Chapter Text
She was running.
She was always running.
Chakrams loose in her fingers, she flung herself from the cliff edge she hurdled towards. For a moment she was flying, weighted down by nothing and no one. Then the Mist fueled bullets flew past her head and she began to fall. Feet met earth, body rolled and then feet found purchase again and she continued her breakneck pace.
Ever since she’d left the Wood, she’d been running. Running from monsters, running from Magiteck, running from her fate. Running from herself.
One shot grazed her cheek with deadly accuracy.
She leapt over a boulder and twisted, wrist flicking with Mist infused force. The chakram sliced through the neck of her pursuer and returned to her awaiting fingers with a simple flex of the digits. The woman completed her twist and kept running without watching to see if they fell.
The cliffs came without warning, this time.
One moment the ground was beneath her, the next she was over open water - open ocean - and the rocky shore below.
She screamed.
And the sea swallowed her whole.
‘By t’Twelve, s’e’s alive!’
‘Quick, get ‘er t’a ‘ealer!’
‘Hells how’d she survive?!’
‘...Rest, child, you’re safe…’
The woman groaned, wincing in pain as consciousness floated through her bones. She felt like she’d fallen from one of the boughs of the Wood again. Pressing a hand to her head, she sat up.
“Oi, lassie yer awake,” said a voice to her right. She turned to look at the owner, only to find she had to turn her head a little further. “Bugger ‘bout the eye, though.”
“What happened?” she asked, focusing on the source of the voice. Sitting in a chair was a older man, Hyur by all regards. He gave her a small smile, eyebrows raising a little at her accent.
“S’what I was hopin’ ya could answer fer me’,” he said with a chuckle. “Name’s Baderon. Some sailors fished ya outta t’water o’er twelve suns ago ‘afl dead an’ drowned. Brought ya t’arcanists fer healin’. Been ‘ere e’er since.” She blinked, rubbing her right eye. It was… Milky, as if she was looking through murky water. Rubbing at it seemed to help clear the murk, but not bring color to it.
“...Twelve suns? It’s been… twelve suns…” she said slowly, blinking several more times. Her fingers touched a long thin section of skin from the corner of her eye to her hairline. She froze. The bullet. That gods damned bullet.
“T’did best t’could given t’state. S’not perfect, but yer’ll be able t’see at least,” he said, voice even and calm. Much more calm than the fear and panic running through her chest. Dual eyes, one teal one silver white stared at Baderon, then flicked around the small room. Her chakrams, her chakrams where were her chakrams!? “Woah, woah lassie, yer safe, ain’t no one’s gunna get ya here. Won’t allow it.”
Her eyes snapped back to him and she bared her teeth briefly, showing small sharp canines. This one could be with them, this one could have trapped her. Finally, finally she was caught. If only she had her chakrams… it did not matter, she could end him with her nails if she needed to.
His hands came up as she crouched onto the bed. “Lassie. Lassie. I mean ya no ‘arm. Just wanna know w’at ‘appened t’ya, is all.” Her nose twitched, long red ears twitching on her head. She heard nothing from outside the room, smelled nothing from him or the room. No gun powder. The Mist was strong here, though, and her nose burned with it.
Slowly, slowly she sank back into the bed and let tension fall from her shoulders.
“I am called Arym Neim’leif. I was… running, chased by people with Magiteck. I killed one with my weapons. I fell off of a cliff into the sea,” she said, recounting what she could. She could not remember why she’d been running, what first started it. She remembered the Wood, the Golmore Jungle. The Sand Sea around Rabanastre… but how she got to the ocean, she could not recall. Or why she’d left the Wood.
“Arym, eh? Pretty different. Ya must be… one of them Viera, yeh? We been gettin’ some o’yer kind past few moons.” Baderon scratched his chin with a finger for a moment. “Well, when yer feelin’ up t’it, t’Adventure’s Guild could always use a lassie of yer skills. If ya can survive near drownin’ an’ come out wit’ only a bum eye t’show fer it, I think ya could handle anythin’ thrown at ya.”
The Hyur stood and half turned to the door before pausing. He gestured to the table with a hand. “Yer probably be wantin’ yer effects; had t’pry ‘em outta yer hands ya wouldn’t let ‘em go.” Baderon gave a nod and left the room.
Arym scrambled off the bed to the bundle on the table. She unwrapped the bundle to find two round pieces of metal, tinted blue with a small grip on one side. A hand ghosted over them and she let out a heavy breath. They were safe. The one piece of the Wood she brought with her, the one reminder of her mother.
If it had been almost a fortnight since she’d fallen from the cliff…
Perhaps she’d finally escaped that fate.
“You said there was work if I wanted it?” asked Arym some bells later, standing in the Drowning Wench with the salty air in her nose and the bustle of the city of Limsa Lominsa in her ears. Baderon gave her a wide grin.
“Aye, lassie. We’come to t’Adventurer’s Guild!”