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hqmillioncorn · 8 months

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FFXIVWrite Day seventeen: Sneaking

with @windupiceheart 's Vertical Height and B'ig Nunh (sorry)

Vertical, B’ig and Babycorn climbed the steps back up to the Eulmore aetheryte plaza. She was getting really sick of climbing these stairs. On the bright side B’ig Nunh was back and Vertical wasn’t worried anymore! The bad news was that Vertical had been the one to run out of the Beehive and decide where they were going. Which resulted in them getting lost. Again. Thankfully B’ig said he knew pretty much the right way to go from his time here. Which was good! She just wished it didn’t involve so many stairs. “Hmmm…” Babycorn never did get that pot of honey.

Babycorn had nothing to worry about it turns out!

The city of Eulmore was great! What had she even been worried about?! The people were kinda rude, sure, but the food they had was really good! It sorta had this really sweet taste to it? Whatever it was, Babycorn had never tasted anything like it before.

She loved eating meol! So much that she had grabbed as much of it as she could carry and had stuffed it into her bag. “You sure you don’t want some?” Babycorn picked up another piece of meol and waved it around at Vertical, who was walking besides her. “They’re really tasty!!”

Vertical looked down and once again shook her head. “no thanks.” This had been the fifth time in the last minute that Babycorn had asked if she wanted some suspicious bread.

“Aww! Why not? It’s really tastyyyyy!”

This was also the fifth time in the last minute that Babycorn had told her how tasty it was.

“i’m not really that hungry.”

Vertical had eaten lunch with the others earlier. It was a complementary picnic that included fruit salad, prepared by the Crystal Exarch himself. He had left a written note saying so.

Eating that fruit salad made her miss B’ig Nunh even more than usual.

“If you say soooo!” Babycorn would probably ask Vertical if she wanted some in just a few more seconds.

“try not to eat too many.”

“Hmmph?” Babycorn tried to ask what Vertical meant but her mouth was full.

“you might get a tummy ache.” Vertical warned. There was also something to be said from accepting food from such obviously rich white people. Free food that might as well have come with a giant WARNING sign on top of it.

For the first time since arriving at Gatetown, Babycorn paused her munching.

Of all the worst feelings in the world a tummy ache was one of the worst. She’s had a lot of experience with them, none of them good obviously. The small Lunya in her head reminded her what had happened when she licked those poison frogs too. Though this was totally different.

Those memories of tummy aches past was enough for Babycorn to put the meol she was currently in the middle of eating, back in her bag.

“Ummm…” Babycorn tried to think of anything that would distract her from wanting to eat more meol, “Where did Alphinaud tell us to investigate again?”

“somewhere called the beehive i think.” Vertical looked down at her hand where Babycorn had written the name of the place they were tasked to go to. Except Babycorn had no idea how to write words so she just drew a funny picture of a bee on Vertical’s hand. Which Vertical just let her do because she was cool like that.

Babycorn froze mid-step. “Y-You don’t think there’s gonna be actual bees in there? D-D-Do you???” There were too many bad experiences Babycorn had with bess. Most of them were her fault for trying to get some honey from their hives but that didn’t matter right now.

“probably not.” Vertical answered. How would she know? She’d never been here. She needed to be honest. “if there are bees i’ll protect you.”

“Are you gonna punch em’?!”

“yeah.”

“You’re so cool Vertical!!”

“thank you.” Vertical smiled and began to wonder if kicking bees would be better than punching them.

There wasn’t too much time to think about it because they had finally reached the doors to the Beehive. There wasn’t a sign on there or anything but the map that they had gotten when they entered Eulmore as servants told them that this was the place.

Alphinaud had circled the Beehive in red with twenty also red arrows pointing to it to make sure that neither Babycorn or Vertical could miss it.

Somehow they had both missed it and ended up in the gaol earlier but it's okay because they made it here eventually and no one had to know they had gotten lost getting to it.

“Yay!! We made it!” Babycorn cheered and accidently threw the map into the air. The wind picked it up and blew it all the way off of Eulmore. Vertical and Babycorn watched as the map flew away in the wind and fluttered all the way down to the ocean.

“...We don’t need that anymore right?”

“p-probably not.”

Babycorn and Vertical let out a pair of synchronized shocked gasps when a seagull snatched the map from the air. Carrying off any hopes that the wind would turn and bring the map back to them.

“any chance you’ve been leaving bread crumbs as we’ve been walking?”

“I thought about it but I’m too used to Cherry eating them behind me…” Babycorn laughed nervously and tapped her fingers together.

“Hmm.” There went that plan. “we’ll be fine.”

The pair of opulent doors leading to the Beehive opened in front of them, letting them walk right in. With nothing else better to do, Vertical and Babycorn walked in.

“Woooooow!” Babycorn looked all around with wonder sparkling in her eyes. This place looked like something out of a fairy tale! All the furniture and everything looked so fancy! Even the people sitting around looked all fancy too!

It was a little dark though but Babycorn guessed that’s what the fancy lights were for.

“wowie.” Vertical said.

“This place looks fun Vertical!”

Vertical looked over to the stage and noticed the many half-dressed people dancing to the music. “i guess.” Seeing so many people partly dressed reminded her of her bestie B’ig Nunh and how he wasn’t here. He had traveled here with her but in the middle of the magical transit here they had both gotten separated.

Good news, B’ig Nunh was on the First. Bad news, she had no idea where.

“Vertical! Vertical! Check it out!” Babycorn tugged on her coat and led her towards the bar. “They’re serving food I think! Do you think they sell pots of honey?!”

“you could go ask.”

“Good idea!” Babycorn skipped away to go ask and Vertical watched as she left. Which made her miss the shirtless cat boy wildly flailing at her to try and get her attention.

Lucky for him, Vertical’s B’ig Nunh senses had not been dulled during their separation.

Sensing something was amiss, Vertical turned around just in time to see a shirtless B’ig crying out to her. Literally he was crying while also doing his best to dance, though it wasn’t his forte.

“b’ig!” Vertical yelled out in lowercase.

“VERTICAAAAAAL!!!!!” B’ig yelled out in uppercase. Those that had just been watching the show that had no idea they were witnessing an emotional reunion were just really confused.

At that very moment a disappointed Babycorn had come back from the bar in tears. “Verticaaaaal they told me to quit joking around and come back when I order something for reaaaal!” This left Babycorn so heartbroken she had forgotten all about the dangers of stomach pain and decided to ease her sorrows by eating some more meol.

Babycorn had just taken out another meol to eat when Vertical scooped her up like a football. She let out a surprised squeak but Babycorn was just so used to being carried around by now she didn’t even question it.

What she did question was why Vertical covered her eyes as she started to run towards the stage. Which they just let her do for some reason.

“Why are you covering my eyes?” Babycorn asked between bites.

“don’t worry about it”

Sad to say she was a little worried about it. “Are we gonna get on stage and dance too?!”

“no. sorry.”

“Okay that’s good.” Babycorn would have rather jumped off of Eulmore than dance on that stage. Her stage fright would have not let her do anything but freeze up like a popsicle if someone put her on that stage.

Vertical closed in on the stage and B’ig discreetly danced his way closer to her until they were finally pretty much face to face with each other. “I missed youuuu!” B’ig was still crying and dancing in an effort to not raise any suspicions.

“me too!” Underneath her eyepatch Vertical was tearing up too. “okayy buddy let’s go home.” There was going to be a lot of catching up for Vertical to do. How much did B’ig really know about their current predicament? Surely the Crystal Exarch wouldn’t mind giving another long explanation again.

“Vertical they took my clothes. :(“

“then let’s go get them back.”

Babycorn managed to sneak a peek at who Vertical was talking to. While she recognized the voice she had no idea why Vertical was talking to this weird half-naked cat boy she had never met once in her entire life.

For the sake of simplicity, B’ig’s clothes were currently being kept backstage in the Beehive. Sneaking backstage proved to be as easy as just walking into the Beehive itself. Vertical and B’ig tried to look as unsuspicious as they could while walking through the

What wasn’t easy was for Vertical to keep her hands over Babycorn’s eyes. Babycorn didn’t seem to mind or suspect there was anything wrong with being continued to be carried and kept in the dark (literally) she was used to this by now.

“Who are you talking to anyway Vertical?”

“b’ig nunh.”

Babycorn was confused. That guy she saw didn’t look anything like B’ig Nunh! Where was his funny hat and his cool vest? His pants were all wrong too! For starters he was actually wearing a pair. Babycorn let Vertical know all the inconsistencies.

She felt like a real detective!

Meanwhile B’ig was a little hurt that one of his friends didn’t recognize him. It broke his little heart.

“its because they took his clothes.”

“Ew! So he’s naked right now?!” Babycorn put one of her hands over Vertical’s. She really didn’t wanna see something like that!

“I’m not naked!” B’ig protested. “Only my shirt is gone!”

“Eww!!!!!!!” Babycorn munched louder.

B’ig noticed Babycorn chowing down on some more meol. “Don’t tell me you’re actually eating that stuff?” He had been offered meol on his very first day here but he had politely refused it, sensing that there was something off with it.

“Yeah!” Babycorn took another bite of her meol. “It’s tasty!!”

It was well known among Babycorn’s friends that if Babycorn found something tasty there was a 50/50 chance that it was actually tasty, the other half meant that it probably tasted something like mud or something.

“if you didn’t eat meol what did you eat?” Vertical asked. She hoped that he hadn’t gone this long without eating anything. She hadn’t saved anything for him to eat!

B’ig Nunh sighed, for a long time. “I still had some raw spaghetti that Babycorn gave me so I just cooked some of that and tried to make it last as long as I could. I also had to eat all the sandwiches I was holding on for you!! I’m sorry Vertical!!!” Those sandwiches had been the first to go.

Vertical gave B’ig a sympathetic pat on the head. “it’s ok.” There would be other sandwiches but just one B’ig Nunh.

“Stop right there!”

Vertical and B’ig (and also Babycorn) froze in place. Right in front of them was a eulmore guard, how they had failed to notice him was a question that would mostly likely never be answered.

“Who are your patrons?”

“Celric!” B’ig answered without missing a beat. He nervously looked at Vertical to see what she would answer.

“same.” Hopefully this guard wouldn’t look too deep to find out that she was lying.

Babycorn continued eating meol without a care in the world. “Lord Vauthry” She answered.

The guard looked almost scared to hear Babycorn say that. “I see. Carry on then!” Then just as quickly as he showed up. He had left again into the vague backdrop of this scene. All three of them held their breath as he walked away, only breathing easy once he was out of sight.

“That was close…” B’ig wiped some non-existent sweat off his brow.

“yeah……..” Vertical set Babycorn down on the ground but made sure she was still covering her eyes. “by the way where did you even get that name from? doesn’t sound familiar.”

“I don’t know!” Babycorn shrugged, “Just popped into my head!”

As it turned out B’ig’s clothes were being conveniently stored in a supply closet way in the back of the backstage way past the dressing rooms.

Vertical and Babycorn stood guard of the closet while B’ig changed inside.

“Um Vertical?”

“yeah? what’s up?”

“How are we going to break out of this place?” Surely they couldn’t just walk out of here with one of their dancers? Could they?

“i’m going to pick both of you up and run really fast.”

“Ooooh! Ok! Sounds fun!”

What could go wrong?

#ffxivwrite2023 #Babycorn #Vertical #B'ig #sorry to do this to him statty #babycorn cant see a shirtless big nunh this is how hes censored #i dont actually remember what they serve at the beehive do they even say??? hell if i know #drinks thats what they serve i guess #i dont know if they serve other food thats not meol there probably yeah but i couldnt resist the joke #as you can see shes eating a lot of it #babycorn wouldnt know its a club like that unless you told her shes not perceptive but she knows what it is i swear #i dont think vertical had thancred eyepatch at this point right??? idk

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magpiesbones · 6 months

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It does honestly impress me how EXACTLY and PRECISELY Emily Skrutskie constructs the most INCREDIBLE and Appealing premises only to do LITERALLY nothing with them. These books are SO empty!!

like okay. First book of hers I read, a fun little synopsis:

woman who works as a sea monster trainer to train massive genetically engineered Beasts to protect ships from pirate attacks falls in love with a pirate! INSANE right. Should be accompanied by an exploration of THE CREATION OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED WEAPONS and probably also the ECONOMY LEADING TO PIRACY and not to mention the JUSTICE SYSTEM and what it means to have ALL THAT GODDAMN POWER but no. There’s nothing.

weird! Funky little book I’m sure I can just excise from my mind and never think about again—

BUT I CANT. BECAUSE HER PLOT POINTS ARE TOO DAMN INTERESTING. and oh big surprise but all the rest of her books have the EXACT same issues!!

hullmetal girls: two girls fall in love (I think?) in a military academy after being turned into weapons in a completely space-faring society. I believe one of them was a rich officer-track girl and the other was poor and in it for the family pension. But oh that’s so interesting! Will we be exploring THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM? Themes of BODILY AUTONOMY? Themes of perhaps even GENDER relating to bodily autonomy or MEDICAL AUTONOMY or PHYSICAL DEVALUATION? How about a look into WHY THIS SOCIETY IS SO DAMN BIFURCATED? or perhaps WHY THERES A NEED FOR MILITARY AT ALL? We sure fucking won’t!

All of this is Backdrop you see! Because it sounds Cool. A little bit of spice, perhaps, for what is maybe the MOST milquetoast romance I have ever read wherein neither of the characters was even differentiable from any other. Nobody had an arc. Nobody had a theme or god forbid a thematic resolution. Things happened because they were cool and sounded neat.

I’ve read books with bad writing before but usually those books were at least passionate and TRYING. I’ve never read before or since a book that was so empty and devoid of any deeper meaning. Shallow in the MOST literal sense. And to be frank I WAS digging! These books are a backyard sandbox marked out like an archeological site.

#like mmmm where’s. Where’s the ANYTHING. god I fucking WISH the curtains were blue honestly!#Did I go into the tags to see how big a beehive I would be kicking YES and I’d like to say um Diversity doesn’t excuse a total lack of them #I’m aroace! usually I AM in fact scraping for any representation at all but hm hullmetal girls is. I’m disowning it.#it’s such an unsatisfying book. It’s entertaining enough. But there’s nothing to it really. There’s no themes and none of the characters #Ever progress as people. The plot feels very pointless and even depressingly so at times. No narrative arcs at all.#Like. A lot of things happen but nobody really goes anywhere and no problems are ever fixed or caused or solved or anything.#A whole lot of nothing happens and then everyone is sad and worse off. And it doesn’t mean anything.#Not even in an ‘all violence is ultimately pointless’ kind of way. Nothing anyone does holds any deeper meaning and everything is lip servi #to culminate in the most SINGULARLY unsatisfying books I have ever read to the point I RECOGNIZED hullmetal girls as the same author #as the abyss surrounds us (pirates one) when I had forgotten the author name AND title of that book.#that should be enough to keep my filing system out of the general tags #Emily skrutskie #hullmetal girls #the abyss surrounds us

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