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whitelotus-ffxiv · 4 years

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“If you laugh one time, two of your worries will disappear, little cub.”

My father squishes my face between my hands as I sniffle, and I look up at his face. There is no handsomer man in all of Doma or Hingashi or Garlemald, I tell myself. None of them have his pretty ocean eyes or the lines that crinkle around them when he smiles, or his dimples, and he smiles so often that they seem like they’re always on display. His hands are big and calloused from hard work, and his shoulders are broad and strong, and I like him much better than any soft prince my mama has told me stories about.

Baba is more like a warrior, I think. A strong warrior from a simple background that people could look up to. And, as he comforts little me because I’d cried over seeing a dead mouse that Hui the cat killed, I let myself sink into his words and into his safe arms.

“Is it really true?” I ask around another sniffle, and my father smiles again, nodding at me.

“There are many cures in this world, but your baba has found only a few that really work like nothing else.”

Shifting, he holds a hand up, ticking a finger down for each cure he lists.

“Salt, in the form of sweat or tears or seawater, and then laughter, even if nothing is funny. If you can find something to giggle over, your worries melt away. It fixes hearts. Don’t cry, my sweet baby. It’s not happy, but Hui the cat is just doing as kitties do. Do you know why he brought the mouse to you?”

I shake my head, and my father tweaks my nose gently between his fingers.

“He wants to make sure you eat, silly! You never bring around dead mice, and so he figures you must be a very terrible hunter. Since you’re his favorite person, he must take good care of you! He didn’t want to make you sad, Xiu-Xiu. He’s just worried about your hunting skills.”

Something about Hui the cat critiquing my hunting skills makes me hiccup a giggle, and my father’s sunny smile grows, feeding off of it. Leaning forward, he tickles at my tummy until my peals of laughter fill the courtyard, and then he swings me up in the air to spin me around, like I was a bird in the sky.

Just like that, so quickly, so easily, my worries that, to my four year old brain - the mouse and the lack of paints to decorate my rocks that I had been talking about beforehand - were desperately important fade away. They fade into the laughter, into the joy that jolts through my body, and I feel okay again. Baba was right. But of course, he’s always right. No man is smarter than him, either, except maybe Hui the boy, but he’s just that - a little boy.

And it’s the same boy - my big brother - that I call out to as our father sails me back into our apartments in the inn, still above his head. Our mother clicks her tongue and warns him to be careful as the scent of her most famous dumplings reach my little nose, and I squeal, gently kicking my legs until I’m set back to my feet. I zip through the kitchen, weaving around my mother, who reprimands me that the stove is hot and to be careful. At the table, Hui is diligently taking peas from their pods.

He was always good at those chores. I was only good at them when I was able to sneak most of the peas into my mouth rather than let them get gathered and cooked.

“Little cub, go and wash your paws,” my mother chides me, gently. “No dirt beneath your fingernails before dinner. And that goes for your father, too. Go on!”

Giggling, I hug her around her soft tummy, and she smiles, kissing the top of my head. I scrub my hands and nails carefully next to my father, who places a pile of soap on my cheek and makes me squeal again. Mama calls for us to come back to the table, and I flop onto my cushion - it’s the pretty pale yellow one - beside Hui, looking up at my long suffering older brother with big eyes.

“Pea?” I ask, and he smiles as I lean my head back, tossing one of the tiny vegetables into my mouth. A cry of victory rings out between us both as tiny me is able to catch it, even though he had thrown gently and close to be certain I would not miss.

“I painted lots more rocks today,” I tell the family proudly, and my hand is patted before I remember mama needs to offer thanks to the kami. Clapping my hands together, I bow my head and listen to her brief prayer before crying out my enthusiasm and agreement, to the softer chorus of my brother and father.

“I painted lots of rocks,” I continue, “and the guests in— in room three really liked them so I gave them my tiger one and then I gave Bao the chicken the rock— the rock I made that is a flower because she likes eating mama’s flowers so I thought maybe she would like my rock flower, too. It’s in the hen house!”

“Do you think Bao will share her rock flower with the other chickens?” Mama asks, and I nod sagely as she leans over, putting rice in a small bowl beside me while baba makes sure Hui isn’t taking less food so that I can eat more.

“We have enough, son,” I hear him murmur gently, and my big brother hesitates. He’s been worried ever since a doctor told my parents I might grow up tiny since sometimes we don’t have lots to eat, but I know it’s not true.

“You gotta eat lots, Hui!” I chirp, kicking my legs and my dirty little feet lightly beneath the table. “Don’t worry! I’m gonna be— I’m gonna be taller than baba! I’m gonna be as tall and strong as the biggest tree in the forest!”

The words make Hui smile, and I grin, remembering what our father had said.

Laughing once can make two worries disappear.

“And then you can live on my shoulders ‘cause they’ll be like my branches and use my hair as a blanket to keep warm because it’s thick and—“

Hui starts to giggle as my mother lightly and affectionately boops me on the nose.

“If I had half your energy,” she says with a faint smile, but I’m satisfied. Hui laughed and that meant it would help him not worry. He’s the bestest big brother who always takes care of me, and he needs to be happy, always.

“That’s our little ray of sunshine and our breaking dawn,” baba says with a smile, glancing between me and Hui. “We love you, kids. Now eat up so we can play music for our guests after we’re all done!”

The promise of music is enough to get me to start stuffing my face. Our parents had the prettiest voices and our guests always loved to listen. They like my dancing, too, and I like how shy and happy Hui gets when he’s praised for how he plays the koto. They always tell our parents that we’re pretty or cute or handsome, in Hui’s case, and it makes mama and baba look so proud. They even let me play my little erhu, even though I’m just small and still learning, but mama says I’m doing a good job and that I get better each day.

Blissful days, in our strange, chaotic inn that seemed to possess no layout that made any sense. The ghosts, too, liked when we played music. They liked when I left them origami or rocks that I painted, especially the ones that used to be parents or other little kids. One ghost lady told me that someday, I would marry a prince, after I brought her a gift, and I frowned.

“That doesn’t sound any good, though,” I told her. “Being a princess would mean I have to follow lots of rules and I don’t want to follow all those kinds of rules. Are you sure it’s not a... a bandit! Or maybe a pirate, or musician—“

The old ghost lady chuckled at me and shook her head.

“Maybe he will be a rapscallion after all,” she relented, a glint of amusement in her eyes, and I didn’t know what that meant but I liked it so I peppered it into conversation every day for a week before I learned a new fun word to use.

‘Pompous.’

Princes would be pompous. No. It simply wouldn’t do. I wanted to marry an adventurer or maybe a nice farmer like baba was, and I sang all about it to our guests that night after dinner, and they laughed and they looked happy.

I hope, if they had any worries, that all the laughter would make them forget at least two.

#baby xiu!#soft writes!#lowkey shade thrown at jun #writing #ffxiv rp #ffxiv stories #ffxiv #ff14

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