Session 22 - Father of Mine

SESSION TWENTY-TWO Previously, across the Horizon...
Alterna is a task too great.
The Starfall made its first trip back into the ruined capital of an ancient empire, and the dangers were quick and forceful this time. The ship did not make it anywhere near the train station to search for Orrey's missing father, sister, or sister's friend that is a boy. Instead, a tremendous multi-elemental storm raged, surrounding the city, unleashing absolute hell upon the ship and its passengers. After Isa led a desperate retreat away from Alterna, Orrey attempted to find out how sturdy the ship was, gauge its well-being, and was answered in person BY the Starfall, or at least some aspect of it. The first Empress of Alterna, Relis Laurent, appeared before the full group, or at least an image of her. The Empress said that the ship carried Alterna's best hope to right its wrongs and atone for its crimes, and that the empire deserved to fall those hundreds of years ago. Before much more light could be shed on what this meant, the image flickered out, and so too did Cinnabar, the emerald rabbit butting her head against Isa's leg before fading away. The group together came to the realization that Alterna would have to wait, and the Starfall would need more hands. Bast and Linnet have flown the ship away, Bast just familiar enough with it to run it on such a skeleton crew, leaving Orrey, Isa, and Yves to check in at Saron and see if there is any word of Cassiat, of Galley, or of anything else to help them. We join our trio as they return to the city of Orrey's birth, with hopefully fewer chocobo stampedes planned for this visit...
It is late afternoon on the 23rd day of the month of Saroni, a brisk early spring day.
"We should check in with your mother," Isa says. "Discreetly."
"Should I wear a cloak, maybe? Or a disguise of some sort?" Orrey looks pensive as he sketches an outfit for himself on his sketchbook quickly. "Maybe a really big hat to hide my face..."
"Hood might not be a bad idea. Or a floppy...that," Isa says.
"You could borrow my hat." Yves has chosen not to dress as Black Mage today, and is trying to be helpful.
"I do love your hat, Yves!"
"You could borrow the whole outfit. It's mysterious!"
"I don't know if I have the Black Mage attitude to go with it... How does a Black Mage walk and talk?" Orrey shakes his head.  "I never took a drama class, so I don't know if I could act the part."
"Stick with just the hat then," Isa says.
"What about a really puffy coat?" Orrey thinks. "And some boots, maybe."
Yves fishes around in his satchel, and finally comes out with The Hat. It is, after all, quite floppy, and thus compressable. "I don't think boots are going to change how easily you're identified."
"Orrey, you know this city. Are we going to spend longer debating a disguise than it would take to walk to your house?" Isa says.
The Oak Hill neighborhood looks about the same as you remember from the last time you were here -- what, maybe two and a half days -- though there's a music shop with its main window boarded up.
"I could really use some new clothes..." Orrey picks at his threadbare shirt. He shrugs and pulls the hat low over his eyes. "This'll do I guess." He uses his local knowledge to lead them through alleys to his place.
At least five people cheerfully say "Hi, Orrey!" as he passes.
"And that's where Gert fought Yaluba last year over...something. A girl, I want to say, but probably not.  They got more heated over their blitzball teams than over the ladies."
"That just makes sense," says Yves, peering around as they walk. "A lot fewer bets placed on the ladies. Unless the ladies are also playing sports. Do you have, like, aristocratic sports with bets on it, here?"
If anyone has an interest in local news, there is a bin holding newspapers. 10 gil each.
Orrey checks his pocket as he walks over to the bin.
Isa flips a coin at Orrey. "Get two."
Orrey nods and grabs them, handing one to Isa as he flips his own to the headlines.
Isa folds her paper up and tucks it under her arm. "Read when we're inside, alright?"
The hallway looks the same, minus the big crack in the wall from when someone -- could've been anyone -- got their shoulder rammed into it at high velocity. The door to Orrey's home is closed, and anything at all could be on the other side.
Orrey gives the secret Alyon knock, three raps evenly spaced.
The door opens, and Orrey finds himself looking down into a thick head of purple hair, two weeks past a need haircut. The hair then bobs up, and a pair of glasses look up at Orrey. "You're home," yet another Alyon child says, this one being 14-year-old Taebier. "Cover me."
Yves, given the last week or two of experiences, looks around for incoming fire.
Isa has already checked up and down the hallway.
Orrey grins and takes up a position, inside, blocking the view. "Go!"
He is gone in a flash, two books under his arm.
Three seconds later, Mama Alyon from inside: "I know I did not just hear that door open and any footsteps go down the hall."
"No, ma'am," Orrey answers. 
"Good. Then you can set the table, Orrey."
Orrey sighs and nods. "Will do! We've got guests again."
"Nice to see you again, ma'am," Yves calls.
"And you, Yves!" comes the reply from the other room. "Did Linnet and Bast have business out of town?"
Orrey looks at Isa to take the lead on that one.
"Yes, ma'am. They'll be catching up with us when they're done. You're well?"
She comes out, potholder shoved in the side pocket of her apron like a sword in a scabbard. "Oh, it'll take two more coats to fix the hallway, there's a leak in the baby's room but six-year-olds just think water means you can have all sorts of pretend flood games, the roast is dry, and the Maluskis are inconsolable about the bassoon loss, but that's nothing to speak of."
Orrey heads into the dining room and starts pulling out the plates, bowls, napkins, and silverware, handing off the cups for Yves to put out.
"Do you know if Bast's friend managed to speak to him before he left town?" Mama Alyon asks.
"I believe so. No one's troubled you or yours?" Isa says.
"Not a bit," she says.
Isa nods. "Good."
Mama Alyon heads back into the kitchen, saying once she's out of the room, "Did Cassiat leave with you, Orrey?"
Yves is murmuring "bassoon loss..." thoughtfully to himself under his breath.
Orrey pauses as he sets down another plate.  "She did. I guess she hasn't made it home, then? We went different ways yesterday."
"Mm."
"She didn't say where she was going, but she was with Galley on the Slim Reaper. Nothing I could do to stop her, even if I wanted to. She wants to find Papa, so she's still off looking for him, I believe." Orrey sets down the rest of the table setting.
Instead of responding to Orrey, Mama Alyon says, "Yves, coffee? Isa, tea?" For Orrey, she leaves the floor, for him to keep talking and fill the space that might otherwise be taken up by a mother's disapproval.
"I'd love some coffee, thank you," Yves says, rather anxiously.
"Coffee as well, if you don't mind."
One minute later, two mugs of the already-brewing coffee are delivered. Orrey recognizes them from a set Cassiat got Mama for her birthday two years ago.
Isa nods her thanks, and a moment later makes an appreciative noise in the back of her throat as she sips.
Yves smiles anxiously, and drinks his coffee.
As Orrey and his mother have a silent war, Isa is left alone with her newspaper.
Isa finds a table to set her mug on, and leans against the door to read the headlines.
THIRD ELECTION TIE Council No Closer To Determining Future After ‘Unknowing’ ARRESTS MADE IN STATION ATTACK If Found Guilty, Augurelt Promises “Harshest Possible Penalties”
Isa sighs. Someone really close to her might hear her mutter "Democracy..." like one would describe a rash.
NO TRUTH TO NECROMANCER RUMORS Officials Blame Sensationalist Novelty Press ALCYONES FLY HIGH Overtime Win Puts Playoffs Back In Conversation
Yves shuffles over and leans over Isa's shoulder. "...necromancy, huh?"
"Hm?" Isa flips over to the necromancy story.
Orrey joins his mother in the kitchen, leaning up against a counter as she bustles about. "Have you heard anything new since I've been gone? We didn't find anything much in Alterna, though we heard a train running that we didn't get a chance to check out."
The Necromancer story is Saron officials saying that there IS no necromancy story, that there is not a necromancer living some ways north of the city, raising the dead and forcing the bodies of the departed to do her ungodly bidding, and here's some discrediting of the eyewitnesses who are claiming that.
"No, Orrey, I haven't heard anything. No further requests, no pestering from your sister about what we're actually going to do about it, nothing but the day to day. I'm sure it will all work out in the end," she finishes, a little strained, but never one to let it show.
Yves reads, and shakes his head. "This is what happens when you give white mages too many anatomy classes and not enough history classes."
"It will." Orrey glances around, and then quickly hugs his mother with a surprising fierceness while no one can see them. "I won't stop until we find him, and until you're all safe."
knock knock knock
Isa, having mastered the subtleties of the Alyon Knock, steps away from the door and opens it a crack.
"I'll get it." Orrey brushes away the tears that formed and heads to the front door. He pulls up as he sees Isa at the door.
There is a man at the door.
"Yes?"
Like the Alyon Isa saw a minute ago, he has glasses. Cassiat has his nose. Orrey has his eyes. No one else in the family has that savage a cut over their eyebrow, though like Orrey, he's seen many a better day.
But he's smiling.
He's a little confused, right now, looking at someone he doesn't recognize, but he's smiling. "You're in my house," he says, a bit of a laugh forming a melody in his rich tenor.
"Am I." Keeping her foot planted against the door, she turns to look at Orrey.
Orrey's shocked face quickly turns into the biggest smile. "Isa, MOVE!"
Isa moves.
Mama Alyon beats everyone there.
Isa makes sure her coffee is clear.
Yves hastily stuffs a slightly sparkling hand back in a pocket. Not considering zapping anyone, nope.
For a moment, there is just a crushing three-person hug.
Isa catches Yves's eyes, and gives a very slight nod of approval for his developing instincts.
Papa Alyon takes a moment to collect himself, and then cleans his glasses as cover for anything else emotional. "I missed you all so much. Orrey, are these friends of yours?"
"This is Isa and Yves.  They've been helping me look for you!" Orrey is not doing well with forming sentences currently.
Isa nods to Pa Alyon. "Sir."
Yves waves tentatively with his not-in-pocket hand, and thus sloshes some coffee on his sleeve. "...hi! Uh. Sir."
Mama Alyon ushers him all the way in, more thanks are given, and then Papa Alyon gestures for someone behind him to come in, too.
They do. An unfamiliar moogle. Her fur is white with soft gray diagonal stripes, three across her forehead. She’s wearing a white sleeveless shirt, green, orange, and yellow ribbons around her left arm, and a breathable pair of reinforced tights. A rather large curved boomerang is strapped to her back. Her pompom has a red bandana around it. She smiles amiably. "Happy family reunions," she says. "And friends, I suppose, too."
"Is this a friend of yours, Papa?" Orrey eyes the new person with a hint of anxiety.
Isa's assessment is politely neutral.
"This is Cosmog," he says. "She's why I'm still alive."
"Just seeing him all the way home," Cosmog says personably.
"Did you two see--" Yves stops, and decides to try to smile pleasantly and drink his coffee, simultaneously, resulting in some brief coughing.
Cosmog accepts the offer of tea, and inside of twenty-five seconds is sipping a mug of green tea, shifting her weight from side to side.
Isa resumes sipping her coffee. Her nice, heavy mug of hot coffee, held in her throwin' hand.
"I think it might be time for some stories to be told. And not the old ones." Orrey looks over at Cosmog. "What happened since I last saw you, Papa?"
"Some things I think should be kept just between us," he says, glancing between Isa and Yves. "But as for the last few hours... the floor is yours, my friend," he says, gesturing with a grand smile to Cosmog.
Orrey nods agreement.
She takes another sip, and then smiles. "Fair." She hands the mug to Orrey.
Orrey raises an eyebrow but takes the cup.
"To properly introduce myself. Cosmog Ohalan Sereti Palantiot, Cosmog for short, Cos or Mog never in a million years. I was out exploring with Deputy Shaman -- my chocobo -- about two hours north of here when I came across quite the scene on those abandoned rails." She ticks them off, finger by finger. "A train. An airship. Another, larger, airship."
Orrey's grip tightens on the mug at the mention of the airship that he immediately assumes is the Slim Reaper.
"And since two of those three were hellbent on killing each other, I thought it best to head in another direction. I try to avoid Bomb-launching steam engines and airships firing massive chunks of metal, severing cars from the engine, after all. But then I see someone throw someone else off the train -- first person barehanded, second person holding two swords --"
"I had the element of surprise, and it was also a terrible idea," Papa Alyon murmurs.
Yves looks rather admiringly at Papa Alyon, who apparently knows how to run when the running is good.
"--and then shout for help, clearly some sort of prisoner, what's a moogle to do? So I make my way toward him and then get him on the Deputy--"
"Oh, don't sell yourself short!" Papa Alyon protests. "You leapt atop the train three cars down and cut a path of furious fisticuffs, ejecting Avengers left and right, accompanied all the way by your faithful steed--"
"Oh, point him in a straight line he'll go until he falls off a cliff," Cosmog replies with a laugh.
"Well, that sounds heroic," Isa comments without judgment.
"Anyway, I grab him, we jump back onto the Deputy, and then ride off before anyone on the two ships is the wiser. He said he was from Saron, which made it easy, and I brought him back here." She rolls her shoulders. "Cut my camping trip short, but saving a life seems like a better way to spend an afternoon."
Yves glances sidelong at Isa.
Isa sips coffee.
"Exploring. And camping?" Orrey asks.
"And to cap it all off, that train derailed," Papa Alyon says with no small amount of satisfaction.
"Exploring and camping," Cosmog confirms. "Good mountains north of here."
"So, uh... What was on that train otherwise? I mean, beyond..." Yves makes a slightly flustered gesture, at least with his unoccupied hand this time, toward the Alyon in question.
"The car I was in had sleeping quarters and a printing press," Papa Alyon says. "The other cars were securely locked, and they kept the train running twenty-four hours a day, at least from what I could tell. There were no windows, until one of the walls got blown out when that airship got involved."
"Only one of those looked capable of fighting," Cosmog muses. "The little ship was very outmatched."
"Did you see its name?" Orrey asks.
"Did you see what happened to it?" Yves follows.
They both shake their heads. "Last I saw," Cosmog said, "both airships were taking off together, heading east-southeast. Big silver ship, little wooden ship. Fair amount of smoke," she adds.
"Sounds like that was probably Cassiat. She left on a little wooden airship to look for you, Papa." Orrey looks crestfallen.
Papa Alyon takes a step back, and keeps going, right into his favorite chair, staring numbly straight ahead.
"Cassiat would be... sister?" Cosmog ventures, carefully.
"We'll go after her as soon as we can!" Orrey looks over at Isa and Yves, the question on his face.
Orrey nods in answer to Cosmog.
Isa nods to Cosmog, tersely. To Orrey, "As soon as the others return."
Yves nods hastily, and drinks more coffee. The tips of his ears are shivering.
Cosmog looks around the room, smiles warily, and then says, "I, I should be going. The Deputy's just ambling around outside. If you need anything else, Mr. Alyon, I'll be leaving in the morning, back north."
"A moment outside, before you do?" Isa says.
She nods, bandana flapping with the motion.
Orrey gets up and says "We're in your debt.  If there's anything we can do for you, please, just name it. And you'll always be a friend of the Alyons."
Yves drains the rest of his coffee, tries to smile at someone in an appropriate manner, fails, and decides it's better to follow Isa and leave the Alyons some family discussion time.
"Oh, really, happy to help, it's nothing..."
"It is FAR from nothing." Orrey keeps shaking her hand. "Thank you."
Outside in the hallway, she grimaces. "Sister was on the wooden ship? Wake me."
"Kinda surprised the ship wasn't in flames, or pieces, when you last saw it," Yves says outside, in a very low voice.
Isa closes the door between them and the Alyon Abode. "Yes. They were with us, and set out on their own. Tell me, did the larger ship look like it was trying to overtake them, or shoot them out of the sky?"
She holds her hands out in front of her, palms open. "You'll understand that I was focused on not getting exploded."
Isa nods. "As best you can."
"There was no reason for you to try to save a ship that showed up to tangle with bigger things on its own," Yves says.
"It mostly looked like the silver ship and the train were trying to kill each other, and that wooden ship got caught in the middle." She scans around the hallway, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "After the fight, I'm pretty sure the two ships were hooked together."
Isa nods. "Good. There's a good chance they're still alive then. Prisoners, probably, but still alive. I'm sure if you asked them last week they'd have said it was a fair trade. Now..." she looks back at the door, sighs. "This has been over their heads for a long time."
"Maybe they found an ally," Yves says, rather dubiously.
"I'm getting the feeling there's a lot of backstory here that I don't know," she says diplomatically.
"Yes." Isa seems disinclined to elaborate.
Cosmog doesn't go digging.
Yves makes broad, complicated hand gestures.
"If there's anything else you can tell us about the ships, we'll take it. And if not, you've still done more than enough. We'll make sure your name stays out of it, but be careful if you're going to stay in the city for the next few weeks."
"Silver ship uses weird ammunition -- kept firing these huge chunks of cross-shaped metal that would slam into the train and then closed around it, constricting it. Not sure what benefit that gave them over just cannonry. I didn't see what sparked the fight, it was raging when I got there," Cosmog says. "And I'm heading out in the morning," she adds. "Back on the trail. I might swing up by that derailed train on my way tomorrow, see if there's anything there."
Isa nods. "Thanks, again. If you find anything, or need to get in touch, there's a woman named Coates in the Triad."
"Sure. Give them my best?" And then she is off.
Isa watches Cosmog leave, then looks at Yves. "If that girl's not dead I'm going to kill her," she says, and heads back to the apartment.
"I'll help," Yves mutters, and follows.
Orrey looks up from furiously writing and sketching in his notebook as they come back in. "It's starting to make more sense to me the more I learn about these people that took you. I don't think they're Avengers. I think they're Agitators. Someone is fanning the flames of civil war in our city."
"Uh-huh." Isa's got her Command Face on again, and her words are syntactically questions and inflectionally orders. To Orrey: "The odds for Cassiat aren't horrible, how soon can you be ready to go?" To Pa: "Are they going to come after you again?"
Orrey stuffs his notebook back into his pack. "I'm ready right now."
"I don't know," Papa Alyon says. "Without the press, they don't have much use for me. If they think I died in the attack, I don't think that will last long, especially since they apparently have a messenger that comes here. They would have to have a reason not to come."
"What can we do to help you get a little more certainty on that front?" Isa says.
Orrey looks down at his father. "We can't leave you here if they're going to come back."
"Orrey, if they know I'm gone but that I'm not here, there's no guarantee they wouldn't just go after another one of you," he says.
"Then you'll want to be seen having a conversation with Sydney before they have a chance," Mama Alyon says.
Isa smiles. Or at least shows her teeth. "Perfect. Let's go have a chat."
"Aramog?"
An hour later...
Aramog Sydney scowls, taking it all in.
"My father was the victim of a group trying to fan the flames of the civil war. Someone printing propaganda to rouse both factions and create chaos!" Orrey wrings his hands and looks miserable as he explains.
Sydney listens patiently, tipping her head in acknowledgement as Papa Alyon fills in most of the details and Mama Alyon adds in more details of life in the city in the aftermath. "What do you want from me?" she asks, flatly but not impolitely, at the end.
"Protection. I want my family to be safe. And to catch the bastards that are trying to tear apart our city!" Orrey almost surprises himself with the passion that comes out at this moment.
Sydney snaps her fingers, and a tonberry in uniform hustles up with a very fancy-looking dagger and sets it on the table next to her. She produces a piece of paper from inside her coat, inspects it, and then makes a show of wrapping it around the blade of the dagger and passes it over to Papa Alyon. "Here. Take this back home and leave it in your living room. It shows that you're under our protection.
"The paper is a menu for a barbecue place two blocks east of here. If anyone tries to steal that, they'll think you're onto them being onto you, and then worry about where the actual document is, and then leave you alone after that point because you're ahead of the game." She hops down from her chair and reapplies her hat, and with a feather that high and a strap that firm, it takes some application. "Paranoia should give you enough protection in the meantime, and I'll also make sure the Alyon area is on a route. Protection is a little tighter these days, what with Augurelt's daughter still being here. She's more of a target than any of you would be."
Yves listens to what Sydney says, with a slow nod and distant gaze as he contemplates what sort of paranoid nuttery this whole city apparently gets up to.
Sydney watches the group. "Will there be anything else?"
Isa defers to the Alyon Clan. "Is that enough?"
The elder Alyons look satisfied with that level of paranoid nuttery.
Isa nods. "Good luck. We're going to go meet the rest of our party and get out of your city now."
When outside, Orrey says to his parents, "We'll find Cassiat and bring her home. Be safe, be well, and we'll be back as soon as we can." He hugs them both and turns to his companions. "Let's find our ride."
Isa doesn't contradict Orrey in front of his parents.
On the way to the docks, Isa suddenly signals her two companions to follow her on a detour, which leads down to a commercial district that they may or may not have fled through a few days ago, and then to a smith's counter.
"Are we shopping? I guess we have time..."
"We're not shopping. We're buying. I put in an order before we left town."
"Got it. What'd you order? A sword to replace the one you don't have anymore for some reason?" Orrey eyes the spear.
"Half-right," Isa says. She catches the clerk's eye, and waits for him to acknowledge her. He does, and ducks back behind the curtain separating counter from forge.
"Half-sword?" Yves suggests. "Or two swords."
"A sword that isn't a replacement for your lost sword?"
Isa points at Orrey. "My sword is back on the Starfall, not lost. But it's the only sword there, and that's not going to work."
"A sword made out of more swords." Yves looks pleased at the idea.
"Don't be silly," Isa says, not as harshly as she could. The clerk comes back out with three cloth bundles, of varying lengths.
"Should we be saying Starfall out loud?" Orrey's face is a bit on the worried end of the spectrum.
"Why would anyone care what we named a creaky wooden boat we picked up recently?" Yves asks Orrey.
"We didn't...OH. Right. The boat!"
Isa chuckles, and hands the longest bundle to Yves. "Here." The shortest bundle to Orrey. "And you." The third, a crescent shape, gets a leather thong tied around it so she can shoulder it.
"Oo, presents," Yves says. "...sharp presents?"
Orrey unwraps the bundle rapidly. "What's this?"
Orrey's bundle contains a one-handed blade that is too short to be called a sword but a little too long to be called a knife, unless you're an Australian movie star in the 80s. "For you I tried to go with something instinctual."
Orrey hefts the blade experimentally. "It feels...ok...I think I can avoid stabbing myself with it."
"The plan is to stab them with it. At the very least, it's big enough to make someone think twice."
Yves checks his present, too.
Yves's present is less sharp. Really, the opposite of sharp. It's a four-foot-long stick with a flanged metal head. More metal is inlaid into the shaft in half-inch splines, spiraling down the length. "He swears the alloys are the right kind of conductive, but I literally have no way of testing it. At a bare minimum there's a lot of leverage and a very satisfyingly blunt end."
"...it's conductive?" Yves beams at the stick. "It's CONDUCTIVE. Oh. This is going to be FUN."
Isa chuckles once. "Yeah I thought so. Last one's for Linnet. Bast can take care of himself."
"Thank you, Isa.  This is...unexpected. It's not even my birthday..."
"Look. What we've decided to do isn't going to get any less dangerous. Best to be prepared. Now, let's get back on our way."
Orrey tries to figure out how to sheathe the BFK and follows after Isa. The BFK comes with a sheath! Easily attachable to belts or strapped to satchels!
Orrey straps it to the back of his belt at a slight angle.
The docks are busy, with airships and sea-going boats coming and going, sails rippling in the wind. One airship catches your eye as it slides off into the pink dusky sky, though less because the ship itself is notable and more because there is a woman standing at the edge of the sky pier, flinging rocks and hurling invectives after it. The last thing you hear before she gives up and tries to catch her breath is "And I hope the chocobo gives you twice as much hell as I will!"
Yves shakes his head. "Chocobos seem like so much trouble, all around."
She turns around, biting off a follow-up curse. She's human, with unruly black curls reigned in under a purple bandana, dark brown eyes and light brown skin, wearing four necklaces, three earrings in her left ear and two in her right, and a very surly expression. She looks at Yves, equal parts bewildered and frustrated, and her shoulders sag. "Need a pilot?"
"Yes!" Orrey exclaims.
A blink. "Wait, really?"
Orrey looks at Isa for confirmation. "We do, don't we?"
"Well Orrey, that depends. Next time there's a fight on deck, do you want me out there helping you, or do you want me on the bridge flying the ship?" Isa says flatly.
"I think you and I both know the answer to that, Ms. Swordy Swashbucklerton."
Yves looks to the disappearing airship, then back to the new human. "...did your previous crew decide to let a chocobo take your place? Because if so, I really wonder at their sobriety."
"We'll need references and a full curriculum vitae...uh, what's your name?" Orrey asks.
"No, but they have a chocobo on board, and look, you're not getting my blood, kid."
"Not that kind of vitae. A resume! Sort of."
Isa shakes her head and steps to the fore. "Just your name, and tell me where you learned to fly."
"Marina Zaharak. In and around the Triad."
"I wouldn't blood test anyone," Yves says indignantly. "I'm no narc."
"Are you being pursued by criminals, political terrorists, or angry academic advisors?" Isa asks.
"Do you want the answer to be yes or no, Isa?" Orrey is trying to be helpful. "I'm not sure which I'd prefer, to be honest."
"I could work with either way," Yves admits.
"On the one hand, being pursued, she would fit in better. On the other hand, being pursued would create more trouble for the...uh...crew."
"I was the pilot for the Scintilla, that cowardly piece of low-rent kindling you see drifting out to go close a baby gate, before they decided they wanted to go stick a pacifier in the sun."
She reaches inside her jacket and pulls out a cinnamon stick, shoves it in her mouth, tries to light it, and makes an incredibly forlorn sound around it. "Life is hell."
"Do you want to take a job that hasn't yet figured out how to pay you, that you can't talk about, but will guarantee that your name will go down in history?"
"Anyway," Yves says, "I'm pretty sure we don't have any chocobos on board our ship, so there's that going for it."
"It's 1500 gil upfront for my services, Cardian, unless you're into the illegal shit," she warns. "...in which case, it's 1000 gil and 10%."
"I mean." Yves thinks. "That may depend on jurisdiction, really."
Orrey pulls out his sketchbook and does his usual thing.
"It's only illegal in the sense they haven't written any laws about it."
"...1200," Marina says. She then gives Orrey's sketchbook an open-handed uppercut, sending it spinning back over his head and onto the deck.
"Hey!" Orrey holds his pencil up defensively.
"Hey yourself," is her equally-wordy retort.
Isa thinks. "600 now, and when you see the ship you can decide how much more you're going to need to be a part of it."
"I was just going to draw you.  I should have asked first. My apologies." Orrey retrieves his sketches and stands well back from the prospect.
"I'll take 600 gil for one of you to buy me dinner, sure." To Orrey, she adds, "No drawing."
Yves digs into his satchel, and starts working out the right pieces for 600 gil up front.
"Why not?"
Marina walks forward, runs a hand through Orrey's hair, and then keeps doing that, slightly messing it up, pushing at the texture, fiddling with his style, generally invading his personal space.
"Uh. Are you demonstrating how you feel when someone draws you?"
Isa nods while Yves counts cash. "Isaline. Yves will get you paid, you're grooming Orrey. Ship should be in town in the next couple days."
"I get it. No drawing."
"There's a good kid."
Orrey fixes his hair a bit and frowns, putting away his sketch book.
Marina accepts her gil, and then immediately goes in search of somewhere to spend it.
And with that little exchange...
End session.