Chapter Text
The rain had stopped, and patches of sky appeared in the cloudy sky over La Noscea.
The auri girl who had been sitting alone at a table in the adventurers’ guild let out a silent sigh and glanced out the door to make sure it wasn’t going to start raining again. Laughter and banter filled the air from all around, from the young girls and boys exchanging tales of their latest adventures over a well-deserved lunch. Sitting by herself in silence, she couldn’t help listening to those euphoric exchanges, of uncovered ruins and retrieved riches. She couldn’t help noticing how carefree everyone seemed to be.
She couldn’t help noticing how different life was for the people whose land wasn’t under imperial occupation.
With another sigh, she gathered her groceries and stood up. She wasn’t an adventurer herself, her unassuming clothes and quiet demeanor made her stand out from the guild’s usual crowd by virtue of being so unremarkable. She wouldn’t normally have entered the establishment, but she had been headed toward the residential town of Mist when the rain had started and the Drowning Wench wasn’t too far from Limsa Lominsa’s southern gates. On the guild’s threshold, she glanced back one more time, her face unreadable, and then stepped out.
The person who had taken her in was also an adventurer, often traveling to some corner or the other of the Realm, Oschon knew where. And he had apparently made it his life’s mission to help all the people in need that he comes across in his journeys. His journeys would have to keep him far from home longer than usual though, his later missive informed her that he would have to stay in Ishgard for the foreseeable future. He was letting her stay at his place even in his absence, and the solitude suited her just fine. She was a refugee, and had already survived one dangerous voyage from the cliffs of Werlyt to the realm of Eorzea to escape Garlean occupation; she didn’t much feel like traveling anywhere quite yet, and was in no hurry to meet any new people.
Truth to be told most days she didn’t find in herself the will to smile. She kept herself busy in an effort to numb her melancholy, and she attended to housekeeping duties so she could ignore the thoughts in her head, so she wouldn’t notice for a while the emptiness in her chest. And when she couldn’t, she would spend long afternoons staring longingly at the sea. Even as she emerged from the Tempest Gate her gaze looked for the ocean. It reminded her of home, its presence comforted her, its sound seemed to fill the void in her very soul. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath of the salty air and petrichor, and she put one foot in front of another on the westbound path toward the Red Rooster’s Stead.
She only had a moment’s notice, but she wasn’t ready for it. A monster, a giant crustacean, scuttled up the Weeping Widow’s shoreline as she was about to walk on the bridge that crossed it. The girl paralyzed with fear, and the bags fell from her arms, her groceries scattering on the ground.
“Where did it go!?” cried a voice in the distance.
“It ran upstream!” replied another, frantic voice. “There! I see it!”
An arrow buzzed by the crab and lodged itself into the dirt.
“Careful! Somebody’s there!” cried another voice, deeper and warmer, followed by a curse.
The girl took a few steps back, her legs shaking as she looked up at the monster. She fell.
The crustacean opened a giant claw and pointed it at her. Her eyes went wide. She inhaled sharply.
And then a roegadyn woman interposed herself between her and the crab, the swoop of a battle-axe jerking the claw away from her, penetrating its carapace.
A breath later a girl, a miqo’te, bolted to her right, gracefully landing in a crouch, her bow tense and aimed at the monster. The loosed an arrow, and then another, but both of them bounced on the crab’s thick shell. And then a third arrow hit the mark, landing squarely in one of its eyes. The creature screeched, and as it thrashed its claws it couldn’t notice the elezen man leaping from the bridge’s railing at its back, driving a trident right through the top of the crab’s body. It fell limply to the ground, lifeless. Delen stared at its lifeless body in shock, struggling to catch up with the action.
“Hey? Are you okay?” the axewoman said, as if she was repeating herself. The auri girl’s eyes snapped back into focus, finally moving from the crab to her, and then noticed her outstretched hand. “Y-yes.” She stammered, between gasps of breath. She weekly grabbed her hand and the woman effortlessly helped her onto her feet.
Her legs wobbled, but she stayed upright. From behind her she could hear a girl, presumably the archer, say to somebody else “Leave it to me, go make sure our client is okay.” She turned, in time to see the lancer stand up and hurry back toward somebody in the distance, as the miqo’te archer finished salvaging whatever she could of the groceries scattered on the ground. She stood up, with the grace and the agility of her kind, and handed the bags back to her. “Sorry about your stuff.” She said with a small bow of her head, in a simple but genuine tone of voice. “We ran across these crabs down the road, the rain must have had them worked up, and one of them tried to get away. We chased it as fast as we could but, man! You’d think they’d be clumsy on land but those things move fast!”
“U- uh.” she stammered in vague agreement, the shock of the encounter slowly fading away.
The girl beamed at her, her eyes big and sincere. She was dressed in sturdy clothes, patched with pieces of hard leather on her arms and part of her chest, like a piecemeal armor that would afford her protection but wouldn’t impede her mobility. “Oh!” She added suddenly, as if she had just remembered of something. “I’m Jill, by the way! Nice to meet you!”
She held out her hand, and the au ra had to juggle her bags to shake it. “Ah, uh, Delen. I’m Delen.” She looked down at their hands, her grip friendly and warm, and back to her. “Um, thank you.”
She grinned. “What kind of dark times are these if you can’t trust even your local adventurers? No need to thank us!” She then pointed at the roegadyn woman, who had just that moment dislodged her axe from the crab’s carapace. “She’s Vagrant Storm. I’d call her Storm, but apparently it’s disrespectful to Roegadyn culture, go figure.”
Vagrant Storm shook her head as she got closer, but her eyes were amused. “I told you: buy me some ale and you can call me whatever you want.” She then spoke to Delen, her voice concerned. “Miss, are you hurt?”
Delen shook her head, vocalizing a negative. “Just scared. Nothing of the sort had ever happened before.”
“Yeah, that, uh, that was kind of our bad.” apologized Jill. We must have scared off one of them as we were fighting them off.” She turned around to gesture toward Widow’s Cross and the southbound road toward the God’s Grip.
Two men were approaching her, carrying some sort of equipment. She recognized the taller of the two as the elezen lancer that felled the beast.
“That right there” provided Jill, following her gaze and pointing at the young man “is Rolineaux. He thinks he’s hot stuff but comes through when you need him to.”
Delen gave Jill a sidelong glance. She noted that she was volunteering a lot of information, especially considered that nobody asked. But she just nodded.
The two men seemed to be in a conversation, likely Rolineaux was updating the other guy. From the distance he glanced at her, asked something she couldn’t hear, and the Elezen nodded. Then he unceremoniously unloaded his equipment on him and approached them at a fast pace.
“And that guy” continued Jill “is the reason we’re all taking this field trip this morning in the first place.”
Delen shot her a confused glance.
“He’s our client.” she clarified.
“Ah.” she answered.
“Guy’s a painter or something, said he was an artist, either way he’s loaded. He hired us to be his escort, said he had heard of the Salt Strand, the crystallized crater left by the Calamity in the Gods’ Grip, and wanted us to keep him safe while he made a painting of it.” she kept explaining, even as the man walked the last few paces and stood in front of them, identified Delen and gave her a courteous and elaborate bow. His clothes looked expensive, extravagant, dyed a deep shade of blue, and his expensive shoes were definitely unfit for any outdoors trip, but that didn’t seem to bother it any. “He’s called―”
“Damurien D'Arlais..” interrupted her, grabbing Delen’s hand in his and kissing it courteously. “Pleased to make your acquaintance”.
Delen didn’t dare move, while behind her Jill and Vagrant Storm exchanged a knowing, tired look.
“I regret how my hirelings had placed you in harm’s way, miss...?”
It took her a beat to understand he was politely asking her name. “M-miss Delen.” She then hurried to add after a moment. “Uh, rather, just Delen is fine. And it’s all right actually, I was just informing the kind adventurers that I wasn’t hurt.”
Right then Rolineaux managed to reach them as well, panting. Vagrant Storm hurried to grab some of the equipment off his back, Delen could now recognize it as a painter’s kit, easel canvases colors and a chair.
“Whatever the case” D'Arlais answered, his tone eloquent, his manners courteous, although he still held Delen’s hand into his own “reparations are in order. That encounter must have terrorized you, so...” He squeezed her hand in his owns, and then left it to turn to address the adventurers. “Ladies, gentlemen, I’m sure you could find the kindness in your hearts to see this startled doe delivered safe to her home.”
Rolineaux seemed to have packed his heart light that day, his face was visibly unenthusiastic. Vagrant Storm’s face remained carefully neutral. Jill pondered things for a moment, then asked Delen “Where do you live, anyway?”
“Uh,” said her, not really eager at the idea of leading four strange people to the place where she lived alone, but she’d be lying if she said she wouldn’t appreciate the escort, still frightened as she was. “Mist.” she finally said.
That earned a groan from Rolineaux. “But that’s in the complete opposite direction. We won’t make it back to Limsa before the evening if we take this detour.” From his side, Vagrant Storm squeezed his shoulder. “That’s enough, you’re being unprofessional.” she whispered.
The artist exhaled, rolling his eyes. “If not in your hearts, perhaps you could find it in your wallets. It goes without saying but I’ll be paying an extra.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so from the beginning!” interjected Jill, ever cheerful, in an effort to bring her group together. “Onward!”