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Mahri fiddled with her hands in the backseat of the chocobo carriage. She’d tried not to dress up as her father asked, but she still felt too nervous not to dress up a little. She flattened her hands against her trousers, tapping her fingers a bit.
“I can smell nervousness from here, Mahri,” Grigorii replied. “Is alright.”
“I know it’s just...I’m not used to even having a grandparent within reach? Or, well, meeting one,” Mahri replied. “He had a mom, sure, but she was so far out of reach being a big underground crime boss, y’know?”
“Mmm,” Grigorii hummed. “Is understandable. But I will tell you that your deda is friendly man. Perhaps bit intense, but what hrothgar isn’t bit intense?”
“You?” Mahri silently covered her mouth, looking ahead at him.
It seemed she didn’t need to worry though: her father burst out laughing. “Yes, that is because I am a people-person. Your deda, while successful bounty hunter, never had to be good people person.”
“He was a bounty hunter?” Mahri asked.
“Da,” Grigorii answered. “Only for creatures. Not people, not unless they abandon their compassion for cruel indifference and become monsters in man’s shoes. Worked over in Bozjan lands for decades until Garleans came. Brought Mother and me over to Ala Mhigo at first sniff of danger he could not handle on his own.”
“Why?” Mahri tilted her head, her ears swerving around to focus on her father.
He sighed. “Have you heard how Eorzeans talk of hrothgar?”
“Mostly that hrothgar are big, they invented gunblades, and hrothgar fighters are tough,” Mahri answered.
Grigorii snorted. “Of course. Only think of us in how we can serve. Same as they do the ‘beast tribes’-” He growled a word softly in what Mahri had gathered to be the native hrothgar language. She guessed he was swearing. Couldn’t blame him. Grigorii huffed. “They think of us as helions and lost. Helions stay with a queen, follow the queen until they die. Queen is a loose term, could mean actual queen of Bozja, which all hrothgar serve in some way or another, or female leader of settlement. Lost have no queen. It is a crude summary of history, but is accurate enough to summarize history without needing full history lesson. Don’t say those terms, helion and lost, around your deda, though. He will prove that even old men can break bones.”
“I promise I won’t,” Mahri replied. “Which does our family technically fall into?”
“Lost,” Grigorii answered. “Your deda’s deda didn’t agree with his queen’s daughter when she took over from her mother, who we honor with our surname. She throws him out into wilderness and expects him to die.” He looked over his shoulder, sneaking a quick wink and grin to Mahri before looking back at the Limsan road. “Did not expect him to start a family.”
“How did he and his family survive?”
“Mahri, what you must understand about Bozhenasches,” Grigorii Bozhenasch answered, “is that we are crafty creatures. He found a vein of fire crystal, traded it to blacksmiths and goldsmiths. Established clan of miners until your deda stole secrets of gunblade from queen-loving idiots.”
Mahri smiled. “Just to make sure I’ve got the story straight in my head before I meet him, can I tell it?”
“Of course, it is a good story, and the road is long.”
Mahri inhaled and spoke-
A spry young hrothgar sat in the dark of night on a cliff, looking out at the village outskirt below him. He felt comfortable in his natural “invisibility” thanks to his dark fur matching the sky above him. He estimated it to be a ten-foot drop at most. It gave him ample ability to see the movements of the men below him.
His tufted ears focused on the burly brown hrothgar leading the men. The chill nip of the summer air kept him focused more than the privileged students below, who all complained. He held a branch the size of a gunblade in his hand, carved just for this purpose. When the instructor below began running drills, he mirrored the stances and motions he did every night. Tomorrow morning would be the students’ graduation ceremony, where there would be a contest held. When the instructor and students retired for the night, Davor Bozhenasch returned to his camp.
He had left home a moon ago. He imagined they looked for him for a week before going back to business. He went to sleep, restlessly as that thought haunted him.
Davor woke with the sun the next morning, going down to the river. He pulled out a circular container, spun the top open, and swiped two of his fingers into it. He pulled it across his face, making a darker streak across his face over his eyes. He closed the container, washed his fingers in the river, then walked into town as casual as a local.
The contest signup was stupidly easy to sneak a cover name onto. Many hrothgar signed with false names, to avoid bringing their family shame should they fall out of the competition. He got a raised eyebrow at “Thiefblade” but he did not give a singular fuck what the platinum-blond prick in charge of signups thought of him. He was the idiot who couldn’t recognize a vagabond when he saw one.
The first round was painless: line up a shot, get a bullseye. Maybe five idiots with the eyes of a bat were eliminated out of the contest. The second round was a bit of a challenge for Davor, he was used to wood’s weight over steel, but he managed through the obstacle target course alright while another ten fell from the contest. If he and the last five made it through the third round, they would be given gunblades to keep.
He stood at his side of the arena for the tournament when he smelled them. He snuck a look at the cliff he’d learned the gunblade upon out of the corner of his eyes. He saw his family: eight older brothers, his father, and his mother (her orange fur glistened in the sun, making her look like an ember amongst the coals next to the men of his family). He grinned up at them, then focused upon his opponent.
His opponent was the color of dirt, with dark mossy spots in his chest fur. His mane was pulled back, and his dark yellow eyes glared with malice not fit for any sapient being. “You will not win, Thiefblade.”
Davor snickered. “How are you to know?” He spread his feet, putting the blunt side of his loaned gunblade against his shoulders. “Put your money where your fangless mouth is, séronja.”
His opponent snarled and charged, gunblade held more like a sword than a gunblade. He went to smack Davor with the blunt side and his eyes widened when Davor caught it.
“Always had bad form,” he replied. “Should stick to sword and shield as your father taught you.”
“How-”
Davor punched his opponent in the throat, then tripped him as he sputtered. Davor muttered as he put the sharper end of the gunblade to his opponent’s throat, “Am thief and blade. The blade is not what I steal, idiot.”
He grinned to the crowd, backing off as the judge declared him the victor. He stood alongside the judge, the first to have won his bout. The other two victors joined him, and the ending ceremony began. Davor was handed his gunblade last.
“Do you have any words of thanks?” asked the village’s queen.
Davor suddenly grinned viciously. “Thank you,” he answered, “for being stupid.” He waved with the gunblade, using it to draw attention so they wouldn’t see him pull a circular pod from his hip pouch. He threw it to the ground and then, as he’d practiced many times in the night’s wee hours, ran backward out of the village.
“-and then, he met up with his family, right?” Mahri finished.
“Oh yes,” Grigorii nodded as he tied the chocobo up. “They were torn between elation and rage. But they help him run into the night all the same.” He gave her a look, his orange eyes soft. “That is what family means to hrothgar.”
Mahri smiled softly. “I can understand that, in theory.”
Grigorii smiled back at her, reaching over to ruffle her hair. “Good.” He looked up at the small shack. “Are you ready?”
Mahri looked over. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I think. He feels like...legend at this point.”
“Well, no,” Grigorii replied, “at this point, he is just old man. Whole 93 winters old. Suppose they might tell legends of reverse-footed thief tiger hrothgar, but truth is he is just old man with taste for chocolate.” He slowly walked up the steps. He knocked on the door. “Òtac? Are you home?”
“In the yard, boy,” a gruff voice called from the back. “Who is with you? I do not know that scent.”
Grigorii responded in the hrothgar tongue, Mahri picking out the word “ćerka” from the mess (she knew that one: daughter). Mahri jumped an ilm when she heard a shot fire in response. Grigorii sighed, muttering to her, “Ah, he is in a Mood. Perhaps if we get into carriage, he will forget-”
“Bring her back,” the voice snarled.
Grigorii looked at Mahri, a question in his gaze. Mahri inhaled slowly, then gestured at the shack. Grigorii steeled himself, gesturing for her to follow. She followed him into the hut’s back, where she could see a wooden bench set up with bottles on it. Her eyes flicked to the left, seeing the hulking shape of a hrothgar.
He was taller than her father, greyer too (especially around his muzzle). He turned, silver eyes probably still as sharp as the day he stole his first gunblade. Davor “Thiefblade” Bozhenasch stood before her in the flesh, impossibly still standing strong at 93 years old. His fangs glinted in the faint sunlight from the sunset. He wore a long coat, dusty and torn. Mahri watched him line up a shot with the gunblade, shooting another bottle down without even looking, before spinning to look at Grigorii.
“How is this your daughter? She is miqo’te,” he growled. Mahri’s heart fell into the pit of her stomach.
“Her dam is miqo’te,” Grigorii snarled. “You-” He stopped as Davor pointed his gunblade at him, orange eyes widening.
Mahri moved before Davor could pull the trigger. Her hand lit up in her flame, balling into the palm of her hand. She threw it, fingers weaving in the air to twist the fire to wash over the gunblade. Davor dropped it with wide eyes as she picked it up, fire in one hand and the gunblade held in her hand just as he had been (grip differed from the way Jack taught her, but she’d only realize that in hindsight out of the moment).
“I understand you’re in a mood,” Mahri replied, “but drawing fire on your own kin is a little extreme, yeah?”
Davor looked down at her, eyes wide and intense. “Shoot a bottle.”
“What?”
Davor pointed at the bottles. “Pick one. Shoot.”
Mahri lined the gunblade up. She shot. The green glass bottle burst open into pieces, tiny pinpricks of the sunset captured in glass fragments. Davor laughed, all teeth somehow on display.
“Oh, you’re my ùnuka, alright.” He grinned, looking between the bottle’s remains and her. “You watched me do that now, yes?”
“I mean...I had lessons before,” Mahri replied. “It’s not anything-”
“You hold shoulder like I just did.” Davor seemed manic. “Your form could not be that good from lessons unless you’ve been learning since small.” He pulled out another gunblade from his jacket (how many did he have). “Don’t tell me it was nothing special. I stole that form from Bozjan general, years ago. Could be a lost art, for all I know.” He spun the gunblade around his hand, with the ease of doing it with a pistol or a knife. “You do now.”
Mahri slowly copied him. He sunk the gunblade in his hand into the dirt, falling onto his knees-
-and hugged her.
“You are my blood, even if you have miqo’te in you,” he muttered. “Is fine.” Davor let her go (she stood stock still like a deer in train’s headlamp) and he stood up. “Means most people overlook you. You can watch and steal so many movements from people, can’t you, ùnuka?” He put his hands on her face, bringing her eyes to look up at him. “Thought since your idiot father did not have my gift, it was going to die out. But look at you, you little thief!” Did he sound...proud? Mahri didn’t know what to do with this. He looked to her father. “You bring her here, every week. She can steal all from me and it can live on.”
“Òtac-”
“Don’t you òtac me, I will keel over someday, even if I have every plan to fistfight death when it comes,” Davor replied. He looked to Mahri and gave her a conspiratorial grin. “Have done so three times already in past year.” He looked back to Grigorii. “She will steal all I know and all you know and she will live vicious life.” He looked back at Mahri. “Do you hunt?”
“A little,” Mahri replied. “Less need of it now that I get rations from-”
“Oh! Military girl?” Davor put his hands on her shoulders. “If you are not Maelstrom, you will be disowned.”
“I will not disown my own daugh-”
“Malestrom private,” Mahri answered quickly, too flustered to hear the end of that sentence. “Internal affairs.”
“Desk jockey or something worthwhile?”
“Infiltration agent.”
Davor’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you are definitely my blood, look at you. Oh, I love you.” He looked to Grigorii. “No more name day gifts, you just bring me my ùnuka.”
Mahri looked helplessly at Grigorii, who gave her a similarly helpless shrug. Oh. Oh good, this was normal behavior. But then Mahri looked back at Davor, who looked so excited to see her and she...she smiled.
She could get used to this. Probably.
Maybe.