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The sensation of an Ascian’s aether was unknown to D’fhiri. That was, she couldn’t sense much aether at all — she had been abysmal at telling apart variously aspected energies as a kit, and could hardly use an aetheryte to teleport without the surge of unfamiliar magics sending her keeling over the nearest bushes at her destination. Even when she had begun adventuring, healing energies kept her upright in the moment, but she might have spend a day or two on bed rest after exploring a dungeon, shivering in cold sweat as the excess aether expelled from her system.
She didn’t care much for the idea of channeling nature like a conjurer, or drawing forth primal energies like a summoner, and she had found the whole ordeal at the Praetorium to be a prime example of why, exactly, such arcane power should not be left for mere mortals to explore on a whim. There was too much danger, too much to exploit for all but the most noblehearted, trustworthy of people.
Still, Y’shtola had tsked softly at the idea, and explained to her in a numbered list exactly why it was necessary for her to be able to discern the aetherial signature of an Ascian. To her, their energies were like the damp floor of a sea cave. To Urianger, the gentle cradle of the womb of night’s sky, without any of the sparkling charm of the stars. To Thancred, the rancid tang of rotting blood staining the fertile earth of a battlefield.
Such evocative but nebulous theory was lost on the young Warrior, who would much rather feel the flames of beastly rage glow behind her eyes than curl up in the Waking Sands’ storeroom and pretend she knew how to read while one of the Leveilleur twins attempted to teach her theory. She lost herself in her art — the art of unrestrained strength and physical battle — and rather preferred to be lost in such a way.
Perhaps that was why, as she stumbled past the threshold into the creaky-floored bedroom of her room in the Drowning Wench, a giggling, tipsy stranger in tow, D’fhiri didn’t even notice the white-robed man standing in the corner until her top was already half-unlaced.
“Sorry,” she told her blissfully ignorant would-be date, “I’m just not feeling it anymore.”
After assuring the Roegadyn woman that she wasn’t feeling sick, just tired, she sent her back downstairs, but not without an appreciative stare at her retreating ass.
The door and lock clicked shut with an echoing clack. She turned to Elidibus with a withering glare. “What in the seven hells is wrong with you? Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it’s impolite to wait in a lady’s room uninvited?”
His head turned toward her only slightly, his expression passive and unreadable. “Warrior of Light,” he said with soft incredulity, as if he hadn’t even noticed her arrival for being too lost in thought. “Pray forgive my intrusion. I had not expected you to have… company.”
She leaned her back against the door, arms crossed, eyeing his shape out of the corner of her eye. It was Hydaelyn’s blessing that allowed her to see him, but it still unnerved her deeply that others couldn’t. Although his behavior was akin to a specter, his appearance was convincingly tangible — no wispy edges or faded form. She hadn’t yet discovered if his body held that same property, if a punch would land if she willed it.
“So what is it then? Another test? A warning? A dangling of your schemes in front of my nose so I can get started on my next quest?”
“You paint me with such broad, villainous strokes. I only wish to observe.”
“Show’s over, Ascian.” She smirked. “Unless you plan on watching me sleep.”
He shifted, almost imperceptibly, in some amount of discomfort. Unidle fingers twitched below the hem of his billowing sleeves. In the breadth of the pause, she could almost feel him recalculating, finding a fresh angle from which to approach.
“You have no business in this city.”
Ah. So he was confused about her movement, her sudden departure from Mor Dhona.
“Well, it’s home.”
“…Home?”
She crossed the room, staring out the open window that oversaw the shipping docks. A briny sea breeze toyed briefly with the ends of her jagged, short hair, playful despite the warm humidity. A port city, Limsa Lominsa never slept. Workers and sailors spoke with the same volume day and night as they hauled crates, the myriad shapes of visiting ships an ever-kaleidoscopic snapshot of the world outside. Pirate drinking songs echoed through the alleys at this hour, a jaunty refrain of maidens and storms occasionally drifting up to the room.
Although she wasn’t about to relax with an Ascian in the room, she could come close here.
He had drifted just behind her, silently, hovering as he followed her gaze into the darkened scene beyond. “This is not your home,” he said, but the words lilted upward at the end, as much a question as an assertion.
“No? Then what is?”
He frowned, the details of his words seeming to elude him. Unmoving, she watched him with a careful eye, hyperaware of the dagger at her hip. Despite his insistence that he was only an emissary, not seeking conflict, she remained keen on suspicion. He wasn’t loud and boisterous like Lahabrea, didn’t have the same desperate madness as Nabriales. Still, something about him seemed off, as if he always left half of himself behind.
“Not here,” he finally said.
A huff escaped her. Disappointing. More mysteries, riddles on top of riddles, for someone with more intellect than her to unwind. “Well, my home certainly isn’t Mor Dhona, if that’s what you thought.”
He was silent.
She fidgeted. “I can’t sleep there anyway. It’s too… loud.”
To accentuate her point, a door below the window banged open, followed by the half-slurred chorus of three or four men singing a rather lewd song.
Elidibus merely looked at her, words unnecessar. She flicked her ears, annoyed.
“Not that kind of loud. Like a weight. A buzzing in my brain. It makes me feel like I have to keep moving.”
“Ah,” he said. “Because of the crystals.”
She blinked, then felt a bit sheepish. It was something she could have guessed herself, had she given it any thought. Quickly, she glossed over the topic. “I suppose. But I am meant to join an expedition at Lake Silvertear on the morrow, and I wanted a good night’s rest before it eluded me for weeks. And a good fuck, too, but, well, you’ve ruined that for me.”
The visible sliver of Elidibus’s cheek flushed red enough to match his mask. “There is no need to be crude, Warrior.”
Odd. His response struck her as unusually shy for a being that seemed to be ageless. D’fhiri turned to look at him, finding his gaze to be inscrutable as ever. He had thin, unsmiling lips with a charming cupid’s bow, pressed tight in tension. The cut of his pale jaw was soft and rounded. The twitching of his claws had increased in speed and agitation, and she wondered faintly if he played a musical instrument. Her bard brother had once done something similar, when he had no access to his lute and a scuffle was afoot.
No Sharlayan education or neck tattoo was necessary for D’fhiri to see him for what he was when she gave him more than a cursory moment’s glance, more than the sizing up before a battle. Elidibus was a man, no matter his age, and seeing the Ascians as anything but might have been a huge mistake in coming to understand their motives.
“Why are you here, Elidibus?” She crossed her arms and re-centered, planting her feet in front of him.
“To observe,” he reiterated.
“Is that all?” she asked. “To watch me from the shadows?”
“Lord Zodiark would know His enemies intimately.”
“Zodiark? Or you?”
Unshakeable, he said, “His will is mine, one and the same.”
“And what does that will demand? Why seek to drown the world in shadow?”
A quirk of a smile. “I knew you to be a formidable foe, but hardly one who asks such pointed questions.”
“Indeed, I prefer to allow my axe to do the talking on most occasions. So answer the question, before I go fetch it.”
A humorless smile stretched the corners of his mouth. “So you might better understand our mission?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “Or at least better understand why you choose to lurk in the darkness but claim the higher ground.”
Silence settled into the space after her words. And there it sat for a long while, as he offered nothing.
She shook her head, dissatisfaction searing her chest. “You say you are different, but you are like all the others. Nothing but misdirection, mystery and lies.”
“I suppose if you see us that way, I have no argument to offer to change your mind.” He leaned in — only slightly, as he wasn’t much taller than she was — and the faint scent of sandalwood incense, his hot breath on her face, betrayed the shellshocking physicality of him. When had he become so close? Had he been inching towards her this entire time?
She stepped a foot back, squinting her angry glare, tail lashing in threat. A stupid, mindless mistake. She could almost hear her father’s stern voice as he nursed her bruises after a bad spat with her brothers. Never give ground to the enemy. Elidibus took a step forward to match her retreat, clearly chaffed to have thrown her off-kilter.
“Why are you watching me?” she growled.
“Have I not made my intentions clear? Your command over the Echo is fascinating, so unlike the rest of your kind. I wish to learn of it, of what makes you different.”
“Fat chance you’ll catch me using it in my sleep.”
“You may surprise yourself in that manner,” he said. His head tilted suddenly, just to the side, as if he were only now remembering something. “And there is another thing. There is a peculiar air about you. That is to say, you remind me of… someone.”
“Someone,” she deadpanned.
He stilled. With stilted tempo, he said, “The threads of memory slip through my fingers, but there are traces. The glint of your hair in sun. The color of your eyes when you laugh. Pride, of your prowess in battle, and sending that pride with you when you travel. And I find myself remembering… wondering.”
He reached out and cradled her chin. Nostrils flaring, ears flattened, D’fhiri’s breath quickened, but she allowed him to touch her, just as intrigued as she was repelled. Beneath that mask, his eyes were completely hidden. Yet she could feel his burning gaze rake over her defiant face, slowly, meticulously.
“Would your mouth taste of champagne?” he whispered, suddenly hoarse.
Heart thudding in her ears as blood rushed to her face, D’fhiri’s lips parted with surprise. Would he try to kiss her? Perhaps her mind was too clouded with drink and unmitigated arousal, because she found herself thinking she might not mind it all that much. That she might enjoy feeling an Ascian’s mouth on hers. It scared her somewhat — how easy it was to fall prey to their endless traps and schemings.
She recovered quickly. “Whiskey, actually, is what I was drinking tonight.” An awkward pause. “I’m not that person. The one you think I am.”
An eternity passed before he relaxed, finally receding from her personal space. “Perhaps not,” he admitted, hollow loneliness in each syllable.
She could almost pity him. Almost.
But the truth of the matter was this: they were on opposite sides of a war, which persisted because his people had done unspeakable atrocities. But his quiet persistence of duty, his insistence that they were not as different as they seemed, had her doubting her own actions more than she liked. For if the Ascians were not the enemy, how could they even begin to move forward when such personal atrocities had been aimed at either side?
No, it was easier to hate him. To think of him as nothing but a beast, a creature, a wraith. He walked in the shadows, and in the shadows he would stay, plotting his schemes to end the world as she knew it, all for the will of some god that kept him under its horrible thrall. No — for the sake of herself, and the people she had begun to call her friends, she would stay the course.
She looked to Elidibus, who seemed to have grown preternaturally motionless, even breath eluding his slight form.
Confident he was done with his odd advances, she took a seat on the edge of the mattress, began to unlace her boots. “We’re done here, Elidibus. You won’t glean anything from watching me sleep tonight.”
He gave a single nod, then faded into the shadows. And although she couldn’t see him, she fell asleep wondering if he was still there, silent in the dark.