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hqmillioncorn · 9 months

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FFXIVWrite Day fifteen: Portentous

Cherrypit floated gently down to the ground after jumping off his sister’s head. He was glad to finally be able to get a break from having to hide all day. Now that he and Babycorn were inside of an inn room and by themselves he didn’t need to hide anymore! “Bebe! Bebe!” He ran over to his sister’s side. She was already sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at him with sad eyes. Cherrypit flapped his oversized sleeves up and down and kept calling her name. This usually meant he wanted to play. Babycorn didn’t say a word, she just picked Cherrypit up and hugged him.

Earlier that morning Babycorn had stumbled out of the airship and onto the Ul’dah airship landing.

Though stumbled might have been a bit of understatement.

When she actually tripped on the first step down and rolled down the ramp, knocking over any other people that had been in front of her. In a stroke of luck, Babycorn managed to avoid getting anyone mad at her because she rolled straight into an open lift full of people that weren’t mad at her, just confused.

Whoever told her that airship rides got easier the second time around was a big huge liar.

“When I remember whoever told me that…I swear…” Babycorn said to herself as she dizzily walked around.

It had been just a few hours since then but Babycorn still couldn’t manage to get herself to leave the Quicksand. Because of her status as a Gridanian envoy she was treated to a complimentary snack, a far cry from what had happened last time she had snuck into here.

Back when she had been smaller and Cherrypit was the exact same size. The perfect size for being picked up and literally thrown out.

She just couldn’t stop staring at the sandwich in front of her. Which was weird, normally it would have been eaten by now. Maybe she just wasn’t hungry.

“...No that can’t be it.” Though there would be a good reason for her to not be hungry.

Babycorn took the sandwich and ripped off half of it. She looked around the Quicksand, it was an oddly empty place. On the bright side, this meant she was free to sit here without wearing her mask and free to take half of the sandwich and shove it down her robe, where Cherrypit was hiding.

“Ham!” Cherrypit’s muffled voice shouted. The ham was his favorite part of any sandwich.

“Cherry shhh…!”

She hated to have to keep him hidden but considering where they were, it was the only option they really had. There was no telling what would happen if anyone in Ul’dah were to recognize them.

Babycorn really had no interest in returning to the city where she and Cherrypit had been essentially chased out by an angry mob that had finally had enough but if it was for the sake of surviving, she really had no choice. She had to make gil somehow.

“At least this is the last stop…” Babycorn shoveled the sandwich in her mouth and sighed, leaning back in her chair.

The same feeling had weighed her down before, when they had to stop at Limsa Lominsa before this. Something about not knowing if Babycorn was considered a suspect for a murder she didn’t do was a valid reason for being nervous visiting the city again. Then again, by now there weren’t really a lot of places that felt welcoming to them.

Other than Gridania, but that was only because nobody knew them there.

“Give it some time and they’ll hate us too.”

“Lali?” Cherrypit hadn’t quite heard what his sister had said. Ever since he could remember she always liked to talk to herself and he had always liked to talk to her too, but it was hard to hear her from where he was .

“Nothing Cherry.” Babycorn pulled her monoa mask down to cover her face and slid herself off the chair, “Just something silly. Don’t worry about it.”

Back in Gridania Babycorn had initially refused to wear the mask that they were requiring her to wear. It was a little too big for her face and it made her face warm. Eventually the promise of a potential payment in gil was enough for her to agree to it.

There was no mask for Cherrypit since she had hidden him from everyone she had met there. Something that would go on longer than Babycorn had ever expected.

For right now however, hiding Cherrypit and hiding her face seemed to be working out for them. No one she talked to really raised any concerns about it.

And if disguising herself worked back in Limsa Lominsa then it would work here too!

At least that’s what Babycorn thought.

As Babycorn walked down the steps of Nald there was an apprehension she just couldn’t shake. Sure, hiding her face ensured that the people walking past her saw her as just another lalafell in the crowd. But the feeling of knowing that almost everyone in Ul’dah thinks you’re a monster doesn’t just go away. At least, Babycorn didn’t think so.

As she walked past person after person there were some she recognized that once gave her the most ugly stares. And for what? What had they ever done?

Babycorn hadn’t ever really understood. As she grew up she did get her suspicions about it but there had never been any definitive explanation from the people that did that to them. Not that she really needed one but…

“Oh-!”

Babycorn stopped walking and thinking to herself when she felt a tug on her sleeve. That was Cherrypit letting her know that he saw something.

There it was, the aetheryte. They had finally reached it.

All she wanted to do was attune to it and leave. Go back to Gridania where nobody knew who she was yet. Where no one wanted them gone. Yet.

But that wasn’t what Cherrypit wanted to draw Babycorn’s attention to.

Babycorn saw a little hand poke through the opening of one of her sleeves. She followed in the direction her brother was pointing and landed on the sight of a young lalafell with dark hair, she was holding another lalafells hand that Babycorn assumed must have been her mother. They were both walking away, their backs facing the siblings.

“Yeye! Yeye!” Cherrypit cried.

Babycorn wanted to believe him for a second, but she knew it wasn’t possible.

“Sorry Cherry. That’s not Yeyema.” She whispered. It made her sad to hear Cherrypit’s voice go quiet. “She was small like me back then. So she’s probably bigger now…Unless…she…” Babycorn decided to stop talking and turn towards the aetheryte plaza.

She had already gone through this whole song and dance number back in Limsa Lominsa. There was no need for her to do it again.

That bad decision had come to exist because she had some time to waste in Limsa Lominsa Babycorn decided to work up her courage and try to find one of her old friends she had while she lived here.

You know, one of the few ones that were hopefully still alive and not horrifically murdered.

Babycorn could still remember the look on her friend’s face whenever he came out with another three plates for her just to see that she had already finished the ones he had brought her just seconds before. He had such a funny name too, Babycorn thought so. B’ig Nunh. It made her laugh uncontrollably when they first met on the docks one night.

To her surprise, The Drowning Wench still existed, unlike wherever she had worked when she lived here. When Babycorn didn’t see B’ig Nunh upon walking in she figured that he must have left too.

Hopefully not under the same circumstances as she had left.

It had taken Babycorn a total of three desserts to work up the courage to ask the people that worked there what happened to B’ig Nunh. There wasn’t a clear answer, just people telling her that he left. Some said he had left alongside an elezen.

Maybe the same thing had happened to Yeyema and even the elezen in Dragonhead she used to talk to? Searching for her would be harder, since Babycorn had never asked her name. She really regretted that part the most.

Babycorn stopped shortly before reaching the aetheryte.

What kind of friend would she be if she didn’t ask about Yeyema too?

“Uurrghh…” Her scar was hurting.

She wanted to, she really did. But unlike Limsa, her memories of Ul’dah were more muddled. She had no idea where anything was anymore! Especially not after they rebuilt after the calamity.

This place looked almost entirely different!

“Bebe?” She heard Cherrypit ask. He was wondering why they hadn’t moved. He couldn’t reach the aetheryte from here.

“Gimme a minute Cherry…” She assured him.

Getting lost in Ul’dah was not something she really wanted to do today and so far she only really knew about a few places here. The airship landing and the Adventurer’s guild in the Quicksand. The guild where Yeyema had worked was probably somewhere around here but Babycorn had no idea where.

That left only…

While Babycorn had left the Quicksand while it was empty, when she returned she found it just a bit busier and full of people. It only made her a little bit nervous, so far her disguise had been working so really she had nothing to worry about, right?

Babycorn made her way back towards Momodi to ask her if she knew what had happened to Yeyema. Weaving her way past who she assumed were adventurers just like everyone was telling her she was. Babycorn didn’t think she was anything like these people. She didn’t want an adventure. All she wanted was to finally go home.

Her hopes of asking Momodi any sort of question were dashed when she noticed that she was talking to a group of other people.

Babycorn didn’t want to wait around in Ul’dah any longer than she already had been. She had already done what Kan-e-Senna had told her to do so maybe it was time to go back already.

Babycorn accepted that she probably wasn’t going to get any answers but as she turned around she happened to lock eyes with another lalafell, taller than her and with hair just a shade darker than hers. Her hair curled alongside her face and they bounced with every step she took.

It took just a few moments for Babycorn to recognize the woman.

This woman had been there that day. The day that she and Cherry had been ambushed and attacked. There was a whole group of different people with her, she had stood back and yelled words that Babycorn didn’t understand while someone else had swiped at the siblings with fire.

Babycorn took in a deep breath and reached for the back of her head.

The woman looked away from Babycorn, the meeting of their eyes was just a coincidence and hadn’t mattered at all to her.

Without meaning to, Babycorn walked closer to the woman, who’s name she had learned was Lilium. Not that she cared. All that Babycorn felt when she looked at her was anger.Oddly enough, the anger wasn’t being directed at her or anyone else that had been involved in attacking the siblings that night.

All questions she had about Yeyema were thrown aside.

She only needed to know one thing now.

Babycorn stopped right in front of Lilium. Who reacted appropriately to suddenly having a masked stranger suddenly approach them. “C-Can I help you?” She was only here to see her to ask about a delivery order that she had requested the day before.

“Are you here to deliver my order?” These adventuring types were so strange.

Babycorn remained silent. Cherrypit shivered in her robe.

“What do you know about the monster with white eyes?”

Babycorn might not have known why people didn’t like them but she did know what names that she and Cherrypit were called. She thought they were fun at the time. Like something that friends would call each other.

The woman looked shocked, “Why I haven’t heard that name in a while…” There was a concerned look in her eyes. “If I were you I would avoid saying that name. It could invite unwanted company.”

“What do you mean?” Babycorn’s voice was unusually somber.

Lilium assumed that she was just talking to an adventurer that wasn’t from Ul’dah. It made sense that they wanted to know more about the city. “That’s what those monsters were called, the ones that used to terrorize us.” Whoever had told the adventurer about this story had clearly wanted the worst for them if they told them this story. “They were a pair of undead children. One of them with empty white eyes. The other had a horrible scar that still bled...”

Babycorn wasn’t sure what to think. Both things she had said were true but…

“As soon as they arrived all sorts of horrible things began happening. There was a string of robberies, people disappearing into thin air, horrible weather, a sudden spread of illnesses, and who knows what else!”

“But they were only-”

“They say they must have been from Sil'dihn! One of the last remnants sent to destroy Ul’dah from the inside.”

Babycorn had no idea what that was.

“Why else would they have helped to bring upon the calamity!”

She had heard enough.

“I…”

Babycorn wanted nothing more than to take her disguise off and make this woman regret everything she had told her.

Then maybe the other people that still hated them would know that she and Cherry were still here.

They didn’t chase them out, they hadn’t run away.

She wasn’t doing any of that! She and Cherry hadn’t done any of that! If only people would just listen!

“But they aren’t going to.”

Just as Babycorn’s hand touched the bottom of the mask, she heard a voice coming from her own mouth.

“Thank you very much! I’ll let you be on your way now!”

It had caught Babycorn so off guard that her hand froze. Just a few movements away from removing her mask.

Lilium nodded and looked just a little nervous. “I hope I was able to help.” She smiled, “I would be careful who you tell that story to.” With one final warning she continued looking for someone to help her with her order.

Babycorn didn’t bother to follow or to do anything else.

“...What did I tell you about using my body to talk to people?”

Behind of Babycorn was another girl, one that only Babycorn could see and hear. Her hair was tied up in a bun and it had been her voice that had told the woman that she could go.

“I wasn’t just going to stand here and let you and your brother get yourselves in danger again!” Chelinka was desperate at this point. She had seen what happened last time and unlike Babycorn she did remember most of what had happened.

Normally Babycorn would be glad to argue with Chelinka until the next day but after hearing everything that she had, she was just tired.

“Whatever..."

#ffxivwrite2023 #Babycorn #Cherrypit #mentions of big nunh and vertical and lunya :)#babycorns first days of adventuring were not that great for her #she complained the entire way and also was a big pain in the neck of everyone that knew her #she never did find out what happened to her old friends hahahaha #well i mean she found out but probably not in arr #also yeah lilium is the name of babycorns grandparents siblings kid #they do not like her but they do like the warrior of light do you see the problem #the eternal struggles of being undead and also wanting to make lots of friends #babycorn plans ahead just to make sure she doesnt get attached to people now since they ll just die or leave in the end

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