#POUNDING MY FISTS ON THE TABLE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kicktwine · 9 months

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writers block BEGONE wol eats fruit

Ch’ari is awoken to a muffled curse coming from what counts as Dragonhead’s kitchen.

Well, “awoken” implies he was sleeping beforehand — which he was not. He was, instead, counting every grey fur the past weeks had given him, metaphorically, and sitting in bed counting the stones that make up the walls literally. Two hundred and thirty-odd, he’d lost count due to the “—! …swiving insect…!“ that interrupted him.

There are only about three voices Ch’ari cares about hearing — the fourth optional voice being the Coerthan scout on Ul’dah’s front — and the string of curses came from the youngest one. Statistically the most likely between his companions, but that doesn’t mean it’s a common occurrence. Especially not at bloody 2:45 in the morning.

Ch’ari rolls off the bed sideways, wincing as his paws touch the cold stone and shuffling into the slippers he’s fairly certain Haurchefant made himself for the outpost’s overnight visitors, and he makes his way in near-darkness and near-silence towards the kitchen.

The kitchen itself is much like a dorm room; functional and simplistic and decorated here and there with furs and cloths and left-behind baubles to make the whole thing seem any measure more homey. Anything to ward off the biting cold nothingness of outside, measures for which Ch’ari is incredibly grateful. It makes his thoughts calm. Like how trees do for wind.

He finds exactly — or almost exactly — what he thought to find in the little side room. Alphinaud stands at the counter wielding a small string of something, the lamp he brought to illuminate his workspace making him look almost comically gaunt. His tail is completely puffed out in shock, shivering as if he’s about to launch himself at the wall. With little ability to see in the dark, but good enough hearing that his copious blanket shuffling should have alerted him to his presence, Ch’ari somehow manages to sneak up on the kid.

“I didn’t think you were one to swear more’n once at a time,” Ch’ari says, as quiet as he can be to mute the echoes that plague Dragonhead in the silence.

Alphinaud startles — again, if Ch’ari had to guess — and nearly knocks the lamplight off the counter turning to face him. “W- Master Tia! I didn’t mean to wake you!”

“You didn’t, I wasn’t asleep. What’s with the yelp?”

Alphinaud shakes himself and puts his composure back on as best he can. “I— I was merely fetching some of the provisions we were given, and that thing fell directly in front of me,” he huffs, gesturing forcefully (with a knife! He has some dried fruit on a cutting board. Ch’ari is struck with the sudden and very real possibility that Alphinaud does not know how to use a knife) at the wall. Ch’ari squints. A creature that looks a bit like an egg-sized grey yarzon is slowly creeping its way back up to the altogether too-tall ceiling.

“Eugh. Do you want me to get it?”

There is a long moment where Alphinaud seriously considers the beast’s demise. He eventually looks away from it, his ears drooping. “No,” he sighs. “It was probably an accident. He didn’t mean to fall.” He fixes the lamp and the cutting board, thankfully putting the knife down as well. The mini yarzon continues its slow crawl up into the darkness. “Asides. Those creatures eat buzzard gnats, and I would much rather deal with the occasional fright if it means I do not have to deal with those pests.”

“What a lovely name for a bug,” Ch’ari grimaces. He carefully pads forward a few more inches and watches Alphinaud set the string of fruit (persimmon) back on the cutting board, a bit too hard and a bit too white-knuckled.

He pauses, looking up at Ch’ari’s lingering intrusion. “I am not in danger, or anything. Pray return to bed. I apologize for disturbing you.”

“Would you like me to cut it?” Ch’ari asks, completely ignoring him.

“I am perfectly capable of cutting fruit.”

“You are still shaking,” Ch’ari points out. He’s very aware every second word he says further bruises the boy’s pride when the thing has already been battered to shreds, but he’s not about to let some lordling cut himself holding a knife wrong when he clearly hasn’t slept and isn’t holding himself together.

“I am — I’m just tired. And was not expecting the spider,” Alphinaud protests weakly.

“You sit,” Ch’ari decides, snatching the fruit and untying the blasted things. “It doesn’t need to be cut anyways.”

Obediently — a new occurrence — Alphinaud turns to sit, and finding no chair, simply sits against the wall on a fur blanket.

Ch’ari cuts the cold persimmon into pieces. He has a feeling that the lordling won’t take to ripping it apart with his teeth like an animal, like you’re supposed to do.

Probably two of them will do? He chances a look at Alphinaud, who looks like he’s about to become a part of the furs with his same-color cloak. He has darker circles than is strictly necessary, and a dangerous wobble in his eyes that bespeaks having too many other things on his mind at once. Mayhap three, then.

Ch’ari slides down the wall next to him and offers him his handful of fruit. “Odd time in the morning to get a snack. Couldn’t sleep?”

“No,” Alphinaud whispers. He takes a piece of fruit and stuffs it in his mouth, and rather un-lordly-like keeps talking around it. “I’ve not been able to. It isn’t that it’s cold or, or uncomfortable, I swear, House Fortemps’ hospitality is more than gracious.” The more he speaks, the more he works himself up. “I try and then I just — awaken! With an awful pit in my stomach, and I can’t help but think of — and, not knowing what happened to the Scions or to the Braves who were unaware, if— if any were, if they were all—“

His breath hitches. “Oh, Twelve forbid,” he whines, and buries his head completely in his knees.

“Head up, you’ll dirty the coat, I think.”

Alphinaud’s head slowly pulls out of the fabric, resolutely facing away from him and hiding his face beneath his hair. “I cannot help but perpetuate these thoughts over and over. That it was mine own folly that ruined everything I naively tried to build. And I cannot help but feel-- feel as if, I don’t know. Not sleeping is perhaps punishment for the way I acted, and now they’re…” He breathes shakily, and Ch’ari can see a damp spot forming on his knees that he quickly hides with one hand.

Ch’ari puts a slice of fruit on it. Alphinaud doesn’t turn to it, but accepts the slice and miserably puts it in his mouth.

“Now I’ve nothing to do but wait and think. I do not know what to make of it. And, and this,” he sniffles, quickly rubbing his face with the heel of his palm. “I know you don’t like me much, so why do you do such things for me now? Is it out of pity?”

Mildly offended, Ch’ari quickly remembers that at one point (out of misplaced frustration, he swears,) he did call the kid pompous and irritating and “a bratling’s role model”, so that’s probably why Alphinaud believes he still doesn’t care for him. He was irritating. But Ch’ari was irritating right back, and then worried and persistent to the point of projecting, so… He taps his claws, then eats another piece of fruit, then adjusts the way he’s sitting, then lets out a big overdramatic sigh. He throws his arms up. “Come here.”

Alphinaud instead makes himself a smaller ball and angles the tips of his ears away in displeasure. Ch’ari, having none of it, scoots directly next to him and drops his chin onto Alphinaud’s head and begins purring as loud as his raspy throat can manage it.

“-You are vibrating,” Alphinaud says thickly, surprise overriding his distaste at being hugged sideways.

“It’s purring. Do not call it vibrating.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Ask Azeyma. Now hush, I am to tell you a story. It’s important and also strictly not to be revealed to the public, got that?” Ch’ari feels Alphinaud nod under his chin. “Good. Eat more persimmon.”

Ch’ari gathers himself, adjusting his position so that the embrace is not so awkward. Alphinaud quietly lets himself be moved, having wholly given up on being embarrassed. He simply nibbles on the fruit, sniffing occasionally.

“When I was much younger,” Ch’ari starts, hesitantly, “my mother called me her little prince. I do not think she called me this full knowing how I would take it to heart.”

He pauses. “To make a long and rather grating story short, I realize now that I was set up to fail. Not to absolve myself of responsibility, but I… was sheltered. I guess.” He shakes his head, interrupting his purr before plopping right back down. “I was the only male kitten in our tribe. My first nunh loved me enough to spoil me, and I liked him well enough. He made me think I was king, and none of them stopped him. My second thought me to be a threat, and it was then that I was old enough to hate back.

“It was also then that we were old enough to bully each other, as kittens. I’m sure it’s not surprising that no one liked being bossed around much. By a child, no less, while they were already being ordered to tasks with no relief. So my orders were suddenly ignored, while his were obeyed. I saw him. I saw what the family thought of him. No one liked him, but they respected him. And so I, a shirked prince, tried to copy his behavior.

“The more I vied for attention, the worse it got. And the worse it got, the more I hated. My intentions were not good, not like yours. I wanted respect, and power, and to be the most important, most competent hunter anyone knew, and I wanted this all without working a day for it,” Ch’ari growls. “I wanted love, and I reached for it through arrogance.”

“To be loved is not an ignoble intention to have,” Alphinaud mumbles, still nibbling on persimmon.

“Kind of you to say, but I believe it was less to be loved and more to be lauded. Or maybe I wasn’t sure at the time what love felt like. Ch’leure — my nunh, Goddess let him burn — I doubt he knew either, and I doubt he’ll ever know, no matter how much he takes advantage of his filched status.

“Is the purring helping?” Ch’ari interrupts.

“W— What is it supposed to be doing?”

“I’m unsure. I’ve heard it’s relaxing.”

“It’s.. rumbling, for certain.” Alphinaud has sort of un-balled himself, so Ch’ari counts that as it’s helping.

“Anyroad. I was ‘encouraged’ to leave the tribe at fourteen. I wouldn’t have stayed longer even if I weren’t threatened by nearly every girl my age, to be honest with you. I was determined to find somewhere I would be respected. So obviously I took to scammers and piracy,” Ch’ari snorts. “The most respected of professions. But I was coveted there! I was small and novel, and great at pinching pockets, and very easy to control by my ego. As long as I followed the leader, I would be welcome, and it was closer to princedom than I ever was before.”

He nabs one of the last persimmon slices and pops it in his mouth, thinking. “I don’t remember too much of why it happened. But one of the companies I was with hatched a plot to plunder hundreds of thousands of Gil, and all we needed to do was murder some four Dunesfolk merchants. I had slain innocent men before. I’m not sure what compelled me to stop. But I couldn’t do it.”

Ch’ari can feel his tail twitching in distress behind him, without his consent. He puts a hand over it. The Scions know -- knew, in the past-present sense, of his track record. He’s certain Alphinaud was either informed or investigated, but killing does tend to put most sensible people off, and he’s taken care not to mention it much.

“I don’t know. I probably thought that maybe if I spoke up the company would see my reasoning, would apply the faux respect they had for my skills to my character. But, no, I was a disposable seventeen-year-old who ruined their plot and deprived them of their coffers, and I learned that pirates don’t forgive so much as they beat what irks them to the ground.” Ch’ari clears his already-tired throat. “S’where this happened,” he says. “Believe it or not, I used to be a bit of a singer. Not a good one, but I could carry a tune well enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Alphinaud speaks up. He sounds unsure, but genuine, and Ch’ari ends up purring harder.

“Wouldn’t trade it back. In any case, I hear Nanali — I didn’t introduce her earlier, I should have — Nanali Nali, a completely unrelated lalafell nearby at the time, thank the Twelve. I hear Nanali scared them all off herself on account of yelling real loud and firing a years-old magitek gun into the air. Not sure if I believe her, she’s strong, but not intimidating enough to scare off that many pirates. I also hear she dragged my sorry corpse back to her house on her own, but I don’t believe that either. Dudunobe says he helped, he loves to take credit where there isn’t any.”

“They are…?”

“Farmers. Out past the deserts of Thanalan where you can actually grow something. S’also where you can kill a half-grown cat without being seen by the Brass Blades. Not if Nanali has something to say about it, though, she’s a real nosy piece of work. And Duno’s her closest neighbor, he has a right loud laugh and won’t even let me look at his sheep sideways. He thinks I’ll chase ‘em, and I did once just to piss him off. Rough folks. Very blunt.”

Alphinaud considers his fingers very carefully. The fruit is gone, which leaves his hands to fiddle with themselves. “They sound very dear to you.”

“Aye. I'm certain I wouldn’t be alive without them.”

“… Why tell me this?”

“Because,” Ch’ari hums, feeling his purrs slow to a crawl. “The next few months were miserable. Everything I had thought about the world was wrong in a way that made me culpable, and the avenues through which I thought I had control were naught but fabrications to placate me. Nanali did not treat me like a prince, nor did she treat me like a wet rat, she treated me like the hurt, wretched child I was. And in return, I yelled at her to leave me alone. She was too stubborn to let me be, though, and while I was having a crisis in her home she just kept giving me food. And bed. And kindness, cloaked in anger to get it through my skull before I was able to see it for what it was. Imagine my horror when I realized what was happening,” Ch’ari snorts. “She watched me fall apart, and then helped put the pieces back in the right order just because she wanted to. You know I nearly cried myself to sleep when I got an inn for the first time? Momodi paid for me, because I helped her with the most menial task in the world.” He lets go of his tail, and leans back against the wall, his ears trembling. Alphinaud remains very stiff, attentive but carefully unmoving.

“It’s not that I pity you. It’s that I don’t think I could bear going through those months again. It is different, yes, but Nanali is malms away, and we could not visit her besides. Tataru, I do not think, has ever experienced such betrayal, and I hope she never does. …And I think Lord Haurchefant is rather too sunshiney at all hours of the day,” Ch’ari muses. Alphinaud huffs a little laugh.

“He is very enthusiastic.”

“And a morning person,” Ch’ari groans. “I know I’m a sun seeker, but I seek the sun when it has risen, not before it has. It’s East, it’s always East.”

Another half-laugh. Alphinaud smiles rather awkwardly, with his eyes first and then about three-fourths of his mouth, but at least it’s not a put-upon face in his presence.

“I am… new at being kind,” Ch’ari admits, looking back at the elezen. “And I am an old hand at learning things the hard way. But as much as I can prevent it, I would have you less of a horrible mess than I was. Which means cutting dried persimmons at balls in the morning, sure.”

“...Oh,” Alphinaud says, and turns away again, conspicuously rubbing his nose on his knees in lieu of having a handkerchief. “Thank you.”

“It’ll never be a problem.” That sentence broke him when he heard it first. Alphinaud seems to be attempting to regain his posture, failing twice before shaking his head and whiskers.

“Now. As I’m sure Lord Haurchefant will be awake and cheerful soon,” -- Alphinaud snorts -- “we should attempt to catch some sleep. Without waking Tataru, I should hope.”

#GRAAAHHH rough prose with No ending but i WILL break out of my writers block via ari and alphie eating fruit #if it kills me (pounds fist on table)#ffxiv #uh i guess. i suppose.#my writing #arr spoilers #but before heavensward

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