Okay, I had so much fun with these guys in Of Grimoires and Gria that I couldn't help sending them on another adventure. Enjoy!
Oh, hey. Me again. Yep, still the same Terra Thatcher from last time. Well, a few years older. More experienced as a White Mage, and I've started to add more Bishop skills to my repertoire as well. Now I can Aero or Water you in the face, if I get bored of Holy.
Because I'm still in Ivalice. Do I regret destroying my Grimoire—and all my chances of ever returning to the drudgery of my Earth life? Not a chance. It would take the combined forces of the thirteen Scions to tear me away from my clan. And my husband, bless his oddball seeq heart, would hack the world-threads to bits in order to get me back again.
So yeah. I reject what little you had to offer me, Earth, and substitute my own happiness. We're all a lot better off that way.
And thus I found myself in a pub in Camoa in the middle of Emberleaf. The weather was perfect for the end of autumn, the kind of cold where it's not uncomfortable enough to be outside if you bundle up, but makes being inside feel cozy and sleepy. Like the warmth is telling you that you did a great job that year and now it's time to rest.
Of course, it could also be because we'd just finished defending a farmer's harvest from rampant cockatrices. We were all ready for a good rest after that one.
But Saskia would have none of that. She's a great clan leader, but boy is she driven. Coele always complains that the only vacations we ever get are the hours we log traveling to our next job. Saskia says we'll rest when there are no more job postings we can take. That has yet to happen.
Qrrog, Vasily, and I sat at a table nursing mugs of hot, spicy apple cider, watching Saskia and Coele browse a large bulletin board that spanned one wall of the pub. Members of other clans mulled about, and the air was thick with murmured conversations and the heavy aroma of belly-filling food.
"Hmm." Saskia's long viera fingers lifted a sheet of paper. "Now this looks promising. What do you think, Coele?"
The pink-haired gria leaned over to study the posting, her draconic wings flaring to keep her balance. "Ooh! That one does look fun! Except… hmmm…" She rubbed her chin for the moment and then the two of them simultaneously turned to look at the rest of us.
Vasily looked back at them from over the rim of his mug. "Mm?" His bangaa eyebrow ridge rose curiously.
"Well, this won't do," Saskia murmured. Her dark eyes turned back to the bulletin board—and then her ears pricked. A triumphant smile slid up her face and she snatched up both the paper that she and Coele had been looking at, and another sheet nearby, tearing them off of their tacks.
Qrrog and I studied her as she and our gria Ravager sat back down at the table. "Two jobs?" I asked, full of cider but letting the mug warm my hands. "We only ever take one at a time." We were a clan of only five, after all.
Saskia slid the two papers over to us so we could read the postings. "There's a combat tournament in Fluorgis. The rewards look quite nice."
"Combat?" Qrrog poked his seeq snout out of his mug, his tusked grin offset by a cinnamon mustache from the cider. "Now that sounds excitin'."
"Yeah, but…" Coele poked her fingers together. "It's a doubles tournament. Only two people per clan are allowed to enter."
"Ooh!" Qrrog grabbed my shoulder and pulled me close. "Me and Brighteyes'll do great! I got the muscle, she's got the sparkly healin' stuff! Now that's synergy, am I right?" He grinned down at me.
I nodded, but Saskia folded her hands over her mouth. I'd long since learned that meant she had different plans and was trying to be diplomatic about them. "Actually, I was anticipating Coele and I entering. With my long-range Sniper skillset and her melee techniques, we also make a very effective pair."
Qrrog's shoulders slumped. "Oh. What about the three o' us, then? We gonna be in the stands eatin' hot buns? Okay, that does sound pretty good," he muttered to himself.
I patted his arm. "We can enter another tournament sometime. They do hold them pretty regularly."
"True, true."
"Actually…" Saskia pushed the second paper forward and looked up at the three of us.
Vasily scanned it, picked it up, and scanned it again, wrinkling his orange snout. "… A disspatch missssion? Yer dissspatchin' uss?"
Qrrog held his stomach sorrowfully. "I miss them buns already…"
I leaned in front of him to try to see the paper again. "Wait, where are we going?"
The bangaa smirked. "Goug." He passed the paper to my ex-pirate husband, who held it so both of us could see. "That ssoftens the blow a bit, it does. Nobody're better engineers'n the Moogles, and the Juggernaut could use ssome tunin' up."
Saskia smiled. "I thought you might like that. The tournament will last a week, and I didn't want any of you getting bored in Fluorgis."
"Aye, that town's a little too fancy-pants fer me tastes," Qrrog said with a chuckle. "All them flowers everywhere. And flouncy li'l gria like Pinky 'ere." He jabbed a thumb at Coele, who stuck her tongue out at him.
"Yeah, Goug's fun," I said. "And this job doesn't look like anything the three of us can't handle. Someone's been stealing supplies from Mogworks's main plant, and they want us to find out who it is."
"Mogworkss… they're the ones doin' all that R&D on Moogletrons, ain't they?" Vasily said wistfully. "Gonna be bloomin' fun workin' fer them. I wonder if they'll give uss a tour of their plant…"
"And the sooner we finish," I said, "the sooner we can spend the rest of the week relaxing while we wait for Saskia's and Coele's tournament to end!" I winked at Saskia and she chuckled.
"Fine," she said, throwing up her hands with a grin. "Do with that time what you will."
"Whoohoo!" Qrrog threw a fist in the air. "Finally, a proper vacation!"
Coele folded her arms. "Just you wait, we're gonna bring home the first-place trophy!"
"And we're gonna bring home…" Qrrog looked at the paper again. "Three thousand gil! Not bad!"
"Not bad at all," Saskia said with a smile. "Well, shall we depart? I believe the registration deadline is in three days' time."
Coele grinned. "And the sooner we get there, the sooner you guys can go do your job and then have a vacation!"
I laughed as we excused ourselves from the table and headed for the door. "I'm sorry you aren't getting a vacation, Coele."
"Are you kidding me?" She pulled on her pink-striped winter hat, complete with pom-pom tassels and holes for her horns. "This tourney'll be the best vacation ever! I get to spend a whole week bashing people with my sword!" She gestured menacingly, a terrifyingly maniacal grin spreading up her face.
Re-wrapping my scarf around my neck, I gave her a smirk. "I should have guessed."
The sky was the color of ash, and lantern-light made the wet streets glitter. People were hurrying home to hunker down for another cold night, but we headed for the docks where private airships – like our Juggernaut – were moored.
Something wet landed on my nose and I stopped in my tracks. "Ooh!" I looked up, expecting rain, but instead I saw flakes of white drifting down from the sky.
Coele gasped, her arms spread wide. "The first snow of the season!"
I grinned, watching the feathery wisps of ice float gently onto rooftops and our heads and shoulders. "Neat."
"It's jusst sssnow," Vasily grumbled, clutching the sleeves of his leather flight jacket. "Nassssty wet sssstuff. I don't undersstand why yer ssso excitable about it."
"We didn't have snow where I came from on Earth." I cupped my hands and let the snowflakes perch on them, ignoring the cold as I watched the flakes melt into tiny puddles. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of it—it's like magick." I closed my eyes, enjoying the crisp hush that blanketed the city.
Something warm and moist pressed against my forehead. I opened my eyes and looked up to see a seeq snout, and past it a wide grin.
"Yer too cute, love," Qrrog said, patting my head.
I laughed, my cheeks heating in spite of the cold. "Sorry, I'm way too sentimental."
"Nah." He put an arm around my shoulders and we continued walking. "I love you just the way you are."
