WoV, Book 1, Chapter 12: I don't have a name for that one

Chapter 12:

“Halt!” A garlean soldier shouted, his heavily accented voice showing how little he cared for the common tongue.

“Ah, er– Yes, of course, m’lord.” The voice of her temporary companion answered as he put down the large barrel, “What, er. [Wot can I do fer ye?]”

“You can start by ceasing your butchering of the Garlean tongue,” The soldier said, the disgust permeating his tone almost hiding how he cringed at the other man’s poor attempt at using garlean, “Ware inspection.” He declared, and suddenly she wasn’t cringing alongside him, but instead trying very hard not to move, or breathe.

Did they know?

“Open the barrel.”

Please, not when she was so close!

“Aye sir.”

The elezen didn’t try to argue or wheedle his way out of this mess. He simply obeyed, popping the lid off the barrel and sealing her fate.

“Raw ore?” The soldier asked. She could see him in her mind’s eye. Leaning over the lip of the barrel, as she heard the ores above her being moved around.

“Aye sir. We picked it up a fortnight ago. It’s meant to be delivered to Corvo, then brought to Boza for processing and– well, I’d suppose sent to the factories after. I don’t know more than that.” The worker said, doing his best at keeping his stutter in check.

A scoff came from right above her, feeling her horns like it’d been said next to them, “A mongrel like you should be glad to even know this much.”

“As you say!” The man quickly agreed with the guard, as any respectable ‘lower class’ ought to, “I heard the captain mentioning picking up Corvan grapes and spirits after delivering the ores, but you’d have to ask your colleagues at the shipping center. They’re the ones handling all that, I even have the papers from them for the barrel if it pleases you.”

“The papers, you say?” Confined under the barrel’s fake bottom, Muur shivered at the tone of suspicion in his voice.

“Er– yes?” The elezen suddenly sounded far less confident than he had so far.

“Then tell me,” Tap-tap-tap went the garlean’s fingers, as he tapped the barrel, “Why is the ink of the stamp so faded?”

“They–, um… It was running out of ink?” A silence stretched in the air. The garlean seemingly unable to believe the enormity of the lie.

“The stamp,” He said slowly, enunciating every word, “was running out of ink?”

“Yes?” She could picture the poor worker shrinking in on himself. Screaming internally at the hole he’d just dug himself into.

“Do you take me for a fool?!” She startled at the shout. She’d expected it the moment they’d been stopped. Garleans did love screaming at the ‘lessers’. But that didn’t make it any better. “How does a stamp run out of ink!?”

“Uh– well–!” “Enough of this,” The garlean said with sadistic relish. All but assured of his success, “You there, tip it over.”

“Sir, wait–!” The sailor tried to stop the soldier, but it was too late.

With a lurch, Muur’s world was upended, and she found her face pressed against what had been the ceiling of her tiny world, “I will not. And if you try anything, I will put you to the blade personally.” The soldier declared, audible glee in his voice as he threatened to kill a man.

She heard the other end of the barrel be removed and– “More ore?”

She’d treasure the sound of the garlean’s voice. His confusion, his befuddlement. He was undoubtedly wearing his helmet, but she could imagine he looked every bit as baffled as he was.

“I tried to tell you sir,” The elezen chuckled sheepishly, “The officer received them new stationeries thingies. And– well, the manager’s son is doing his apprenticeship, and he’s not too good at swapping those ink cartridges…”

There was another silence, and one again, it was the garlean breaking it, “Feh,” She heard him scoff, and the sounds of steps moving away from her barrel, “What a waste of time. Clear this out, before I throw you in jail for obstructing the streets.”

“Y–Yes sir!” The poor sailor didn’t need to be told twice, and the sound of metal being chucked back into the barrel filled the tiny, barely larger than she was, space hidden in the middle section of the container.

The lid was placed back and off she was…

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“Oy, get out,” She wasn’t sure how long it’d been since her barrel had been put down, but the swaying and gentle rocking of her surroundings told her that she was finally on a ship. The smuggler had left her there, alone with no one but her thoughts to accompany her.

At least until now.

It was the same Elezen that had carried her that pulled her out of her hiding pot, “Ye alright lass? Yer near– I’d say green in the face, but with yer skin…”

“I’m– I’m okay,” Swallowing, Muur took a deep breath. She had no fear of confined spaces, but any longer in there and she'd have developed one, “Just need to taste the air.”

‘And calm my aether.’ She thought to herself. Hugging the gnarled and barely functional staff of her teacher. His tendency to use it as a club having done far more to damage it than her condition ever did.

“Right, right,” He nodded at her, and as she took a deep breath, she saw that she wasn’t alone. There were half a dozen or so other people in the cargo hold. All either huddling together, sitting on the floor, or in the case of a large bespectacled… Hrothgar? She thought they were called, doing their best to keep their lunch on the inside.

“Listen up!” The sailor said loudly, but not enough that he could be heard by people outside of the room, “We’re currently being pursued by pirates.”

Fear flashed through the eyes of every person here. All fleeing the empire’s rule and hoping for a better life in Eorzea, one of the last places untouched by the bastard’s vile touch. Or in her case, where she’d find salvation and an escape from her own soul ripping itself apart.

Unlike them, she didn’t feel fear, but resolve. The Dusk Mother demanded one last trial of her? Then by Nhaama, she would burn these men to cinder! “Oy, stop that,” The long eared man said with a roll of his eyes, “They be part of me crew. The Buccaneer of the Golden Cutlass– aye, the name’s stupid as can be. We know.”

Just like that, the fire that had begun to burn in her breast was snuffed out. And… well, she found herself pouting at being denied a good fight. She’d never fought on a ship before!

“Ye’ll recall none of ye were told the last leg of the trip, aye? Well, that’s so none of ye could rat ‘em out if you got caught,” Waving at them to follow, he took them to the back of the hold, near a neat pile of empty barrels, “Here’s what’ll happen soon. The cap’n of the ship’ll order for ‘loose weight’ to be thrown overboard in the name of goin’ faster than the pirates and gettin’ away. And wouldn’t you know it, that means all the empty barrels you see here are getting thrown right out of this hole,” He rasped his knuckles against a panel of wood, probably meant to help with loading and unloading merchandise under normal circumstances, “Right here.”

“Is– is that not dangerous?” A woman asked, squeezing the hand of a child no older than ten summers.

“Nay, we’ll tie all the barrels up so ye don’t drift off, and so the empty ones keep ye afloat,” The pirate explained while kicking a large rope, “Now get in there, and brace yerselves. It won't be a pleasant experience, I’ll tell ye that much.”

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“And the guy was understating it if anything. Thank every god that my body decided puking was just a phase at some point during my early teens.” Muur chuckled ruefully.

“Having had the dubious honor of going down a river in a barrel,” Deryk said, looking a tiny bit green, “I can assure you, I know the feeling. Having heard your tale, I suppose you could say your goddess did have one last trial for you before she’d let you on Eorzea’s shores, no?”

“Wait, I’m a bit confused,” Kofle cut in before the lizard woman could reply. The three of them had kept walking during Muur’s recounting. They’d not actually walked far, partly due to the fact that the wizard lizard had been quite the storyteller by illustrating her story as best she could, and because of a thickening of the crowds. “If Lominsan pirates picked you up. How come you came the same way I did? You should’ve come from western thanalan, not central.”

“They agreed to drop me off while we were sailing along the Thalan coast, mostly because nobody had any illusions about how much I had left on the clock.” The mage explained, holding up a lock of hair partly corroded to white by her illness. Why that damn book had seen fit to fabricate such a batshit backstory for her when it had just chucked Luso into a random forest with some clown clothes was beyond her. Maybe it had decided to get funky, maybe that was just the difference between fiction and reality.

“Fair enough, you weren’t looking too good when the carriage picked you up,” Kofle said with a wince, “I honestly thought you were a risen dead when I saw you. All coughing, shivering and sweating.”

“That was with the corrupted crystals taking me to the cleaners, granted, but yeah. I was on my last legs.” Muur said before rolling her shoulders as if to shrug off the whole affair, “But hey, I got it sorted out now.”

“Which leaves you to be a pain in my ass.” Her friend said with a wry smile and a roll of her eyes.

“Actually, before we reach the shop, I believe I have a question of my own,” The hyur spoke as they seemed to near their destination, “I’m a traveler you see. I’m no adventurer, but I drift from one place to the next. I would have been heading to the Black Shroud right now if my brothers, infuriating twins that they are, hadn’t called me here to help them sort something out. I’d planned to head into Gir Albana, and then the wider world for a time, and– well… Is the Garlean empire truly so bad as it’s being said? They dropped the meteor, but me and my family were hoping that it was the act of a mad few, fueled by some misguided refusal to accept defeat. Surely they can’t all be as callous as you’ve made them sound.”

“There’s a bunch of ex Imperial Military guys running a chunk of the slums, they seemed pretty alright when I got some wasp extermination work from them. Maybe chat them up?” Muur suggested based on the only real information she had on Garleans, she wasn’t about to take her fabricated memories as gospel. Trust but verify. “Just make sure to have someone escorting you, even when I went there with the Guildmaster there were some Alacran sniffing around.”

Kofle blinked at Muur, before wheezing in laughter, “Muur those– those guys aren’t garlean soldiers. They’re people that killed garlean soldiers! They’re showing off how tough they are by advertising their kills!”

“...Apologies, then they are morons and you should not consult them on anything at all.” Muur said flatly after a pregnant pause, before pinching the bridge of her nose with a long-suffering groan, “God what do they think they are doing running around like that, everyone’s going to think they are affiliated because that’s what the distinctive gear is for. Nobody from the Azim Steppes to here does that and it is for good reason.”

“The fact the helmets they’re wearing at their hips are ruined beyond use, and that they’re using gunblades says it all. These are capital G Garlean weapons and armor,” Kofle tried to explain, “It’s the sort of stuff that’s pretty much forever forbidden for the levies they take from conquered countries to have. Gunblades especially, they’re an officer’s weapon. The usual soldiery doesn’t get to have the sword that also shoots bullets.”

“Well… technically, they could be deserters?” Deryk ventured, “Levies would have no reason to return home after the meteor, and stealing their dead officer’s equipment does sound like what a deserter would do… Along with almost every sellsword, or vagrant, I know of. If only to sell it.”

“If they mounted the ruined helmets on a pike in their territory and blatantly defaced them, that’d be one thing. But you do not use the symbols of your hated enemy like a uniform and expect everyone to go ‘ah, yes, this must be an insult to those people’.” Muur added with a snort, shaking her head.

“I’m pretty sure none of them wears it, or even can put it on their heads, they’re not exactly meant for anyone but Garleans to be able to wear,” The cat said, tapping her chin in thought, before waving her hand to chase the thought, “But, I think we’re getting off track. I would, as someone that fought Garleans on the flats, say that they are exactly as bad as she’s made them sound. Maybe civilians wouldn’t be as ready to kill other races, that I don’t know. All I know is that you can’t turn as hateful and despicable a man as the ones I’ve faced from military service alone, it has to come from somewhere before being amplified to the point you think that going along with your leader’s mad plan of dropping a moon on the planet, just to exterminate people standing up to you, is a good idea. They could have argued for a call in reinforcements, a slower, more methodical campaign– anything really. But no, the moment the Legatus of their legion decided to drop a celestial body on us, no one in charge seemed to really mind.”

“Hold on, hold on, walk that back.” Muur said with a note of hysteria in her voice, tail ramrod straight, “I thought that Dalamud crashing down had been Bahamut weakening its prison, not someone doing it on purpose.”

“Oh, uuuuuh. Noooooo?” Kolfe said awkwardly, her eyes darting all around in an attempt at finding an escape, “It was because of the Garlea– Oh look! We're here!” Grabbing Muur, she spun the lizard around and pushed her into a shopfront, “Let's get you in there and buy you your last outfit!”

“E’Kofle Runhja I swear to–” Was all the lizard wizard managed to strangle out before her draft horse in catgirl clothes of a friend yanked her away to the land of shopping.

Deryk merely blinked at the sight, shrugged and followed along.

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The wizard never got to finish complaining before being shoved into them. But at least the clothes were everything that Muur could have wanted out of them?

“Are you sure you didn't forget a zero, or a number, or something with the price?” Her friend gasped as she looked over the handwritten bill that she'd been given, “That seems way too cheap for the clothes. Nevermind the alterations you had to make.”

“Nnnnonsense!” The cat took a step back as the foppish, exuberant, but ultimately kind couturier tittered at her words, grasping at his forehead, “To imply that I, Loquinet de Autremêt, knows not the worth of his work! For this, I ought to invite you to the dueling fields for this insult to my honor!” “Huuuuh.” “But I shall not! For you see, I understand your miscomprehension! I care not for money, for my wife, the great Manananupa Lupapa can provide for my every desire. Save one, that is.”

Kofle tried to open her mouth, but he twirled away, “And that is– INSPIRATION! Oh! How I despaired, for my muse, fickle and cruel, had deserted me for these last five weeks! Life, once so bright and blinding in its radiance, became naught but droll and colorless!” Dropping to one knee at her side, he gestured to Muur’s tail with both hands, “But just as despair threatened to overtake my dreary soul, she appeared! A challenge the likes of which I had never encountered before! Such girth! Such poise! Such presence! I ask you! What is money in the presence of my rekindled passion? Of my joie-de-vivre being brought back into my life?! Nothing, I say! NOTHING!”

“Few pains worse than writer’s block, or whatever the equivalent for a clothier is.” The lizard woman agreed with a soft chuckle, her tail idly wrapping under his armpits and hefting him back to his feet, “Glad to have been of help to a fellow artist.”

Rising with the tail, he clutched at his breast and swooned by placing the back of his hand against his forehead, “And for that you shall have my utmost gratitude! You have saved me from the most ignoble of fates! Disappointing my dearest beloved and failing her in her time of greatest needs! Now she shall dazzle all at the banquet, no longer will she worry about besmirching the good name of the Manderville by wearing subpar fashion, churned out by uninspired, cheap louts thinking themselves the superior artist because their patrons thought to substitute inspiration and dedication to the art with piles of gold!” 

“Haha, she’s a lucky woman to have such a passionate husband. Make sure to sweep her off her feet!” Muur encouraged with a wide grin, her tail snapping behind her like a whip to punctuate her words.

“I most certainly shall!” He loudly declared, before pushing her towards Kofle, “Truly, it was by the gods’ graces that you appeared– but even as thankful of them and you that I am. I would ask for my compensation so that I might begin my work.”

“Sure!” Kofle snapped, just a tiny bit too eager to get away from the peculiar man, “Six hundred gil, as you asked. Pleasure to do business with you, sir!” As he waved them off, she grabbed Muur and quickly left, “Come on, let’s leave and leave him to it!”