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Yawn
It was another late night.
For Tataru Taru, late nights were hardly unusual. It came with the burden of being the receptionist of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn—although ‘receptionist’ would hardly cover the wide range of her responsibilities. Tataru was not just a receptionist— she was also the chief secretary for Minfilia and the principal accountant. Nevertheless, while the amount of responsibilities placed on Tataru’s shoulders would paralyze some, Tataru flourished from the pressure. She loved being deeply involved in the Scions affairs and prided herself on her ability to perform administrative duties flawlessly.
But even Tataru had her limits. Ever since the newest member of the Scions— a certain Yshura Rej— had slain the mighty Ifrit, the Grand Companies of Eorzea had expressed a level of interest in the Scions that was never seen before. Previously, they had worked quietly as a clandestine organization, rarely engaging openly with the governing bodies and standing military of the Eorzean city-states. After all, choosing a favorite was a quick way of making enemies of the remaining two, and with how tense matters were in the aftermath of the Calamity, it was best not to stir the pot.
And yet, here they were, getting donations from Ul’dah, Limsa Lominsa, and Gridania. The money, of course, came with a cost— each city-state was hoping to scout the Scions’ newest member into their Grand Company. As with all things, when the purses came open, there were always strings attached.
The lalafell yawned in her seat. While the influx of donations, requests, and letters was manageable at first, it was getting to the point where it became too much to bear. This was the fourth night in a row when Tataru had stayed up until the third bell before crawling into her bed and rising again at the seventh. Her days had always been filled with Scions asking for assistance and keeping their account book up to date, but with the additional pressure from official government requests, she was falling painfully behind with daily tasks. Right now, she was trying to determine how to allocate their new funds by supplying the Scions with sundries and new equipment, but this effort was greatly undermined by her worst enemy: sleepiness.
“Tataru, I think this one is wrong.” A single finger pointed towards the partially smudged numbers on the balance sheet. “450 gil multiplied by 5 is 2250, not 2205.”
“GAH!” Tataru nearly fell out of her chair. Usually, she was pretty on top of being aware who was in the room at all times— it was part of her role as a receptionist, after all— but right now she had been completely surprised.
“Yshura! I didn’t hear you come in. Please don’t sneak up on me.”
The newest member of the Scions, Yshura Rej, stood before her, pointed at the ledger. Her right arm was still wrapped in bandages, having been burnt pretty badly in her scuffle with Ifrit. Although Yshura knew enough conjury to mend herself out of a critical state, the damage was still substantial enough to marr her skin. She had opted to slather the wounds in a special ointment and wrap it up to heal the rest of the damage.
“Sorry. That wasn’t my intention. I just walked in right now. The door wasn’t locked.” She gestured to the front door.
“Goodness, what time is it?” Tataru said in a panic. “Don’t tell me I forgot to lock the door??” She leapt down from her chair, rushing over to the door and bolting it shut.
“By the gods, I am so sorry.” She said, breathlessly.
Yshura simply shrugged.
“Well, I for one am grateful. I was able to get in without trouble. As for the time… I believe that it’s just past the first bell.”
Tataru couldn’t suppress her groan.
“Oh no… I need to get this accounting done by tomorrow to turn it into Minfilia. It’s already past the first bell and I have several more sheets left. I guess I’m not getting any sleep tonight.” She said, painfully resigned to her fate.
“You seem pretty tired. Is there no way to push it to tomorrow?” Yshura crossed her arms, glancing at the sheet in front of her.
“Nope. Minfilia needs to have all of the finances accounted for before we submit the order form. The order will take exactly one week to process unless we’re willing to spill the extra gil to get it here faster, and that’s not an expense I’m willing to accept.”
Yshura frowned. “I didn’t realize that the Scions were lacking funds so badly.”
“It’s not about the funds!” Tataru insisted. “It’s a matter of principle! Why should the Scions have to pay more due to my negligence! It’s simply unacceptable.”
“Tataru, you look like you haven’t slept for a week. The only thing you’ve been neglecting lately is your health. The responsibility of managing the accounts shouldn’t just fall on you— isn’t there someone else who can help you? Urianger perhaps? He looks smart.”
“It’s not Urianger’s job to take care of the finances— it’s mine.”
Yshura shot a look over, perhaps wanting to ask what Urianger’s job actually was, but opted to say nothing.
“Well, since I’m here already, how about I help you with the ledger?”
Tataru blinked twice.
“You know how to do accounting?” Tataru asked, dumbfounded.
“Is that truly so strange?” Yshura said.
“Well, no, I suppose not. A lot of folks in Eorzea aren’t very good with numbers. They don’t really need it— back when I worked as a merchant’s assistant, folks would frequently toss a bag of gil at me and say that there was enough to cover the cost, but there wasn’t.”
Yshura sighed. “That just sounds like people being lazy. Well, whatever. We just need to calculate the totals from the cost of the supplies by the amount, right? Then add it all up. It should be doable.”
“Yes. I mean no! Stop! I forbid you from helping me! The hero of the hour should get some well deserved rest!”
Yshura’s face seemed to melt into a look of discomfort. “Please, don’t refer to me as a ‘hero’ or anything ridiculous like that. That’s putting far too much pressure on me. And…you’re making mistakes in your current state. Even if you do finish the account by tomorrow morning, what will happen when you send the gil over and the merchant finds that there isn’t enough? Surely that would mess up the order, or perhaps even delay it.”
Tataru groaned once again, making a face. Yshura was correct, but her pride was on the line here.
“Fine. Yshura, can you please assist me with this order?”
“I can and I will. Can you hand me an extra quill?” Tataru supplied the quill post haste, not wanting to keep Yshura waiting. She also brought her abacus, setting it in front of Yshura’s workspace. But the miqo’te never reached for it, instead opting to take the slate nearby and begin to write out the numbers from the account book in neat rows next to each other. She would write new numbers on top of the row, and then cross off some numbers in the row, until finally, she wrote a new row completely. She dropped the chalk and picked up the quill, writing the total in the account book.
“What are you doing?” Tataru asked. It was as if she was witnessing some strange new form of magic.
“This is how people learn how to perform arithmetic back where I am from.” She said, not looking up from her work.
“Come to think of it, Yshura, I don’t know where you’re from. I thought that you might be from the Y tribe, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. When you write your name, you don’t add an apostrophe between the ‘Y’ and the ‘Shura’.”
Yshura kept writing with the slate, finishing off the last row before answering Tataru.
“I am originally from Dalmasca.” She said.
“Oh! A Dalmascan miqo’te. Is it a lot different over there than in Eorzea?”
“We don’t have rigid hierarchies for miqo’te tribes where I’m from. I’ve heard of the practice before, but I thought that it was outdated and surely no longer practiced. I was surprised when I can to Eorzea that certain tribes of miqo’te are still lead by a nuhn..”
“What’s it like in Dalmasca then? Do miqo’te just live like everyone else?”
“More or less.” She said.
Perhaps it was merely the late hour, or an illusion produced by her own exhaustion, but Tataru sensed that Yshura seemed to be hiding something. She hadn’t pried too deeply into her background— after all, with adventurers, it was impossible to keep tabs on their background if they traveled a lot. Usually, you would turn to the adventurers guild that they belonged to if you wanted information about their character before recruiting them. Yshura had come with high recommendations from Mother Miounne, as well as the head of the conjurer’s guild. But beyond that, everything about her was a mystery. And Tataru loved to solve mysteries.
“Yshura, what made you come to Eorzea?” She asked.
“Hmm… I think that’s a bit of a long story. How about I tell you later, when I’m not knee deep in arithmetic? Besides, shouldn’t you help me complete the order? Just a minute ago you were feeling guilty for foisting the job on someone else.”
“Ah!” Tataru exclaimed. “I’m sorry Yshura. I was so tired I got caught up in my own thoughts. “Can you please share the page with me? I’ll do the bottom half.”
Yshura handed over the order and Tataru began working her way through the last lines of the order. As she watched Yshura scrawl yet another number on the sheet, Tataru saw that it was now halfway done.
“Wow, I have to say… you’re pretty good at this, Yshura.”
“Nonsense. There are people who can do this entire sheet in their heads in a quarter of the time.” She retorted.
“Quit comparing yourself to the best of the best!” Tataru huffed. “I take pride in my work as a receptionist, you know? I might not be able to do this table as quickly as others, but that doesn’t mean that my work isn’t good!”
Yshura sighed, the noise seeming loud in the quiet darkness of the room. “You’re right, sorry.” She said quickly.
The continued working. “I have to say though, you help a lot of people out, no matter what the task is in question.” Tataru mused. “You really take on a lot of responsibilities.”
Yshura snorted derisively.
“I hope you aren’t praising me. That’s a bad habit, more than anything else.” She said.
“Hmm. What are you doing up so late, anyhow?” Tataru asked.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Yshura said plainly.
“Is there something bothering you?” Tataru pressed.
“Yes. There is. I still see their faces. The tempered.”
Tataru gulped. Being tempered was pretty much a death sentence. There was no cure available, and the tempered proved to be a threat to the peace and stability of the city-statues by constantly trying to summon their gods. The gods would then in turn temper others, creating a cycle of violence that never stopped. The only solution was to cut the weed at the root, so to speak, but that meant that innocent people who were kidnapped and tempered would be put to death for no fault of their own.
It was horrible. Like a landslide, or an earthquake, or a flood— it was a terrible inevitability that befell people. But for Yshura, it was no doubt a lot worse. She had been there, seem her comrades become tempered, but when it was her turn, she had proven resilient.
“I’m sorry, Yshura… Do you feel guilty that you weren’t able to help them?” Tataru asked, having stopped writing the order.
Yshura had her elbows firmly planted on the table, pressing her fists together against her mouth. She started distantly into the wall before her, as if she was not truly present in the room.
“It’s not that… I just… I remember, sitting there as they were waiting to take us to Ifrit. They told us about how tempering worked and…”
“…and I thought about what it would be like, being tempered. What would it feel like? Would I be filled with a grand desire to exercise their will? Would I feel happy?” Her green eyes flickered down, the light of the candle reflected in them.
“It’s all nonsense, I know… but when Ifrit breathed his hot breath on me, smelling like brimstone… nothing happened. I guess I expected some kind of… revelation? A type of religious bliss, perhaps. But then he said something strange…” She trailed off, letting silence fill the air between them.
“What did he say?” Tataru asked, breaking the tension.
“He said… ‘Could it be, that you belong to another already?’”
“As in… you’re already tempered by another primal?” Tataru gasped.
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know what that means.” Yshura said. She squeezed her hands together, her voice quivering like the candle flame before her. For all of her composure earlier, Ifrit’s words had deeply distressed her.
“Oh Yshura… I’m sure that it’s not like that. Tempered people aren’t like that at all. They go around with a crazy look in their eye and try to do things like…like… summon their gods! Or kidnap people! Or steal crystals from caravans! All crazy things, nothing like what you do!”
“Tataru… isn’t killing a primal something that you’d consider ‘crazy’?”
“I have NEVER heard of anyone who’s been tempered killing another primal! That would be insane! But honestly Yshura, you shouldn’t worry about things like that. Ifrit was just surprised that you couldn’t be tempered.”
“But… why wasn’t I tempered then?”
Tataru sighed. “That kind of question sounds like it would be Urianger’s job to answer. Why don’t you go talk to him tomorrow about it? I’m sure that he’d have dozens of theories about it. But really. Yshura… stop worrying about it!”
Tataru stood up on her stool, pointing her finger straight at Yshura’s face, her finger mere ilms from her nose.
“You! Are! Not! Tempered!” She insisted. “So stop worrying! Frowning so much isn’t befitting of the hero that saved the day!”
Yshura scowled at this, muttering that she never wanted to be called a hero.
“Well then, you can be my personal savior instead. We’re about done with the order! And since we’re almost done, we can go to sleep! Or rather, you can go to sleep.”
“I won’t rest until you do.” Yshura said.
“Fine! Three more rows and we’re finished! And then, it’s straight to bed!”
Yshura sighed, but agreed. They finished the order form and descended into the dormitory of the Waking Sands, careful not to wake those already sleeping.
As she crawled into bed and threw the covers on top of her, Yshura felt a small hand on her shoulder.
“Thank you.” Tataru managed to whisper, before another yawn took hold of her, and she wandered to her own cot.
No, thank you, Yshura thought. For the first time in four nights, both of them slept soundly.