prompt: miss the boat • words: 606 • era: a realm reborn • [ masterpost ]
be too slow to take advantage of an opportunity.
Landing with a flutter and a splash in ankle-deep water, Annette’s chocobo found its footing mere feet away from the massive crystal that reached for the sky in the middle of Urth’s Fount. His well-trained claws dug fiercely into the few inches of silt that carpeted the clearing, halting his momentum and keeping Annette steady on his saddle.
Nothing was out of place or changed from the last time they’d moved through the Shroud, from the bob and glow of nearby sprites to the hogs that bordered the spring in hopes of finding improved sustenance. That was, nothing was out of place until she made her way around the width of the crystal to find the corpse of a particularly nasty-looking hog lying in the water.
Sticky red whorls of blood trailed over the surface of the spring from the arrows stuck through its chest. Release looked like a terror to behold on the thing’s face, its last expression a snarl that stuck to its gnarled maw even after death.
The Warrior of Light dropped down into the water.
Hunters did not routinely travel to this part of the Shroud for quarry. They did not often leave their kills behind to rot, either. Some whisper of paranoia between her ears swore that this had been left out for her.
Goosebumps rose on the back of her neck.
Whether it was an ambush or a trap, she would soon find out.
Mere feet away from the twisted corpse of the hog, the question was answered. It was neither an ambush nor a trap, but a landmark to show the woman her failure. The water-blessed ore she expected to find at Urth’s Fount was gone, replaced with a pungent kill by someone whose intent was to mock her. There could be no other reason. And again, moments later, that question was answered, as well.
“It’s a shame that you were so slow,” came a voice from within a rustle of trees. “I would have relished an opportunity to watch you fight!”
Annette set her mouth into an unimpressed line, but rather than rising to the bait, she cocked her head to the side and listened.
After all, the voice was familiar.
“You are looking for the wind-aspected aethersand, too, are you not?”
“Yes,” she called out. “Intend to steal that, too?”
The man behind the voice laughed, and the sound of it was even more familiar.
“Yes!” was his response — an eager little echo that told her all she needed to know. “It’s the Ixal who have the aethersand. You ought to be quick about fetching it!”
The branches of a nearby tree rustled, letting loose a flurry of silver-backed leaves, and then, both the voice and the man it belonged to was gone. The leaves that floated along the clear ripple of the spring was all that remained of him.
She turned from the hog just as Olivier dropped down beside her own his chocobo. His face scrunched in confusion as he raked a hand through his wind-tossed hair.
“The ore?”
Annette passed him up as she hurried to her mount’s side, climbing up onto her chocobo’s worn leather saddle with a grunt.
“We’ve got a thief to deal with,” she said, stroking careful fingertips along the creature’s neck. “He stole what we needed, and it sounds like he’s keen on thieving the wind-aspected stuff, too.”
Weariness wracked through Olivier’s features. He sighed heavily, shoulders sagging.
Annette coaxed her chocobo into flight, hovering just above the ground as she gave Olivier one last look.
“I think it’s G’raha Tia.”
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