounds her and she feels at peace, even - or perhaps especially - as she is nudged by the woman beside her.

That woman is M'gumi Rahz. She is always at ease. It is natural for her to spill joke after joke, but she is not so in this setting. She is not the one joking, she is the one laughing. She allows herself to listen rather than talk. Her walls, built out of the stones of quick-witted conversation and the cement of self-protection, are down and pushed aside. In their place is little more than the fragile thing that is her trust and comfort. She enjoys the women. She enjoys the drinks. She enjoys the music. And so, she looks to the woman playing the mandolin to convey her appreciation.

The woman playing the mandolin is Es'mena Nenda. It is her fingers that are the deft and willful ones, plucking the strings of the instrument and filling the bar with a tune that speaks of the calm night. Though her gaze is down, her ears are forward-facing. She is listening to the jokes, to the conversation, to the laughter. She is not speaking and carrying on as she does when the lights are on and there is work to be done. Her heart is too full for that, and she trusts the women to not ask it of her. Her contribution, her show of this shared care and love, is the music.

Outside, there are stars twinkling and wind blowing. It is magic outside, but it is magic inside this home as well. Music. Laughter. Whispered gossip and jests. The clink of ice. The pour of drinks. The comfort of company as they and their makeshift family Run.

---

#my writing #es'mena #yellow #prisa #xiaohu #e'leyna #m'gumi #balmung #ffxiv #the runner #rn-rp

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thanidiel · 4 years

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[ taste ] for your muse to cook for mine

It is very hard to say ‘No’ to Ambaghai, for he asks little and when he does, that is even more minute than the frequency of request.

She really wants to just turn around and tell him to go fucking ask someone else.

But then she’d end up looking at that somber face and the waxen illness sweated across it.

This is one of the rare moments that she’d like Vander to walk through the door right now so that she can pass off responsibility. Kowa is probably awake too, but she is pretty sure Kowa would box her ears for bothering her - Xiaohu is the one that had the audacity to come to their home in the middle of the night, and now she had to lie in this grave.

Or improvise.

She remembers E’leyna telling her that these ‘sandwiches’ are very good for the sick. She fails to see how something crappy, and cold, can compare to a bowl of broth or congee, but E’leyna knows everything that there is know about the Universe.

And she sees one of these ‘sandwiches’ in their icebox with Jaaster’s name on the parchment paper.

He will miss it, but he will also blame himself.

...so she unwraps that right onto a plate.

@taetelli @atomicdeke

#xiaohu #ambaghai #jaaster #e'leyna #ask #writing #C:#taetelli

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thanidiel · 5 years

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Advent

After she and the Captain made it onto the Runner, she had vomited.

The Captain, Nenda? She had been at the wheel, her laughter a drawn-out husk. All four, now five, of those who had departed for this deal-turned-heist were ‘settled.’ And once they were ‘settled,’ she began to shake with a tremendous violence as her nerves eased, no matter how much the braided-haired Miqo’te had rubbed her shoulder and pressed water to her lips - according to Nenda. For Xiaohu had felt nothing, seen nothing, but the echo-light of the moon; reaching for her through the glass insistently, and yet, somehow, always out of reach.

She had vomited.

And after that, her shaking turned into a never-ending shiver as the cold metal of the… control-room? seeped into her body, and as the constantly churning air of the ship dried the gloss of sweat on her bare skin. The red-and-pink silk, the only thing now to her name, was insuffice beyond the comfort of the teahouse.

How long had she huddled there on the floor?

No one remembers, or no one cares to remind her of such weakness.

Nenda stood over her.

Had they already stopped?

No.

The world still rocked beneath her. The moonlight was still grasping for her in waves.

“Will you stand?” Kind, not mothering.

Xiaohu had looked up. Her breath caught.

An image; a mistake.

Something imagined that had squeezed in between the flickering frames of reality.

A killer’s eyes (Ichiro).

A mass of white hair (Ichiro).

A duty to be done - a betrayal to make example of (Ichiro).

Then (Ichiro)... Nenda.

She breathed in again.

“I will stand.”

And she had done so without assistance.

“Good.”

They had shoved another’s clothing into her hands after that, some other crewperson’s, after directing her to their showers. Picked from the most approximate of them, and yet it was still too big. Xiaohu had found a sort of grace in that, covering the endless swath of ink that consumed her body in trousers that had to be rolled up, and a shirt that hung down her thighs.

She had not wanted any of them to witness, but yet they had, earlier, with the way she had tied off her kimono around her hips to run through the darkness with their Captain.

She assured herself in that moment that they would never again.

A towering Roegadyn woman had walked her to where she would lay her head after that. She spoke as little as the Captain spoke much. This ‘Yellow Rose’ had merely unlocked an unused suite, pointing with her head for their ‘guest’ to enter.

Something that she had hesitated with, for never had Xiaohu been presented with both room and bed to herself alone. An epiphany in which sparked an absence of warmth on both sides of her arms, recalling to Yuko and Masae at the teahouse, in the hold of that ship that had sailed her across the Ruby Sea, to Mei and Chenglei sprawled beside her, to her youngest memories of Father and Mother sleeping with her and Jian squeezed between them.

When she eventually stepped through, both women nodded to one another.

The transaction completed.

She saw peonies on the dresser in the dying bar of hallway light; the door closing.

‒ ‒ ‒

“...this is up to you, and you alone.”

In a sort of silent gloom, Xiaohu had merely scooted to one side of the bed, patted the emptied space for Es’mena, and drooped the curve of her face into palm.

They did not speak. For how long that quiet settled between them, Xiaohu did not remember. She only remembered the barest presence of a gap, only closed between a firm, “Well?” from the nearby Miqo’te.

Her breath built in her cheeks, before billowing out in a sighing gust.

She didn’t bother utilising the Eorzean that the Captain’s address had come in. Her thoughts flew forth in Hingan.

“I can’t give you a good answer of where I go from here. I have spent nearly half of my life in that teahouse, ni mingbai? Before that, I was just a girl from nowhere. If I had to be honest, I don’t know how to survive out there. And even if I did, what happens when I’m identified? Who stands between me and them? I can tell you that, right now, that I think your Runner is my best bet, that I can at least do work here, but who are we to predict fate?”

And, of course, Nenda came right back in the same fluid tongue, with the confidence that she has always mired every word of her’s with.

"There is no predicting fate. Rather, you could argue that there is no such thing as fate. We can get into the long-winded arguments of if fate is real, if luck is real...but in the end? I say you make your own fate. It does not matter if you were a girl from nowhere, a princess, if you knew how to survive, if you were a blithering idiot - it does not matter. We can go into the hypotheticals: if you are identified, if you are caught, if they manage to find you, but that does not matter either. What matters is this: Do you want to be here? Do you want to learn? Do you want to make your own fate? If the answer for those is yes, then we figure out the rest as we go. And we go wherever the wind takes us."

Again, Xiaohu demanded a sort of silence without gesture nor voice - only in the way that her eyes left the person aside her to stare forward, at that dresser and those doomed, now glassed, peonies. But, subtly, there was a sort of tension working through her body. Her leftmost shoulder squared itself slowly, and her chin drew away from its rest. To a degree, she straightened herself; her gaze traveled up to the lonely window of the suite.

“I told you a saying when this all ‘started’. Opportunity knocks only once. I can either answer the door then, or I can ignore it and let it walk away. And I’ll wonder what could have come of that house-visit had I merely let it inside. So… I don’t think I’m of a mind to refute any of that right now. If a good wind comes, you go with it, not against it.”

“Going with the wind– not refuting me– doesn’t mean you want it, however…”

Their words stretched on, though, eventually, the Miqo’te departed, pulling door shut behind her.

‒ ‒ ‒

Though temporal and uncertain, the decision was eventually meted between her and Nenda.

Xiaohu would be a crewmember of this ‘Runner.’

Es’mena’s first order of business was to put a roll of coloured tape into her hands, pushing her off towards the cargo-hold. Anything that Xiaohu taped in their unused furnishings would be carried over to her new room by that braided haired woman, M’gumi.

That one, that one was a talker from the start. Arrow volleys of words, all rolled around with a too-loose tongue. The Doman pondered to herself, silently, of how Chinatsu would have responded if she had dared to be nothing less but perfect with her own speech. It made her scar ache in memory.

She did not respond in kind. Had not wished to, with the way her head buzzed and her stomache twisted with her nerves. Xiaohu had started off with short, clipped, answers, then dwindled down to none at all during the whole of the process.

Finally, her silence was mimicked by the tanned Miqo’te. The other’s curious, slightly begrudging glances, suited the thief’s tastes much better than conversation as she picked out what little Hingan furniture there was. Her thumb stroked down on each surface, planting dashes of red-tape to indicate each one she desired.

After that business had settled, they had walked in their quiet to the mess-hall. M’gumi was quick to break off - something that Xiaohu had felt to be a blessing at the time. The cargo-loader settled at the same table as the Roegadyn from before, and a trio of Xaela… Jin, there was a lot of Xaela. She spotted two more huddled together into one of the emptier corners of the room.

Two Hyur ate separate, and alone, from everyone else in different parts of the room: one with starkly red hair, and another with black hair and strangely violet eyes. The first broke into a lopsided grin seeing her, the other, the latter, regarded her in a cursory sort of fashion, like the Doman were something to quickly categorise and file.

Then she drew her gaze up to the window that separated this seating from the rear kitchens. A somber Miqo’te in all black, with eyes equally violet to the other woman, stood with his back to the wall aside that opening and his arms folded. He was quiet in a way that made her remember Eisen.

And, leaning out of that window, her arm flush against his, was a tall, pink, Viera. Where he was statue-like, this one was all intensity. She did not hesitate to gesture wildly to Xiaohu the moment their gazes met.

Though it did not show on her face, her heart sank with the weariness of interaction pressed on her weighted soul. For seconds, she did not approach; considering a retreat to one of the emptied suites and locking the door.

Yet, she did walk forward eventually. How could she not? It would not do good for her to reject such an overt gesture, especially with the wide grin spread over the apparent Cook’s face.

In the meantime, the Viera had turned around, rummaging around the counters over that window.

Xiaohu sucked in a breath when the woman she would know later as “E’leyna” had rounded back.

Her hands bloomed open like a lotus.

She felt her teeth drive against one another, her temples throbbing as decrepit memory contributed to the suffocating magnitude of her stress.

Not dabao, but miso, a thick, lava-like, miso, poured over steamed rice with a layer of lard glistening over the broth’s surface. A small bundle of blanched morning glory tucked itself against the side of the bowl.

A meal she’d had hundreds of time with Yuko.

Her wind came out in a sigh, one that E’leyna luckily processed as surprised gratitude.

“Go on, girl, sit down and have your fill! There’s a whole pot where that came from!”

She did not bother to speak much; using her newness as an excuse to simmer in silence. She had taken the bowl, inclined her head to this woman with a murmured “Thank you,” and sat down.

Curious glances from seemingly all corners of the room seemed to burn into her shoulders and back.

She ate slowly.

She had never had that privilege before.

She savoured ziyou more than the meal.

M’gumi had offered to escort her to her room from here once everyone had begun to filter out for their night’s rest. Softly the Doman declined, and threw in another ‘thank you’ with the bit of energy that the hot meal had given her.

After that, once the Miqo’te had disappeared down the hallway - Xiaohu wandered.

Another thing she had never had the privilege to do in Kugane, so confined she was to that teahouse or a man’s side.

There was no eyes on her, no one following her, no one guarding their asset; her. Nothing loomed over her shoulders as they once did. No restrictions, no threats. Just her and the empty halls.

She wandered - explored. Every nook, every cranny. From every crew-facility, to the engine room, the cargo hold, the navigation room, the spanning guest wings and all of those amenities, the viewing deck, and then out onto the open decks of the airship, this ‘Runner.’

She examined everything, and touched everything, and listened to the way the airship thrummed in different crooning tunes dependent on where one was, and where they were standing in particular.

She familiarised herself with aching, near-obsessive, intensity to this… residence.

Some were still awake; notably a blonde-haired woman, their engineer, who she had not seen before.

They did not speak nor look at one another.

At this point, the night was on the cusp of shifting towards new light. She made her way down the expanse of the crew quarters all the way to its very end. To the right, that is where that Miqo’te had dragged everything into.

The braided-haired woman had called it cramped compared to her apparent ‘nest’ in the bowels of the ship’s hold.

Xiaohu had nodded softly to that, as though in agreement.

Looking around now, her chest tightened with a queer sort of feeling.

These rooms they had been transferring her around in - to her they were enormous in their privacy.

In Yanxia, she remembers, her family’s bedding has been strewn across the single-roomed floor of their home. Over the Ruby Sea, they packed people like layers of fish at market within the wooden bowels of the ship. In Kugane, they had a room of the teahouse that was as large as this ship’s lounge, of which tiny futons and small bags of personal effects lined the floor to squeeze a hundred’s half of women.

She did not know what to do with its space, until she had pulled at her shirt with intention to exchange her wear for the fresher articles of clothing that had been scrounged up for her. Instead of her ingrained pattern; of performing such a motion as swiftly as possible and immediately donning the new piece before anyone could truly observe her... Xiaohu paused, and executed the action unhurriedly.

The new crewmember allowed her own nudity - another first, to have herself this way, without another ready to devour her all right then, or in the next room pacing restlessly for her, or dozens of other women at her flanks in the water.

The last time she had been permitted this was years upon years ago. A decade, perhaps? No - even younger, which such a thing was the way of children.

Time waxed on in a meaningless sort of fashion as she turned and shifted constantly in the lantern light. She examined herself. Black swirled endlessly across her: over her breasts, her ribs, her stomache, dipping down past the crests of her hips to where her irezumi continued to lick down all the way to her knees. In her new mirror, she studied how that Tiger amongst blossom blooms raked across her back.

She decided she liked the way that only a part of her flourished in colour; like how tea bled into fresh water. The pink little flowers dotting thin wood, the stark red-lips of tayuu, the golden embroidery, and the jade of silk, stained across her right hemisphere; contained by the black ribs of the bodysuit’s ‘zipper.’

She had never truly been able to examine her soshinbori.

Xiaohu only remembered the agony that consumed her days when she was not entertaining, and the blood glossed over her skin. The sting of when Horigu’s apprentices would wipe at her with warm rags, then replace her bloodcoat with salve. The way clutching hands, and black hair, and shoulders, always covered it from view.

It was beautiful in a haunting way. It twisted her stomache with a keen anxiety even as her fingers stroked along the painstaking lines that had been punctured into her over the course of years.

An artwork birthed from captivity.

Footsteps shuffled along the hardwood floor, her new neighbors apparently retiring from a graveyard’s schedule.

In spite of the solitude provided by the thick curtains of their ‘doors,’ her breath stuttered again.

This was for her; never for anyone else ever again.

She looked across the empty, barren, floor of this little chamber.

This was all hers now, Es’mena had said.

Hers.

A foreign concept.

But not an opportunity she would leave unanswered at the step.

Her irreverence sparking, she dropped every article that had once been on her person right onto the ground than to establish any sort of rigid order.

Started the first engraving scratch of her mark that way.

Hidden, for now, behind the curtained doorway.

‒ ‒ ‒

In the months after, she showed a feline affinity - explorative, and cautious, and aloof. There at one moment, then quick to vanish when the crew’s attention shifted onto her. Those that attempted to coax her out with them to taverns or to speak with all of them at the mess or after meetings were rebuked until the requests all trickled into nothingness.

And then, suddenly, her comfort came crawling into rooms and conversations. Then, later, it stood unto its legs and padded forth. Once its joints were fully warmed, it started to sprint down the hallways of the Runner unabashedly.

It all fit in a way nothing else has before; in which she did not have to consciously think about it, nor had she ever in its earliest developments.

She grew in a fundamental pattern, like it all had been built up in her blood and muscle, and everything knew precisely where to go and how to navigate there like impulses through neural networks.

And it unraveled silently, of course, like how she silently performed every gesture of true note. That was what the Captain picked up on. That what was meaningful in her new crewmember was what she didn’t see at all, or only saw in the minute disturbances of dust; what was void, or if not void, left unspoken.

That much became evident when Nenda, herself, chose to swing into the mess hall one night, many moons into the Doman’s employment.

Some had already sorted out - for work, or rest, or solitude, both old and new.

The rest had all gathered around one of the long-tables pressed up against a wall, emptied of its dishes. Oosra, with tendrils of dreamweed smoke swirling around his head to press up against the wooden ceiling, his frame hunched over and fingers loosely intertwined. Gumi resting against the inside of Rose’s left arm, the Roegadyn straight-backed, but not tense, with that same arm hooked around the Miqo’te, the other arm resting atop her own thigh. Prisa lounging her weight against the table, a glass of liquor in the hand not sprawled across wood. E’leyna standing, leaning over them with her weight pressed into palms spread across the table. And Xiaohu sitting across the surface in front of them, her shoulder propped against the wall, a hip jutted out towards the Doctor, and one leg drawn up with the other foot oriented towards the Xaela at the end of the ‘line-up.’

All of the group present were at a level of ease that could only be familiar. Their varied volumes did not ring in cacophony throughout the soundspace of the room, but with a natural cadance. The quiet were quiet because they wished to, than because it was expected or they were drowned out, and the loud were loud because there was no need for shame in speaking freely and in full spirit.

In the newest of them, this ease seemed plucked out of chrysalis.

The vastness of her ink was bared, the black of it bracketing her belly and engulfing her arms where her half-shirt didn’t tread. Her body language was open, unconcerned, with something she had obsessively kept out of sight before.

Her features were unmuted, no longer suspended in a cautious manner of aloofness with her crewmates, but something animated and complex. The soft arches of her brows shifted in conjunction with tense, glinting, eyes - giving her a wicked, lazy, sort of playfulness sinking right down to sly lips.

And her words were neither hushed, nor clipped, nor politely ceremonial. The formality of her learned Hingan had surrendered for the loose tongue adopted from their Eorzean surroundings. Amidst the lilting chitter of the Viera’s shining warmth, Gumi’s wild laughter, the gravel of Oosra’s observations, Rose’s humoured assents, and Prisa’s dry quips: Xiaohu’s speech sprung out assertively, knowingly (for how could she not be anything but attuned to them) in precise strikes of wit. It all weighed from out of her throat with mellow affection, yet the barbed arrowheads still landed with full mordancy.

Then, when the swaying brightness of Es’mena’s tail drew everyone’s eye, a pause occurred; a dimming of everything, not like their vivacity was being folded and packed away, but like the intake of breath needed when one’s contentedness flushes up to an even more buoyant state.

As the chorus of greetings, silent or shouted, began and died, the brunette amongst them followed up with what was her version of such.

A sardonic drawl of, “Captain on deck,” which found it countered by the sobering sort of way the other woman liked to drag a cursory gaze from one’s head to their toes and mimicked,

“Doman on table.” The amused Miqo’te beckoned her off the furniture with two fingers.

“Why don’t you pour me a drink if you’re going to make yourself so comfy?” Es’mena punctuated with a toss of her head towards the kitchen door.

‒ ‒ ‒

It occurred in passing.

The night was quiet. Not in some foreboding or stifled fashion, but the quiet that blankets true comfort with the ek of one’s existence. The Runner was ‘empty’; docked. Only its crew settled within its ribs.

Xiaohu was awake despite the hour; she always was at the day’s bleariest points. It was in the tranquility of solitude, the world at sleep, where she enjoyed putting herself to busywork. This was the time that she would slip into the med-bay’s back office, running through the paperwork that Prisa had urged her to assist with earlier in the day, or bring to order the wild domain of the mess-kitchen before dawn, and E’leyna, arrived. This was the period on which the vacated suites were restored to frozen perfection, and found ‘goods’ for appraisal slipped into the engine room, to be passed into Es’mena’s office in the daytime.

This time, however, there was a change in the lonely, silent, routine of it all: the Captain was still awake, performing rounds of some sort around the ship’s interior. They had looked at each only briefly, comfortable with the temporal presence of the other.

Then– as she had brushed past the Miqo’te to continue her own activities– Es’mena spoke.

“Xiaohu.”

She stopped where she was, looking over her shoulder to the summer-haired woman.

“O’ Captain?”

There wasn’t a need to remind each other of past conversations, to frame context. They knew each other well enough; had this moment between them more times than they should have. The question proposed, thus, was simplified to its bare essence:

“Are you staying?”

Xiaohu fell into quiet once again. It was not in contemplation. It was not because she saw an endless, unknown, sea spread out beneath her feet and ahead of her. It was the hush of realisation, and retrieving the humour found in that.

She felt her face, involuntarily, break into a smile that crawled through her lips, to her cheeks, all the way to the muscles around her glinting eyes. She turned to face her Captain, moving a hand to perch along her own hip. With the other, she opted to drag its fingers through the soft mass of her hair, pulling the curtain of it away from where it had pooled over her collarbone to move over behind her shoulder.

She answered as though it were the lightest sentiment; the easiest thing in the world.

“Oh, fuck yeah.”

And with the echoing nod and clicking footsteps continuing on their way, the once-stranger moved on her own way, to her own destination.

Opened that door with the last reverberating knock of Es’mena’s presence.

[ @jessipalooza @she-wants-the-d20 @kinari for primary mentions: @rn-rp overall because I threw in most of the ‘preset’ characters we have.]

#writing #xiaohu #es'mena #m'gumi #yellow rose #prisa #aura #khalen #joliquai #z'alyn #e'leyna #the runner #faeravel #jaran #ichiro #jian

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thanidiel · 5 years

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Prompt Four: “Shifting Blame”

She sat atop the long desk’s surface, sideways. One leg folded underneath herself, the other hanging off from the knee-down. It was easier this way; it let her reach up at whim into the endless material of the shelves above her without disrupting any of the space she had been building. A filing box propped up the small of her back, as another rested between her knee and the array of texts Prisa kept in the bottom-most rack. Documents, the majority of which was academia than Runner cases, fanned out in front of her.

She’d call it a favour out loud to be sorting through all of the Doctor’s most recent print-outs, but it wasn’t that. It was not as though she were performing this act for karmic purposes, or to one-up the Ishgardian later.

It was merely… something relaxing. Quiet, and dark, and solitary. The constant thrum of the airship was still a constant, but rarely did anyone else tread near the med-bay, much less to the back-office of it. Not to mention, the metallic flooring and walls in this little room made it run colder than any other room.

She appreciated the cool dimness of it most of all. The rest of the Runner was warm in comparison - in all facets of its energy. It was like walking towards the smouldering fireplace of a living room, or the consumptive orange of sunset breaking through a window.

The back-office made her think more of the cathartic chill of when the airship was at rest, and all those in the world asleep, and she would stride out onto its deck alone.

For the most part.

Through the walls, she heard a sudden huff. Then, an accented voice dripping with annoyance, started to speak as it grew closer and closer to her location. Her relaxed face began to shift then, her lips quirking up at one side in her usual feline fashion.

“Xiaohu, really? Where did you put it?” The demand came with the shuttered sound of the door sliding open.

“Put what? What’s with you and blaming me for any inconvenience that befalls you?”

“The tome, where is my tome?”

“You have like, one hundred just in this room. Shall I play secretary for you in narrowing down your search?” She stopped her filing then, placing papers down across her lap as she looked over her shoulder.

A flat look answered her right back, “No, I know it was not in here. It was on the other desk, where the herbs are drying. It was there an hour ago, I need my botany book back now.”

The Doman responded with a single note whistled out of the corner of her mouth. “That sucks. I still don’t have it.”

“You always have it. You always misplace things. You are always up to trouble,” the exasperated Ishgardian insisted.

Xiaohu sighed as she turned to give Prisa a more frank look, her smirk wiped clean from her face, “One: Discrimination. Two: I haven’t left this fucking room.”

“No one else has entered.”

“Ah-ah!” She raises a finger. “E’leyna swung by to drop off our dinners. You know she’s all over that herbal shit.”

“E’leyna would not take my things, you take my things.”

“Are you kidding me? She trapezes all over the place, especially your med-bed.”

“I…” That statement did not ring falsely. That flat look on her face twisted into a grimace. The violet-eyed Doctor still looked heavily suspicious.

“Y’know I’m right. Go bug her. I’m doing work from the bottom of my heart for you. Why would I take the time to misplace your shit, and go against the whole objective of the last two hours I’ve spent here?”

Prisa did not reply, at first. She turned around, leaving the door opened as she made her way towards the exit. “If you’re lying…”

“Oh, fuck off with that, you’re so miserable,” the thief drawled as she turned back to her work, temporarily.

Once a few minutes had ticked by on that chronometer on the table… Xiaohu slid off of the desk. She ducked down, swiping up the green-and-gold book that had been resting on the stool pushed underneath the table surface.

Bold, and humming, she strode out of the back-office into the med-bay’s private wing, right to the little corner desk and all of its herb trenches. Two books remained hazardously stacked by its edge: thick journals of Xaelan and Yanxian herbal remedies, respectively.

Deliberately, hooking her fingers underneath the top text, she lifted up the leatherbound object, and slid the botany collection right inbetween.

Then she walked right back to settle in the exact same position that Prisa had left her in.

@sea-wolf-coast-to-coast @jessipalooza @pyrar @stormandozone @rn-rp

#writing #xiaohu #prisa #the runner #e'leyna #FfxivWrite2019

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thanidiel · 5 years

Text

Prompt Five: “Vault”

Mr. Capistrant and his Foundation-bred mistress were out on the viewing deck.

They’d be there for a while: brunch was being hosted there today for the guests. She and E’leyna had been mocking the menu descriptions earlier during the morning’s prep, when they were practicing the recitation by memory: First course, goat’s cheese mixed with cinnamon and cranberries atop a green salad and drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. Second course, croque provencal on country bread and koshu ham with bechamel. Third course, yuzu curd topped with mint-chocolate cream.

So there was that to steal a good two bells, especially with the alcohol being served with the leftover yuzu juice. Then, the guests were likely to take advantage of the good weather to be above-deck for a good half-bell, at least.

Which was great - excessive, even. Really, all she needed was ten minutes, tops.

Her master-key popped that lock right open.

And she stepped into the vault.

The suite was messy; messier than what she saw when they had requested a bottle of dessert wine last evening. The sheets were close to being pulled off, the comforter hazardously pushed off to the side of the bed. Their suitcases, and the drawers of the dresser, all spilled out hazardously. A chair was pulled close to the bed, two coats strewn over it.

She took in a breath, counting herself lucky for the ship’s filtration system, and took a ‘snapshot’ of the room.

Nothing could look out of place yet.

She needed Capistrant and Amelie to ‘live’ here more, shift around more of their luggage, make their marks, misplace their things. Tomorrow, she’d swing back with fresh amenities and a truffle box, she thought. No mischief; a cheery, nice, sort of interaction they’d be hard pressed to think beyond if they realised their losses in time.

She knew there was probably at least one hidden cache here. Between the mattresses or squeezed behind the dresser or in the nook behind the ceramic base of the bathroom sink. The poor woman seemed the sort to squirrel away new, precious, things; as if she couldn’t believe she actually had them in her possession. Touching that was too obvious. Xiaohu would have to wait and see if the girl’s trip of a lifetime with Capistrant dulled her memory, or ‘make the bed’ the noon before they dock and then let something slip that would make the nobleman rush their packing later.

It was the Elezen’s goods that she’d be swinging for. Those everyday jewels and bits that he failed to notice nowadays in their regularity, that scattered all through the room. Like the round sapphire ring she saw on the end-table amongst a dozen other adornments. That one would be the unmissed piece. She knew that because it was his least favourite - he had only worn it once compared to the square-cut sapphire or his collection of spinels and pearls.

So she pocketed that particular one. Then delicately restored all of the other rings and bracelets that had rolled away just slightly from the brush of her fingers. After that, she picked through the clothing, and placed it all back meticulously into its original mess down to the hazardous folds once she found both of the loose diamond cuff links that had pulled out of the shirt he had evidently strewn off of himself yesterday, and fell into the crevices of his luggage.

Little treasures for the vault-hunter.

@jessipalooza @rn-rp @stormandozone @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast

#FfxivWrite2019 #xiaohu #e'leyna #the runner #writing

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thanidiel · 5 years

Text

Flower Girl

“We invite a lot of strangers into our home,” rumbled out one; bemused and tinged with slight displeasure.

“A house of ill-repute, then!” giggled the other. Always that veneer of lightheadedness to the sharp of all sorts underneath.

Xiaohu? She slipped in the sly streamflow of Hingan, conveying her humour to only the right parties over the frequency, and drawing off with incompletion, “Ah, like a flowerhouse? Alas! You can take the girl out…” …of the flowerhouse, but you can’t take the flowerhouse out of the girl.

She said that to be funny.

And, fuck, it was funny.

She liked making humour out of that sort of self-topic, the one that almost everyone leapt around like a pit of hot coals.

It would have stayed funny if yuanfen hadn’t drug the muck of Kugane back through the street-grates.

The remark of a ‘strange bouquet’ after that didn’t conjure to mind of its intention: the comical nature of imagining the diverse variety of their crew servicing in such a way. No, that wasn’t the image she perceived down to the vibrations through her bone marrow.

She thought of the way gunfire bloomed out from the end of a barrel; all cinder into embers, huoyao into smoke.

Who was she handing this to?

Their faces pulsed and shifted all around endlessly and forever. Did the count ever end? Was there a count? The more she thought about it; the more she thought less that it was. There was no distinction, no number, no range.

Many faces.

Many, many, faces.

Same mogui.

IchiroTakayamaOkimotoEndoChinatsuKatoJurouAokiYuudaiHogaEisenIdaHoriguMaita GeiguShiromaTanjiYanoTsukumogamiYoukaiYoukaiYoukaiJinJinJinJinJinMoguiMogui MoguiMoguiMoguiMoguiMoguiMoguiMoguiMoguiMoguiMogui‒

Kuroiri-Kai.

It was a singular entity.

One that she wished more, and more, to dress in a crowning wreath - petals and blood aflutter around its head like swirling, and twisting, and swarming butterflies. She thought she could see the sunset orange haze of that flowerhouse, the fucking teahouse, in the space of disreality between her mind and her eyes, like some backdrop to the seductive lure-call of killing who haunts you.

She felt her fingers toying with the side of the hidden firearm strapped around her thigh.

It was soft, and sleek, and feminine, and underestimated, and everything of her echoed within the carbon-metamorphosis of its iron-warped-steel.

When she rounded the corner, she dropped her touch upon seeing the back of its artist. Tried to push down all of the red blossoms into a convenient nosegay; show him a smile when he turned around.

You can take the girl out of the flowerhouse.

Sure.

You can’t take the flowerhouse out of her.

Not easily.

You have to exorcise the roots.

Maybe she couldn’t run after all.

“So…” she starts‒

@curiouslich @stormandozone

#writing #xiaohu #ichiro #e'leyna #rhys #probably messed on mobile

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thanidiel · 5 years

Text

Prompt Twenty-Three: “Parched”

Everyone who books with the Runner wants a drink, of course.

Keyword there: ‘want.’

Xiaohu has figured out a bit more to that sentiment, polished off the rust that hid the rest of the engraved message.

Everyone wants a drink, and needs some measure of attention.

They don’t know that, of course. Wires get crossed when it comes to the interpretation of one’s needs. Some people mistake thirst for hunger, exhaustion for anger, interest for affection, so it goes. Which is quite alright by her, she knows where, and if, they didn’t. The Doman has had a more than excellent education on reading just about anyone she’ll ever meet.

That’s why she spent more than a few mornings alone in the lounge in the earlier days, books laid out as she spoke off E’leyna’s ears about all of the permutations of Aldenarian drinks both alcoholic and nonalcoholic through the linkpearls. One woman at the bar, the other behind the door in the kitchenways.

Din of pans, searing meats, and bubbling sauces in one room; clinking glass, turning recipe pages, and the sound of liquid trickling through ice cubes in the other.

It got beyond fucking easy to look at someone for a few seconds, hear the first words they say to her or to their companions, and figure out their perfect drink right there on the spot after those sennights.

And it’s still about the easiest thing she could do, to playfully ask if she could make a passenger a surprise drink herself, or tag the bartender with an order, sending up something ideal to their palate ‘from the hostess.’

It does wonders for these people; fills them a bit in an empty spot they didn’t know was there.

It’s the attention they drink in, more than they do whatever’s been splashed into their glasses.

That sudden realisation that someone, a stranger, has notated them on a level deeper than the physical space they occupy in a room - could curate such a minute experience specifically, and only, for them.

Nenda asked her once on why she went through that effort when voyages could get so chaotic, and she remembers she had simply shrugged… and poured the Captain her usual whiskey on the rocks.

Then she looked up to the summer-blaze of a woman; reached below the counter for a lemon that had been sliced earlier in the night.

Effervescence for the Miqo’te, without diluting the rich whiskey notes.

“Makes them feel special. That’s what they want, right? Not the journey, or the food, or the beds, or the privacy. They’re dry for feeling genuinely unique in the world, like they’re seen effortlessly.”

#writing #FfxivWrite2019 #es'mena #xiaohu #e'leyna

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thanidiel · 4 years

Note

😵 for a sickness headcanon

She doesn’t get sick often even with how much she travels around, I imagine about every part of her life’s contributed to a decent constitution.

When she does, however, I bet she drives the ship’s doctor @pyrar up the walls because, in spite of her usual practicality, she snubs Prisa’s treatments to a degree in favour of more familiar remedies from Othard that she’ll do herself or ask E’leyna @stormandozone for.Thank you @entropytea!

#xiaohu #ask #entropytea #prisa #e'leyna

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jessipalooza · 5 years

Text

Encore

Cloud Nine, Captain Cina had called it. It was small in comparison to true theaters, but it served its purpose and made use of the space it had well. Plush red seats were paired off with a small table between them, serving as a place to put food and drink while comfortable patrons could watch the entertainment on the stage. That damned stage. So many lights were fixated on it, making it so those that were dancing or singing or speaking could barely make out anyone in the crowd. All that could be seen by those on display were the shadows cast by the vines that bordered the stage itself. Tucked in the back was a modest bar and a door that made its way to the mess hall, allowing for food to be delivered swiftly to those that felt the need to eat with their drinks. Truly, it was a pleasant place for entertainment during a luxury voyage.

Es’mena hated it.

“You’re on in ten,” one of the girls from an act before said as she passed behind stage.

Es’mena frowned, waving her off. “Aye, yes, I know.”

The reminder both relieved her and filled her with a buzzing sense of anxiety. On one hand, she wanted it to be done with so that she could change out of the uncomfortable outfit she had been stuck with. On the other hand, she did not want to go up there at all.

She had come to the ship looking for work, and dancing like some airhead for the pleasure of rich passengers had not been what she had in mind. It had been a year. A year of disrespect and condescending remarks from not only passengers, but the captain and some of his favored crew as well. With every slap to her ass or murmured innuendo about how ‘cats’ go into heat, Es’mena felt herself inching closer and closer to what she had been planning - nay, dreaming, for the past month.

She wanted to wait for the right time, for few passengers, but as though the slimy son of a bitch knew somehow, they had been with a constant stream of passengers. He had even gone so far as to double her performances.

“Oh, I’m not too late!”

Es’mena’s inner thoughts broke at the familiar, timid voice. She turned and immediately paired a smile with a friendly and whispered, “E’leyna.”

The curvaceous viera woman smiled in return. She towered over Es’mena, but somehow always managed to make herself seem small. Ironic, considered her plump figure. Even her ears were somehow round as they fell down and over her curled hair. She was dressed in equally uncomfortable clothes; a high collar that split open near the chest and a high-waisted skirt that threatened greatly to show too much were she to turn too fast or bend too far. Heels had been fitted beneath her clawed feet, not that she needed the extra height.

“I came to see you before you went on stage. You seemed out of it before you left--”

“Are you not supposed to be behind the bar?”

E’leyna waved a hand dismissively. “They won’t notice me gone for a little while. I told them it’s a break. I’m not lying.”

Es’mena’s brows raised. She could not argue with that. She peered through the heavy drapes for a glimpse of Sophie, a beautiful elezen woman that did the announcements and one of Captain Cina’s favorites. She tried to tune out the woman, but unfortunately, she had to listen for her cue.

“...so far! Can we get another round of applause for our lovely entertainment? The voice on T’eriba is one of my favorites personally. Truly a masterpiece--”

“I know you hate it, but I wanted to come watch you. You’ve been looking so tired….”

“--coming up next is a wonderful, exotic treat from the sands--”

“--sure nothing is wrong?”

Es’mena closed her eyes and shook her head, looking to E’leyna briefly. “What? No. No, I am fine. I am annoyed, but I am fine. I just hate doing this. It is demeaning.”

E’leyna’s ears somehow lowered even further and she nodded. “I know. But not for too much longer...right? A few weeks or months maybe? He has to take a break soon.”

“Keep your voice down,” Es’mena whispered, her own ears lowering, pinning back down to her skull.

“--Sorry, sorry.”

“--beautiful and enticing dance! Es’mena--”

Es’mena did not wait to hear the rest of her name, nor the ‘good luck!’ whispered by E’leyna. She grabbed hold of her lute, ensured her veil was secure, and stepped out onto the stage with a tinkle of chimes making way for her.

Light flooded her vision, but it was the same thing night after night. It had become routine. She had perfected sailing, and she had perfected this as well. Everything was placed in just the right way. The lights were blinding, but they caught every crystal sewed into her gold gown, and every crystal was sewn in such a way that it brought attention to the flowing skirts, the bare abdomen, the quarter-length sleeves and belly-baring top that was hid behind a strip of sheer scarf, thrown over one shoulder and tucked into place. Even the gold jewels that held her veil down and in place at her forehead picked up from the light and glittered.

The lute in her hands had been polished and shined, paired with a small bell dangling from the neck - a bell that matched those around her ankles. She used both bells and lute alike to start her own music.

She always started slow. She had explained it to E’leyna and the others once before: Do not give them too much too fast. Do not look cheap. Do not show too much. Allow lights and music and motion to draw their eyes where you wish them to be. Allow your fingers to do their own dance along the instrument. When you turn, coyly look down and then back up towards the audience, but never at one in particular. Make them think you are looking at them. Make them think they are the only ones there.

But Es’mena did not follow her own advice that night. Half way through her song, when three other women (all miqo'te) in lesser costumes came out, her sea-green gaze shifted to see where the audience was looking. Some had strayed to the girls. One man in particular was staring with a disgustingly gaped mouth at R’wenda, made all the more angering to Es’mena since she knew the girl had only just turned marrying age. She also had no want for men.

However, most were still looking to Es’mena - and one in particular had caught her attention. An elezen with white hair in a braid over one shoulder, it was hard not to notice him, for he was staring at her as though she were a meal on a plate. There was such entitlement within his gaze that it set Es’mena’s hair on end and, out of rhythm with the performance, her large and fluffy tail wriggled in defense.

It had been a momentary misstep, but one the man had noticed, and he shouted from the crowd, “Yes, I can’t wait to see you later, my dear!”

It was an odd statement to make, and it clung to Es’mena’s mind throughout the rest of the performance until it ended with a final strum of her lute. She and the three women took their bows and left the stage with applause still ringing. Once behind stage, Es’mena gave E’leyna only a nod before she immediately sought out Sophie before she could go back on stage.

“Who is that man? Fourth row with the white--”

Sophie arched a brow and looked down to Es’mena at the question. “The Duke. He is our wealthiest patron yet. The Captain arranged for him to have a private meeting with you after--”

“What?”

Sophie laughed, the sound light and airy, yet heavy with condescension. “He was willing to pay quite a large sum. He had heard about you from a friend of his that had attended our cruise before, though Twelve only knows why they are discussing you as though you are the epitome of this voyage. He wanted to meet you, and said as much to the captain. After tonight is done, you are to--”

“No,” Es’mena scoffed. “Absolutely not. I dance, that is it. There is where my responsibilities on this ship end.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve ever been on a ship, but your responsibilities end where the captain says they end.”

Es’mena wanted to slap her. Her ears pinned back and her tail was low to the ground, but bristling. She had been on ships, alright. The bells around her ankles tinkled and she tapped her foot swiftly with her annoyance. She stared up at Sophie and Sophie only stared back. This elezen woman had no idea. She had no clue.

But that was why Es’mena had come to the skies after all.

Without smiling, Es’mena raised her chin. “You need to be on stage.”

Sophie stared hard at the miqo'te for another moment. Straightening her own gaudy outfit, she turned with a glittering smile, and stepped out to the stage, applause guiding her way.

Anxiously, E’leyna inched closer to Es’mena in Sophie’s absence. She looked to the curtains and then to her friend. Her voice was in a low, cautious whisper as she asked, “Are you alright? You’re not going to go, are you?”

But rather than answer E’leyna’s question, Es’mena continued to stare at the curtains. Her tail whipped behind her and posture changed. Her chin raised, her hips shifted, and her arms crossed over her shoulder.

“E’leyna, get the others.”

E’leyna’s brows raised.

“We do it tonight.”

@stormandozone

#FFXIV #The Runner #Es'mena #E'leyna #IF YOU CHANGE HER NAME IM SORRY #my wriring

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