#keshet dotharl

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Mixed Race Housing

Living in the Scion's dorms was... hard. Keshet had never felt his otherness quite as much as when he moved in with his comrades. They were all understanding, and they certainly did their best, but Keshet could never quite shake the knowledge that he was different. Both in terms of upbringing, and of anatomy.

Most people, when they bunked with roommates or in communal lodging, had to worry about things like their housemates snoring or eating their food. Keshet... well, the accommodations to his living space were a little bit more drastic than those of your average hyur.

The low ceilings he had learned to live with, for the most part. He still sometimes smacked his head when entering a doorway, but most buildings across Eorzea were not built for someone of his height, and he'd grown more or less accustomed to ducking. He shared plenty of long-suffering looks with the Boulder brothers, but ultimately, there was relatively little he could do to keep from whacking his head besides just remembering to stoop. Though the brain cells he lost every time he forgot made it harder and harder with each passing day, or so he liked to claim.

And he did like being able to help out the others. Sometimes, when Tataru was baking, he'd sit in the kitchen with her and fetch whatever she needed from the upper cupboards, because the only person who struggled more with the geography of the Rising Stones was her. She'd feed him all the best of her creations in exchange, and he always got first dibs at mealtime - though by then he was often so stuffed full of stolen mouthfuls that he could barely eat the meal he'd helped prepare.

The biggest issue, though, came when it was time to bed down. The snoring he could live with - he was used to sleeping in a camp full of people, with only thin fabric walls to divide them (if that). And he’d grown sufficiently used to sleeping indoors that the inability to see the sky didn't bother him as much as it used to, though he still preferred to sleep outside whenever he could get away with it. The problem was that he slept with a bunch of people from frigid Sharlayan, and that meant he froze his damned tail off every time he lay down to sleep.

Back on the Steppe, he was used to dozing in the blazing sun, sprawled out on a hot rock and basking in the heat, just like a real lizard. Trying to sleep here, with only the blankets of his self-made nest to warm him, was like trying to sleep half-submerged in a river: not bloody comfortable. But it was a shared space and he was keenly aware that he was the odd man out in that regard, so he kept his complaints to himself and tried to soak up as much sun as he could during the day.

He should have known his friends better than that.

"What's this?" The glowing red lamp towering beside his nest of blankets commanded Keshet's attention as soon as he stepped foot into the dorm, scattering all thoughts of the day's training exercises to the wind. Tataru beamed at him from across the room, hands on her hips and that cunning glint in her eyes that always made him just a little bit nervous. It seemed that this time, though, it had been turned in his favor.

Thancred bumped him jovially with his shoulder, urging him forwards. "You don't think we didn't notice how uncomfortable you are sleeping here, did you? Friends pay attention to that sort of thing."

The heat that radiated from the lamp became obvious as Keshet stepped towards it, nervousness turning to incredulity as he drew near. "Is this..."

"A heat lamp," Urianger supplied for him, scratching bashfully at his head. "We thought it might provide thee some comfort."

"He means that we asked around in the Firmament to find out what the dragons use to keep warm, and Marcelloix suggested this," Alisaie said. "A lizard's a lizard, no matter its scales, right?"

Keshet was too distracted by the warmth that radiated from the lamp to offer more than a half-hearted, "Right," in response. Nhaama, it was so warm. The heat soaked into his scales and eased the tension in his muscles. Gods, he just wanted to... well, that was the point, wasn't it?

He curled up in front of it, uncaring for the half-hidden smirks of his audience as he curled his tail over his thigh and turned his face towards the glow. Less than a minute later, the quiet sound of snoring drifted from the contented Au Ra. Tataru grinned, waving the others away. "Looks like it was worth the effort."

(By the time she returned to head to bed herself, she found G'raha and Y'shtola curled up in front of the heater as well, the three of them cuddled into a comfortable pile before it. Maybe they'd have to get a few more heaters to go around.)

-

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#ffxiv #wol #au ra #au ra xaela #scions of the seventh dawn #ffxiv fanfiction #my writing #keshet dotharl #daily inconveniences #~k

[keicordelle]

The only two bows Keshet is not likely to mess up

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv gpose #ffxiv gif #ffxiv au ra #dotharl #male au ra #xaela #au ra xaela #keshet dotharl #my gifs #~k

[keicordelle]

Easily excitable (but somewhat shy) lizard

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv gif #ffxiv gpose #au ra xaela #ffxiv au ra #male au ra #xaela #dotharl #keshet dotharl #gpose #my gifs

[keicordelle]

I have been really sleeping on this, but Keshet 100% starts to pick up Urianger's speech patterns by like ShB/EW. Urianger's been helping him with his Eorzean Common since late ARR, teaching him how to read and write since post SB -- there is no way that after spending that much time studying language with him that Keshet doesn't start dropping "hath"s and "tis"s in every conversation. He doesn't really get how thou/thy works, but he keeps saying them anyway without even meaning to, incorrectly like 50% of the time. He'll stumble over a word like "spoon" but then pull out "sanguine" or "antipathy" in the next sentence.

Thancred has to step in and start giving him "how to talk like a normal person" lessons

#none of the scions even knew he and Urianger were doing these lessons until they started noticing this #he was too embarrassed to tell them #but once they all find out they all go out of their way to teach him new words and help him improve his vocabulary #Thancred teaches him all the curse words he can come up with and for a while Keshet picks up one hell of a potty mouth #until Y'shtola comes forward and puts a stop to it #and maybe a new lump on Thancred's head #ffxiv #Urianger #urianger augurelt #keshet dotharl #~k

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Horn Caps

Keshet bit back a curse as he twisted free the cap adorning the point of his horn, careful of the ragged edge where the arrow had sheered through the metal. He almost wished it had hit him in the face instead; it was a pain in the ass to get the damned things on and off, and an even bigger pain trying to fix it this far from home. He certainly couldn't replace it without putting in a custom order, but the marks from his last shoddy solder job were still visible along the underside, and he really didn't want to ruin the finish any further than he already had...

"Wait, those come off?" G'raha's eyes were wide as they flicked from the twisted metal in Keshet's hand up to the naked point of his horn.

"Of course they come off. Did you think they were welded to my head or something?"

The guilty flick of his ears was answer enough. "Um, yes?" he offered tentatively, and Keshet swallowed down a snort as G'raha hurried to add, "They just seem so tight to your horns - they never slip off, even in the deadliest of combats, and I've never seen your remove them before either. So I just thought, maybe, you couldn't?" His face was flushed as red as his hair by the time he finished, his tail sweeping sheepishly behind him.

"It takes a bit of force, but I can get them off if I want," Keshet admitted. He tugged at the other, undamaged cap until it too pulled free in demonstration. "I don't, very often. Only to clean or fix them, when necessary. I've worn them since I was just a boy; they're practically part of my being now. Literally and figuratively," he added with a grimace, rubbing at the scarring on his horn where the edge of the cap usually sat.

"Is there some sort of significance to them?" G'raha asked.

Keshet shrugged. "Not any more than there is to your necklace or Urianger's rings. They carry sentimental meaning, that's for sure, but they aren't like markers that I'm of age or anything like that. They're just adornment. Not everyone wears them, but I like it. Besides, it's not like we can wear earrings, like the other races are so fond of."

G'raha let out a startled laugh, grinning at him. "I suppose that's true." He peered closer at the caps, cocking his head. "What's that engraved on them? I can't make it out."

"Oh." Keshet flushed, closing his hand around them to hide them from view. "I, uh. Really liked karakul when I was younger."

G'raha eyes brightened, something caught between mirth and excitement shining in their crimson surface. "You wear engravings of karakul on your horns?! That's so sweet!"

"They're just little designs in among the cross. Look, please don't tell anyone about it," he begged, and G'raha stifled his giggle behind his hand.

"Your secret is safe with me."

-

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#ffxiv #ffxiv fanfiction #au ra #wol #g'raha tia #au ra headcanons #my writing #daily inconveniences #keshet dotharl #~K

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Tail Thickness

"Dude, you're staring."

He was. And well longer than was polite, even by auri standards. But how could he not, with that monstrously thick thing draped over the bench next to him. It was bigger around than his bicep - almost as big as his thigh. Pale and gleaming in the afternoon sun... He couldn't tear his eyes away.

Thancred watched with amusement as Keshet's eyes tracked the idle flick of the other Au Ra's tail, the look on his face caught somewhere between envy and chagrin. His own tail twitched in time with their anonymous travel companion's, though Thancred doubted Keshet was even aware of it - he was focused on that tail with a fervor Thancred had only seen in drunkards presented with top shelf whisky or merchants faced with an overflowing coin purse.

"So are you going to explain the tail thing or am I just supposed to pretend you didn't just spend the last hour gawking at that guy's hindquarters?" Thancred asked later, when they'd disembarked the carriage and parted ways with the Raen in question. If the man had noticed Keshet's staring, he'd been polite enough not to mention it, though Thancred would have sworn he’d seen that tail swish a little more pointedly once or twice after their eyes had met. Had he just witnessed some sort of auri courtship ritual? Had they been flirting?

"I was not gawking," Keshet protested, heat rising to his face. Dusk Mother bless him that it didn't show on his dark complexion. Thancred did not need any more fuel for his assumptions, judging by that sly grin that spread over his face.

"You know what they say: the bigger the tail, the bigger the-"

"No! That's not- I mean, well, it is, but- Where did you even hear that?"

Thancred's smirk was downright devilish, his elbow jabbing into Keshet's side as he laughed. "I didn't. But it doesn't take a scholar to make that leap."

Keshet grimaced, shoving back at Thancred's shoulder. "That's a myth anyway. But a thick tail is something of a status symbol among Au Ra. Like, I don't know, the length of an Elezen's ears. It's said that the thicker your tail is, the stronger you are." Keshet's own slender tail swished behind him indignantly. "As I said, a myth."

But that didn't mean he didn't catch himself admiring - okay, gawking - at particularly thick tails when he happened upon them. Campfire stories or not, he couldn't deny the allure of a tail thicker than his neck. Even if his very existence proved that the thickness of your tail was not a marker of your power - or anything else that Thancred's tall tales might claim it to mean.

-

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#ffxiv #au ra #wol #thancred waters #thancred #au ra headcanons #mildly suggestive #I've noticed a tonal shift in my Keshet writing around this chapter #it's gotten a lot more casual #lot more interjections #which is fairly appropriate to his style but still. a shift #my writing #daily inconveniences #keshet dotharl

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Tongue

The twins request to go out for ice cream ought to have been innocuous enough, but he'd spent enough time in their company - and answered enough of their questions - to recognize the shifty look in their eyes as they glanced eagerly between each other. Someone was about to win a bet, and he suspected regardless of who it was, he would be losing.

Still, he was content to humor them, more to spend time with them than for any penchant for the sweet treat. Alisaie insisted he order something for himself (and none too subtly at that), so he contented himself with an ice pop, which was thin enough to fit comfortably between his horns (a concern, he noted with some amusement, that had not occurred to either of the twins in their scheming), and which offered a mild sweetness that was much less likely to make his stomach churn than the sugary cream the two of them ordered.

It didn't take long to figure out what their game was. They peered carefully at him as he licked at the ice, watching his mouth with a hawk-like focus. If it had been anyone else he might have been uncomfortable with the scrutiny, but it was the twins, and undoubtedly their focus was nothing more nefarious than some new curiosity they'd cooked up between them. So he let them watch, their own ice cream melting in their cones, confident they'd eventually figure out what they were after or, more likely, just ask.

"See, I told you it wasn't forked," Alisaie declared in a hushed voice, elbowing her brother. Keshet arched an inquiring brow that went unnoticed.

Alphinaud glared at her, scooching further away. "Yes, well, neither does it appear to be blue, unless you now seek to propose some sort of two-toned argument."

His second brow rising to join the first, Keshet gave into his own curiosity. "What are you two fighting about this time?"

Alphinaud flushed, jumping as if he'd forgotten Keshet was there. "I'd hardly call it a fight. Just a... debate, of sorts."

Alisaie huffed, taking a bite (a bite!) out of her ice cream before answering, "Alphinaud thought your tongue was forked."

"You thought it was blue!" Alphinaud protested in return.

"My tongue? Why do you... You know what, never mind, that's hardly the weirdest thing you guys have wondered about." He stuck out his tongue, which was a perfectly normal pink color and not forked in the slightest.

They both squinted at it, leaning in as though they might divine his secrets if only they were an inch or two closer. "It is rather long though," Alphinaud observed, and Keshet shrugged, returning to his ice pop as Alisaie stuck her own tongue out to compare.

"Why would my tongue be blue?" he asked, baffled.

"Some lizards have blue tongues," Alisaie asserted with surprising confidence for someone who'd just been disproven.

"Ah. You guys realize I'm not actually a lizard, right? Just lizard-adjacent."

"We know. We simply delight in determining wherein lie the similarities," Alphinaud said.

"It'd be cool if your tongue was blue though. Or forked. Either or," Alisaie added, biting off another mouthful of ice cream.

"That would be cool." Oh well. He'd just have to settle for "slightly longer than average", he supposed.

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#ffxiv #au ra #wol #alisaie leveilleur #alphinaud leveilleur #tongues #ffxiv fanfiction #keshet does not know enough about his pale-scaled cousins to know they DO have blue tongues #one day he will find this out and be absolutely dumbstruck #my writing #daily inconveniences #drabble #keshet dotharl #~K

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Time

Time was one of those things that just sort of didn't exist to Keshet. He was aware of the passage of time, of course - he counted the days like any other Xaela, if only to keep track of their more important rituals. But time on a smaller scale was utterly unimportant to him.

Clocks did not exist on the Steppe. If you wanted to arrange to meet with someone, you either did it at dawn or dusk, or you did it spontaneously and just hoped they were around. Maybe if you were lucky you could get away with using high noon as a reference point as well, but the Steppe was vast and the course of the sun varied from one moon to the next, which made it a rather inexact measurement. Unsurprisingly, this meant Keshet struggled with the stricter schedules Westerners were so fond of.

"The meeting with the Seedseers is to occur tomorrow at one. Keshet, are you listening?"

He was! "Yes, Mom," he complained, tail flicking indignantly.

Y'shtola raised a brow at him while Alisaie snickered behind her hand, but she refused to let him sidetrack her. "Your presence is required, and tardiness will not be appreciated. Do try to be on time, for once."

Naturally, he was not on time for the meeting. He was never on time for any meeting. He tried, really, but stopping what he was doing to stare at a clock simply never occurred to him. Either the sun was up or it was down and that was really all he needed to know.

His fellow Scions did not agree. Before long he found himself with an attaché any day he had a deadline, one of his comrades assigned to him to ensure he kept to the schedule. He would have liked to protest it was unnecessary, but sadly it really did help. And in truth, he didn't mind so much having one of his friends shadow him sometimes; usually, it just felt like they were spending some extra time together and less like he had a warden watching over him.

And thus time passed, with Keshet only moderately aware of it, and never in all the years he spent in the West did he ever get the hang of watching the clock.

-

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#a problem I happen to share #ffxiv #wol #au ra #ffxiv fanfiction #au ra xaela #my writing #keshet dotharl #daily inconveniences #~k

[keicordelle]

Resting Villain Face makes this look like the most sarcastic clapping I've ever seen

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv gpose #ffxiv gif #ffxiv au ra #au ra xaela #male au ra #xaela #dotharl #keshet dotharl #my gifs #~k

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Family Ties

The Dotharl don't have parents, as such. Of course Keshet technically had a mother who'd birthed him, and he supposed that one of the older men was technically his father, but it was unlikely even the woman who'd given birth to him knew who it was. "Family" in their tribe just didn't work that way.

Keshet had once overheard someone in Limsa say that "it takes a village to raise a child", but he suspected they didn't mean it quite as literally as his people did. Dotharli children were raised communally, with no stronger ties to their birth parents than to anyone else in the tribe. Keshet didn't even know who his "mother" was, and he didn't particularly care. When you were reborn amongst the same people over and over, tracking those sorts of ties was tedious at best and uncomfortable at worst. When you gave birth to the spirit of your own mother or your mate, you didn't necessarily want any sort of parental tie to be at the forefront of everyone's minds for this incarnation. Family ties within the Dotharl, if you were to try to chart them the way Eorzeans did, were messy and complicated, and the tribe was perfectly content to ignore them altogether. So everyone had a hand in raising any children born to their tribe, and it was the soul deep bonds that took precedence over the flesh-driven ones.

Though certainly the Dotharl's rebirth made them unique, they were hardly the only ones to raise their children in such a fashion. Every tribe on the Steppe had their own values and traditions when it came to family. Plenty of them did follow the same customs as Eorzea, where parental lineage dictated how and by whom a child was raised. But more still had their own definitions of family, utterly different from one to the next, as was so common on the Steppe. The Borlaaq raised only their female children, and left the males behind after they were a year old - a heartless practice, even by Keshet's rather callous standards - and their devotion to matrilineal ties was absolute. The Iriq took in any discarded male children, and raised them as a group not entirely unlike the Dotharl, if somewhat less complicated for the lack of an intricate webbing of bonds. Ties of blood mattered little and less to them, and near as Keshet could tell they all treated each other as one large, rowdy group of siblings.

Which was not to say that all of Eorzea was so beholden to the idea of mother and father and child making a family. Just most of it. (Certainly there was more nuance to it than that, since even the very family-focused nobility of Ishgard had slightly broader definitions of family than that, what with their branches and offshoots and bastard children -- and wasn't that a concept that boggled Keshet's mind.) He could certainly see hints of his own upbringing in Eorzea's Miqo'te tribes, though the entire concept of a Nuhn puzzled him. Why should mating rights belong to a sole person? Keshet supposed that, rather unlike the Dotharl solution of simply not knowing who your parents were, it ensured that everyone was very well aware of their relation to one another. It certainly did seem that everywhere he looked outside the Steppe, people valued parental ties far more than he ever could. The communal family of the Dotharl suited him just fine.

So no, Keshet really didn't understand the intense bond that seemed to link parent and child. But he could certainly see the hurt in Alphinaud and Alisaie's eyes as their father turned from them, not a hint of a quaver in his voice as he announced, "Alphinaud, Alisaie. As of this moment, you shall no longer bear the name of Leveilleur. How you choose to live your lives is no longer my concern. If you wish to walk the path of ruin, I will not stand in your way."

Keshet could feel the jolt that went through the twins like levin shot through his own heart, his nails biting into his palm with how hard his fist clenched. The only thing that held him in place was the grief pooling in Alisaie's eyes and the faint tremble to Alphinaud's shoulders.

Perhaps he did not understand the bond between father and child, but he certainly knew what it meant to be family, and this wasn't it. But fine. If Fourchenault wanted to abandon his children, Keshet would be there for them instead. His "family" always had room for two more members, and to hell with the ties of blood. In truth, Alphinaud and Alisaie had been siblings of his long since they'd been stripped of their own family name. And if Fourchenault didn't like that, he could suck eggs.

-

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#ffxiv #au ra #wol #fourchenault leveilleur #alisaie leveilleur #alphinaud leveilleur #ffxiv 5.5 #ffxiv fanfiction #this is one of those scenes where I really feel the difference between my WoLs #they handled this surprisingly differently #esp considering Koudrier is supposed to be the nice one #my writing #daily inconveniences #keshet dotharl #~k

[keicordelle]

New year, new mug, and Keshet's still stuck trying not to stab his hand on the points of his damned horns to drink from it

#ffxiv #gpose #au ra #xaela #ffxiv gpose #my screenshots #keshet dotharl

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Taciturn

Somehow, Keshet had gotten a reputation for being the silent and contemplative type, and he wasn't really sure how that happened.

Okay, that was a lie. He knew exactly how he'd earned himself that reputation, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the brooding hero image others liked to project onto him. Really, he rather liked to talk. Okay, so maybe he would rather let his blade speak for him when it came to dealing with his enemies, and he was definitely a "strike first, ask questions later" kind of Au Ra, and admittedly he would rather pull his own scales off than sit through one more diplomatic meeting...

Well alright, maybe it was a reputation well deserved. But when he was in good company - good, casual company - he certainly didn't limit himself to a few grunts and nods like others seemed to think he would. He just happened to know that he didn't have much a knack for diplomacy. To each their own skills, right? And if Alphinaud and Thancred were far more skilled than he in the art of speaking, well, Keshet was more than willing to cede that burden to them.

But in truth, he was fairly certain that he could blame his taciturn reputation on his first year in Eorzea. It wasn't his fault, really. He hadn't intended to give off that sort of image at all. It was just... He hadn't really understood what anyone was saying to him.

Okay, that was an exaggeration. It wasn't that he hadn't understood a word of Eorzean Common when he landed in Limsa Lominsa for the first time. But they didn't really have schools for that sort of thing on the Steppe (they didn't have schools at all), so it was really more of a "learn on the field" sort of an education. Which suited Keshet perfectly well - but it did mean that he only understood every other word spoken to him.

As it turns out, it is remarkably hard to formulate any sort of response to someone's question when you've missed half of what they've said. To say nothing of the fact that he then had to figure out how to phrase his response in Eorzean as well. No easy task for an overwhelmed lizard. If he understood only half of the language, he could reproduce even less, and he ended up spending most of his first year in the West smiling and nodding at what he hoped was the right times.

But now, with several more years of experience under his belt (and more than a few language lessons with a certain erudite Elezen), Keshet was more than willing to take part in the conversation - he just couldn't seem to shake the reputation as "the silent hero" no matter how much he tried.

Oh well. At least it meant no one asked him to mediate between heads of state in his down time. …Much. 

-

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#ffxiv #au ra #wol #ffxiv headcanons #I'm a linguist we're still not done with the language barrier stuff #I'll never be done with it #my writing #daily inconveniences #keshet dotharl

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Aging

Keshet peered at his reflection in the mirror, tilting his chin just so until he could see the scales that crawled up his neck and over his jaw. Swaths of skin peeked between the black, brown eddies and swirls of vulnerability tucked between the encroaching plates. Were the patches between his scales smaller than they were before?

Maybe. He couldn't really tell. The spikes on his chin and the jut of his horns made it difficult to see his own neck, let alone try to examine it in detail. He dragged a finger along the narrow patch of exposed skin on the side of his throat, trying to judge if the rough edge of scales rubbed further in along the pad of his finger than it used to.

"Cut yourself while shaving?" a wry voice asked, and if Keshet really had been holding a razor, he would have slit his damned throat with how hard he jumped. He twisted to find Thancred standing in the doorway, hip cocked and arms crossed over his chest as he leaned in the frame. Laughter twinkled in his eyes as he watched Keshet's reaction, but he was polite enough not to comment.

Keshet grimaced at him. "Of course not. Do you think these scales are denser than they used to be?"

Thancred squinted at his neck, tilting his head and chewing on his lip for a long moment before offering an easy shrug. "I don't know. I'm not in the habit of staring at your neck."

"What about my horns? Do you think they're longer?"

"Uh, no? What's gotten into you? Did you find a grey hair or something?"

Thancred was not actually expecting the muttered, "Something like that," he received in response.

"Wait, really? How would you ever know, in all that hair?"

"Au Ra don't go grey," Keshet explained absentmindedly, poking at the caps on his horns. Was it just his imagination or were they more snug than they used to be? "Well, we do, but not as early as you do. But our scales and our horns never stop growing, so you can judge our age based on how much skin we still have exposed or by the length of our horns. Old Au Ra end up practically covered in scales, and their horns can get so long it causes health problems. Never been much of an issue among my people, since we don't usually make it to old age, but I've seen some of the elders of the other tribes, so I know what to look for."

"Uh...huh. And you're worried you're getting old all of a sudden?"

Keshet looked up from his own reflection long enough to frown at Thancred. "Not worried. Just... noticing. It's been no small number of years now since I came to Eorzea, but I'm only just now realizing how much that time has changed me. Inside and out."

Thancred's expression softened. "Ah. Well, if it makes you feel any better, you'll always be a young whippersnapper by my standards. Hell, I'm another 5 years older than you now than I was when we met! And unless you go spending all your free time on other shards without us, I don't think you're likely to catch up any time soon." Keshet chuckled, a paltry, half-hearted sound, but he didn't look quite as concerned as he had a moment ago, so Thancred counted it as a win. "But... if you ever want to talk, I'm here," he added gently.

"Thanks," Keshet said, offering him a half-smile. After a beat, the other corner of his mouth quirked up as well, and he grinned. "Besides, next to a bunch of white- and grey-haired cronies like you all, I'm bound to look like the youngest forever."

-

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#ffxiv #au ra #wol #thancred waters #thancred #my writing #daily inconveniences #keshet dotharl #~k

[keicordelle]

Keshet running around doing errands for the Labyrinthos researchers as they're putting together the Ragnarok and just. Shuts his brain off. He has no idea what they're saying to him. He's not even sure these words are Eorzean Common. He's just vibing, carrying boxes and papers, replaying the same four bars of that song that was playing in the elevator over and over in his head.

#ffxiv #keshet dotharl #keshet wandering around with Urianger and going “im glad youre happy. I have no idea what the fuck is going on” #urianger starts trying to explain it to him and he just holds up a hand. “i really dont need to.” #ffxiv endwalker #~k

[keicordelle]

The Daily Inconveniences of an Au Ra: Eggs?

Yda cocked her head curiously, and though Keshet couldn’t see the direction of her gaze, he could guess what she was about to say before she said it.

"You have a belly button."

Alright, he hadn't expected her to say that. "Erm, yes? Should I not?"

She frowned. "But didn't you hatch from an egg?"

Dumbfounded, Keshet blinked at her, and he chose to believe she was blinking back behind her mask. "No?" he answered, confusion turning it into a question. "Where in Nhaama's grace did you get that idea?" He wasn't sure if he should be amused or offended, but Yda carried such an air of innocence that he found he couldn't help but laugh, reaching to tug on the shock of blond hair that had slipped out from her headscarf once again.

"But you're all..." She waved a hand up and down, encompassing his entire body. "Lizardy."

Keshet choked on his own laughter, teeth sinking into his lip to try to hold it in as his brows drew up in bewildered mirth. "So you see scales and a tail and you think I came from an egg? What, do you picture little infant Au Ra knocking on the insides of their shells when it's time to hatch?"

"Well, no. I assumed you used your horns to break free." That sent Keshet into another fit of laughter, and she pouted at him. "It's not that ridiculous! Besides, wouldn't those horns hurt your mother?"

"Our horns don't grow in until after we're born," he wheezed in answer. "We most certainly don't use them to peck our way free of eggs. I was born just the same as you, umbilical cord and all," he said, gesturing to the naval that had been the source of her confusion.

"Grr, Thancred!" Yda whirled, storming off to chew out the rapscallion rogue, who had presumably been feeding her falsehoods for his own amusement. Keshet shook his head in bafflement as she left, still chucking to himself over the image of a tiny Keshet sitting in a freshly cracked egg shell. Damn, maybe he should have played along and seen how long he could keep up the ruse; surely he and Thancred could have had some good fun teasing her until she finally realized the joke.

Although... As he watched Yda beat harmlessly on Thancred's shoulder, he had to wonder. Thancred did mean it as a joke, right?

Read the rest of the series on Ao3!

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#ffxiv #au ra #wol #yda hext #thancred waters #i'm sorry to say that au ra do not come from eggs #that would be cute tho #ffxiv fanfiction #daily inconveniences #my writing #drabble #my screenshots #keshet dotharl #~K

[keicordelle]

WHERE is my melanin!!

#they made keshet white!!1 😭 #that light really do be swallowing up the darkness #ffxiv #my screenshots #keshet dotharl