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wispofwillow · 2 years

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FFXIVWrite2022 Prompt 12

Prompt 12: Miss the Boat

Characters: Rhalen (Lenna) Alsentia; Lohi Alsentia Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki5HBBEtfak

Snap. Snap, snap.

Rhalen frowned, fading back into the evening shadow of the trees, fingers twitching to her bowstring, ears flicking.

Someone was making an awful lot of noise. Dangerous, at any time and place, in the Shroud. But especially the nearer one got to the border with Ala Mhigo and the fighting going on there. So she’d heard, and so she’d seen. And she was close to that border, now: closer than ever she’d been in her life. And furthest from what had once been home.

And it was a someone, not a something, making that noise. She knew it. No animal she knew made such deliberate types of sound, and so much of it. Which, out here, left imperials or Ala Mhigan forces – though it wasn’t quite loud enough for a full patrol – or idiots. She left herself out of this last category.

Half her instincts, the half that had her tail half-bushed, her grey fur on end, told her to get out of there. The other half told her the same, but, to take a look first.

After all, that other half said – the half that already had her dropping into her hunter’s crouch, shifting her feet forward, ilm by silent ilm – best to know what she might be up against. Especially if she planned to rest at all this night.

It took no time at all to find the scant clearing where the noise was coming from. No time at all to glimpse the ears, the tail, the fur under worn leathers. For her brain to scream Danger! For her fingers to find the bowstring, to draw an arrow, to aim, to…

Wait!

Too late.

…Fire.

Oh shite.

White fur, not grey.

Pale blue eyes with a Seeker’s slitted pupils that now stared straight at her in wide-eyed alarm as her arrow landed, just wide, with a weighty thunk in the dirt at his feet. Her realization had pulled her aim away after all.

A spurt of relief, then of alarm. ASeeker in the Shroud? Then, Run, you idjit!

This time she did include herself in the description. You just tried to shoot a man! You didn’t even see if there were others in the camp!

Tearing her eyes from the Seeker, she turned to run and…tried to run. Her legs would not move. Fear swinging to horror clawing up her stomach, she dropped her gaze. And found a looped double ring of glowing symbols running out in an arc from where she stood, colors of it staining up her boots like blood.

Magick?

Horror swung deeper. Then swung to anger.

She spat, hissing through her teeth, first at herself for missing the carved symbols that must have been dug into the dirt - she’d walked right into it!. Then, pulling her gaze up again to find those Seeker’s eyes still fixed on her with wide-eyed alarm, she hissed at him as well, a steady stream of curses as she pulled wildly, and without effect, at the binding on her legs.

He, bizarrely, just continued to look at her, wide-eyed, a book open in his hand, some kind of - Oh Twelve - some kind of magical glowing beast at his feet.

The fire of Rhalen’s anger flared wild, burning out the fear, and, failing to move her feet, found her arms still free, and swiftly knocked an arrow and drew it in one swift, smooth motion despite shaking hands.

The other Miqo’te slowly - too slowly - shut that book in his hands, and put his hands up.

“Let me go.” Rhalen growled it through gritted teeth.

He stared.

“Let. Me. Go.” She shifted her aim, to the creature that still stood, sniffing the air, at his feet. If it was magic it could hurt her, too, book open or book closed, she figured. The creature…disappeared, in a shower of sparks.

Snarling, she whipped her aim back up toward the Miqo’te. Who still just stared, ears laid flat back. Then, again bizarrely, he pointed to his own ear.

“What? I said let me go! Get this thrice damned thing off o’ my feet.”

He shook his head, quickly, and again that pointing at his ear.

His white-furred ear. Blue eyes. White fur.

Oh.

He couldn’t hear her. Thrice-damned deaf Seeker idjit wandering the Shroud laying out spells and now I’ve gotta find some way t’....

Growling again, not caring he could not hear, she let the arrow slide loose from the string for just a moment, jabbing her finger first at him, then to her own feet. “Let. Me. GO!”

His eyes somehow widened further, wholly round, now, and he nodded. Good. Then, stopped in the act of opening that book of his again, his tail flicking. And he shook his head, and pointed, in his turn, at her bow. Godsdamn.

“Fine.” She was a faster shot than he knew, anyway. And a better aim than she’d shown. Maybe she should’ve just shot him in the first place. Mouth still pulled into a snarling scowl, she lowered her bow, slowly, until it rested on the ground, quiver of arrows with it. He waited until she straightened fully again, her back aching with it. Her back had never ached like that before. Damn the cursed seed of that…No, damn the man but not the cub. Not the life that’d pushed her to leave, at last.

Smart, she realized, of the Miqo’te to wait for her to stand up fully again before he let those glowing runes fade. Meant she needed at least another half a second to dive for it again. Well, one smart thing, he’d done.

“What are ya doin’ here?” She demanded it, reminded of her earlier thoughts as she slowly flexed one foot, then the other. And, instead of running, took one step in. The glowing circle snapped back into place behind her, then faded. She started to dive for her bow, but he held up his hands again, this time dropping the book entirely. Rhalen hesitated, crouched beside her bow, and watched his face.

It was…expressive.

He grimaced, shrugging, ears still back, then made a sweeping gesture with one arm.

She could…go?

Rhalen darted a quick glance behind her, then looked sharply back to him. Slowly, she picked up first her arrows, slinging the quiver over her shoulder, then the bow - but loosely, a show of open hands, as it were.. Alright…

She took a step away. The circle did not trigger again - she watched for it. Then she turned back.

“Why are ya here?” She swept an arm out toward the forest, almost like he’d done. He sat, alone, making magic circles around him and his tiny campfire fed by what she hoped to the gods was fallen scrap wood in the middle of the Shroud, not on any road that led to Gridania. Actually, a fair way off the road - a reason she’d chosen this route, as well, following streams instead.

He grimaced again, shaking his head.

Damn. Right.

Then, hesitantly, he, of all things, pointed at his mouth. Waited a long moment, looking at her with brows raised…like he was waiting for her? To understand something? Then pointed again, this time moving his mouth like he was talking.

Oh - he could figure words out that way?

Rhalen hesitated a long moment, tail thrashing, then, all in one motion, stripped the carved wooden mask that hid the whole of her face away. Stupid to be wearin’ it when I’m tryin’ to keep away from any Keepers, anyroad.

For a moment, he smiled, pale eyes crinkling up with it.

“What. Are ya. Doin’ here?” She said it slowly, breaking off each word tightly. Because she was not sure if it helped, but also because she was still riding the tide of her anger.

His smile faded. Again he shrugged, looking up and around the forest, then back to her.

Dammit and how am I to figure out what he means?

As though thinking the same thing, he held up a finger, then dug in a small pouch at his waist for a tiny book - this one distinctly less magickal looking, she thought as she watched, warily - and a small scrap of charcoal. These, he held up, a faint smile and expression of hope on his face.

She snorted, shaking her head. “Can’t read.”

His face fell, and he paused a moment, tail drooping absurdly, before the tail suddenly lifted again. Idea, his face said. He pointed to the pack by his small campfire.

“Traveling? Well, yeah, I c’n see.”

He shook his head, and lifted his fingers, holding two of them down, and making them into little legs that walked, then ran.

She snorted again, this time with humor. “Running?”

He nodded, smiling so that his eyes crinkled again. Like he really meant it. Again he hesitated, then opened a hand out to her, palm up. Like a point but less…rude.

“Also running.” And, for some reason, she laughed, head tipped back, incredulous at herself.

When she looked again he was also laughing, silently, fist to his mouth, shoulders shaking with it.

“Yer gonna get yerself killed.”

He nodded. Yes. And laughed again.

____

Some time later, she sat on a stone a quarter’s turn around the fire from him - he’d signed his name for her, and she could repeat the sign, but of course she couldn’t say it - and watched him sketch another rough picture (he was horrible at this) in the dirt.

“An…antelope?”

He shook his head, but the gentle patient sort of humor never left his face.

(She was horrible at this, too)

He erased something, brow furrowing in concentration as he replaced it more carefully. The skin of his knuckles was rubbed raw, and up closer it was clear dirt had worked its way in, despite a general air of an attempt at cleanliness. His pack, too, was battered - but better stocked than she’d thought: he’d doled out cheese and a mix of nuts and dried fruit earlier. The magical creature dozed - if such a thing could doze - between their feet.

“Oh! A boat?”

He nodded, smile delighted.

“That’s where yer headed tomorrow?”

Again he nodded. For a minute they both fell silent - well, silent-er, looking into the fire. Rhalen realized that her shoulders had dropped, an ache there from how tightly she’d been holding them without realizing. When she glanced up, he was looking at her, head tilted. With a kind of thoughtfulness, but not the calculation she was used to.

“What?”

He gestured toward the boat drawing, then made the same gesture as before, hand out toward her, palm up.

He could’ve just meant to ask where she was headed next. But she thought he wasn’t.

She snorted.

___

She woke to hear him stirring, moving as quietly as she figured he probably could as he gathered his things together, off to make that boat, headed off to trace that rumor he’d described, as best he could, last night.

She lay still, pretending still to sleep. Her bow lay beside her. She could have woken before him, and left. She had not.

___

The boat was tiny, and rather rickety. His picture had done it justice after all, she thought, with another half-snort, laying on her belly in the scrub on the hill that overlooked the dock - careful of the slight swell in that belly. He was there, as he’d said he would be, standing at the front of the boat, looking out across the water, then back, ears swiveling with the gesture, though they could pick up no sound. The wind ruffled the white fur, carrying bits into his face that he brushed back, peering as though he were looking for something.

She had never been on a boat before.

When she strode down the dock, putting more confidence into each step than she felt, just as the Roegadyn at the back of the boat was untying the ropes that held the boat to it, the Miqo’te caught sight of her, and smiled. Again his eyes crinkled with it, as though he meant it.

Absurd to think he’d been hoping she wouldn’t miss the boat.

Absurd to think he’d expect her to come.

Absurd to think she had.

#Too LOOOOONNNNG #FFXIVWrite2022 #Wisp Alsentia #Who is NOT in it #Lohi Alsentia #Rhalen Alsentia

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