"As a citadel of scoundrels, Limsa Lominsa was held in low regard by the other cities of the realm. And while such perspectives may have proven irrelevant in former ages when conflict between the nations was commonplace, this new era demanded that Eorzeans band together or perish. Thus it was that Admiral Merlwyb outlawed piracy, and put out a call for all citizens of Limsa Lominsa, pirate or not, to present a united front to their enemies."
- Gerald, of the Kraken's Arms
As the public elevator opened into the Drowning Wench, Fyrilwaen Wyznrymmsyn stumbled out into the hazy, pipe-smoke filled air fighting back the urge to vomit.
He had always hated airships.
It wasn't a question of mistrusting magitek or any sort of technological progress (better to leave that for those nature-lovers in Gridania), nor did Fyrilwaen believe (like so many of his Lominsan peers) that Llymlaen herself would rise from the waves and curse him for spurning the sea. No - it was the heights. Fyrilwaen couldn't stand the heights.
The airship's path from Gridania had been proactively rerouted due to particularly stormy winds over the continent, but of course they couldn't be avoided entirely. Buffeting back and forth ad nauseam had caused Fyrilwaen's stomach to churn like the seas below, and as the airship passed over the volcano that lay at the heart of Vylbrand he nearly deposited his lunch into it. He'd have happily taken a boat into those gnashing waves but the trip to and from Gridania around the horn of Aldenard was too long even in the best of conditions, and he needed wood from the Black Shroud too urgently to risk it. And, so…
Stepping out, the hard, tiled cobblestone of the Drowning Wench steadied Fyrilwaen's feet, and the smell of spices and cooked meat wafting from the kitchen steadied his stomach. He was happy to be home, the storm passed and the sun shining. Limsa Lominsa: city of pirates, sellswords, cutthroats, and the best damn smoked fish you could find in all of Eorzea.
Fyrilwaen had business to attend to, but the Wench called him first.
What was the harm in just a few more minutes of waiting, after he'd been gone for nearly two days? He sidled woozily up to the bar, motioned for an ale, and grabbed the nearest open seat that was still sufficiently far away from anyone else to sate Fyrilwaen's need for some quiet while he regained his composure. Unceremonious and effortless, he took the massive bundle of wood he had been hauling for half the day and dropped it at his feet, then rubbed his tired shoulders.
When the ale came, Fyrilwaen pushed the metal mug up against his forehead. It was, customarily, room temperature, but still felt like a welcome coolness against him.
In his large hands, skin the color of muddled Galago mint, the mug seemed small enough for a Lalafell. And indeed, Fyrilwaen dutifully drained the amber liquid in two quick gulps, knocking back the flagon one final time to secure any wayward drops of precious liquid. Manners be damned. Fyrilwaen felt the drink comfort his stomach, and said a quiet prayer of thanks to whichever of the Twelve was responsible for the invention of ale.
###
The gleaming white spires of Limsa Lominsa had always had a unique attribute: under the gaze of a bright sun, they sparkled and shimmered in such a way that one almost thought they were imbued with deep and ancient magicks. They appeared to vibrate, to change shape. As the sounds of gull caws rippled across the open air and the crash of waves thundered below, the Aftcastle itself buzzed with an aetherial energy, the heartbeat of the city, the pulse of hundreds of years of maritime commerce and activity all swelled up into one living force. Limsa Lominsa had a presence that was not just seen or heard, but felt, and every single stone - so intricately placed, so painstakingly hewn - added up to something greater than the sum of its parts. It was a fortress, yes, but so too was it a beacon.
It was the greatest city in Eorzea, as far as Fyrilwaen cared.
As a child, Fyrilwaen had never truly appreciated the city for what it was. Instead, he saw it through his own dour lens: the city where his parents had sent him to learn a trade, and where they explicitly were not. They had packed him up on a merchant ship with a few other children and chosen to stay in the Northern Empty, trading fish with the lonesome, shut-in buzzards of Old Sharlayan.
The city had been both a home and an education, a hard one, and he found what camaraderie he could amidst all the other Roegadyn who had found their way here or had no reason to leave. He stood out in Ul'dah and Gridania, at least to some extent, but in Limsa Lominsa his stature was so much camouflage. He was just another Sea Wolf in the masses. Hulking men and women with a penchant for the open ocean? They were a gil a dozen here, and the relative anonymity suited Fyrilwaen just fine.
Now a strapping adult with grey-black hair, roughly cropped and pulled back however he could manage (it had a bad habit of forming into awkward peaks on the sides of his head), and a properly bulky Roegadyn build, Fyrilwaen felt content only when he was on the sea or roaming the alleys of Limsa Lominsa.
###
Emerging from the darkened cover of the Drowned Wench, the Aftcastle's white stone blinded Fyrilwaen. Despite the settling of his stomach his head still spun a bit from the journey, and this was only worsened by the impossibly bright light reflecting from every single white stone spire that surrounded him. He briefly entertained the idea of plucking his eyes out, but thought better of it.
"Thal's Balls," he said to no one in particular, and headed westwards toward the Hyaline.
Fyrilwaen knew the fishmongers there well, their pristine aquarium a genuine delight of the Upper Decks, and enjoyed occasionally passing through their shop before making his way back down to the Lower Decks and the docks where his companions would be waiting. But as he approached the stairs, his attention jolted to his back and he realized something was amiss.
A conspicuous lightness existed where a large bundle of wood should have been.
"Thal's Gilded, Stinking Balls," he said.
"Why do they always have to be gilded with you? And stinking." said a young Hyur man walking towards him. Fyrilwaen turned to look. He was small even by Hyur standards, and his blonde hair was spiked to a peak on top of his head - perhaps in an attempt to give himself more height. But he was positively dwarfed by the dark-complexioned Roegadyn walking beside him. Between them, a familiar-looking bundle of wood rested awkwardly, primarily in the hands of the larger companion. But the smaller one was making at least a cursory effort to hold up his end of the massive bundle.
"Lucky for you, my wobbly friend," said the Hyur, "we had some business at the Bismarck and just caught you leaving the Wench without your precious cargo. We tried yelling. Several times, actually. Are you okay? Surely nothing related to a bumpy airship flight? Just your usual level of forgetfulness?"
Fyrilwaen rubbed his temple and then his bushy beard, like a thick helmet strap wrapped around his chin, half out of embarrassment and half out of a lingering feeling of vertigo, and laughed. "The Bismarck? We can't afford the Bismarck. It's the nicest restaurant in the city."
"I said business, not pleasure!"
"Harassing the poor ingredient-fetchers for free booze is hardly business," Fyrilwaen retorted.
"We had to do something while you were gone," said the larger Roegadyn, his voice low and soft but still quite resonant. His black hair was slicked back and shining in the sun. "No boat, no business, no money. And unlike you Sea Wolves I have no particular desire to sate myself on fish caught under the dock by the waste pipes. But I'll gladly sell them to someone else."
"I see," said Fyrilwaen knowingly.
"I believe the words you are looking for begin with 'thank' and end with 'you,'" said the Roegadyn.
Fyrilwaen chuckled. "Keen Aurochs, my dear friend, thank you. Berwyn," he said, nodding to the diminutive Hyur and taking the bundle into his own arms, "I suppose I should thank you for something but based on how much of that wood you appeared to actually be supporting I'm not totally sure what I'm thanking you for."
"For being the first to notice your abandoned cargo would be sufficient," Berwyn replied.
"Aye, friend, that'll do," said Fyrilwaen. "Thank you. I'd quite like to lie down for a good long while before I'm up for anything more than shuffling about like a gods-damned primal's thrall."
"Soon," said Keen Aurochs gruffly. "But not yet."
Years of friendship and mutual labor belied each word of the conversation, and buoyed it. A full twenty years separated their ages, all told, but they understood each other well enough. No more pleasantries were needed or expected. A hearty pat on the back sufficed to convey the message: welcome home.
And so without further ado, the three set off down the stairs to attend to the business at hand: their boat's hull had a hole - the result of a particularly unlucky maritime accident - and they were in dire need of fixing it before it was lost to the muddy blue Rhotano.
Any old wood would have patched it, to be sure, but to them the boat was as much family as a tool of commerce, and nothing but the rosewood of the Black Shroud - with which it was originally crafted - would do. The expense was worth it, they reasoned, because no one could claim a ship quite as beautiful as theirs. And truly it was one of the few expenses which they deemed of the utmost necessity - not even the clothes on their backs were so precious. So while Fyrilwaen was sent to the source, Berwyn and Keen Aurochs had fashioned a temporary poultice of fine mesh wire, fabric, and clay to keep any more water from seeping in, and waited patiently for their companion to return.
Now it was time to get to work.
###
A short walk from Fisherman's Bottom (should any adventurer not be scared away by the bandana-loving frequenters of the building which was definitely not home to a band of scurrilous rogues), one would often find a most majestic craft nestled into the docks of the Lower Decks, bobbing and swaying gently in the current.
Its hull was painted a crisp navy blue, accented by metal braces with distinguished silver filigree swirling around its edges like so many waves. Its bowsprit, dark and massive. Five proud masts rose from its deck, collared in bands of metal at uneven intervals from top to bottom, and its topsails were furled up tightly and neatly. The crows' nests above looked like castle spires, ready to defend their ship at a moment's notice. They rose twenty yalms - maybe thirty - from the surface of the water, and the ship absolutely overshadowed everything in its vicinity. A steady stream of sailors could be seen walking from the dock up onto its deck and back down, carrying crates and bundles of goods meant for far shores - farther, indeed, than even Garlemald. It was important. It was a glorious vessel, a crown jewel.
It was called the Astalicia, and it was not Fyrilwaen's boat.
His was much smaller.
One would need to head north towards a hamlet of dinghies, sloops, and other small craft, perched beneath the Hawkers' Alley bridge, to find Fyrilwaen's prized possession at this exact moment. It had been moored there temporarily, lashed to the dock in a shallower part of the wharf, while the companions eagerly awaited the arrival of their beloved rosewood.
The Coeurl Regina, so named for a particularly vivid dream its previous owner had once had, was a bit of a mess. But it was their mess.
All three men - Fyrilwaen, Berwyn, and Keen Aurochs alike - owned an equal share of the boat and therefore the business. They had become spectacularly good at running the waters between Limsa Lominsa and nearby Vesper Bay with incredible haste, and had developed a reputation as the ones to trust with a quick and discreet journey for all comers (or, at least, the ones who could pay). They were not stationed with the official ferries, chartered and taxed as they were by the Maelstrom; nor was ferrying their original calling - instead, they had fallen into it unofficially while running trade jobs.
Their ship was much less grand than the galleasses which normally completed the route and demanded the work of dozens of shiphands. But what they lacked in luxury they made up for in other ways. It was no Astralicia, clearly, but it had a simple majesty of its own.
The Coeurl itself was a cutter, or a small galley by the Maelstrom definition of the word, and that meant that it was built for speed. Nearly ten yalms long, with a single central mast. Rosewood hull stained dark, but unpainted. Its weathered triangular mainsail cut a sharp but gracefully curved line from the mast back to the stern, while two headsails protruded and billowed forwards over the bow like a Roegadyn's puffed chest. The sails were heavily patched but functional, a far cry from the sturdy elegance of the wooden hull for which they cared so intently, and perhaps inspired little confidence in would-be passengers (although the growing threat of Garlemald to the east meant that consumer choice had dwindled to only a handful of ferries operating regularly out of the port). To compensate for the patchwork nature of the canvas sails, bright crimson flags bearing the crested-wave sigil of Llymlaen, Watcher of the Seas, had been strung from the very tip of the bowsprit all the way to the top of the mast.
To Fyrilwaen's eyes it would always be a quietly beautiful thing, and he loved it dearly.
###
The repairs took a few bells, as expected, and then a few more bells after that. Having only three men made for slow progress, and Berwyn was generally less helpful than chatty. His frustratingly intermittent training as an Arcanist, after all, was meant for mending humans, not boats.
Around them the business of the docks continued apace, mostly fishermen coming and going from their daily hauls. The Coeurl was taking up precious dock space, they knew, for more humble gatherers than themselves, and so they worked as quickly as they could. By the time they were finishing up the rough patching, the sky surrounding the port had turned into a vibrant marbling of pinks, reds, and dark blues. At last, the hull of the Coeurl was once again in one piece, puncture-free, and only a trained eye could distinguish between the boat as it was before, and what had been replaced.
"How much of the Coeurl do we have to rebuild before it's not really the Coeurl anymore, do you reckon?" asked Berwyn.
Fyrilwaen sighed and said, "I don't have enough presence of mind left to even attempt an answer. It's been too long of a day for me to do anything but think about sleeping. Rochs?"
Keen Aurochs considered carefully for a couple of moments, and tapped his hammer in his hand. "Does it matter?"
"I don't care what the workers at the other docks say about you, Rochs," Berwyn chimed in, "I think you're the finest philosopher of our generation."
Rochs feigned a thrust of his hammer that nearly sent Berwyn stumbling into the Rhotano, eliciting a laugh from Fyrilwaen.
As the three began to pack away their equipment and head in for the night, the sound of approaching footsteps on the dock reached their ears. These were not the soft, plodding steps of a weathered sailor, but the quick, loud tottering of someone in poorly chosen footwear for a dusklight stroll along the dock.
"Thank the Twelve," said a light, feminine voice. A woman approached, cloaked with fur against the oncoming night chill. She carried two satchels, full to bursting, that looked quite heavy. They were clutched tightly to her chest. "I looked for you on the usual dock but was given poor directions as to your actual, current location. This is the Coeurl Regina, correct? The ferry to Vesper Bay? I'm looking for quick passage. Tonight."
She was a Hyur - a middle-aged highlander by Fyrilwaen's estimation - with dark skin and piercing eyes. Her white hair was tied back neatly and firmly. As she reached the Coeurl, all three sailors stepped out of the boat and onto the dock to greet her.
Fyrilwaen began by taking few steps forward to meet the woman.
"Evening," he said. While they all generally traded various duties of maritime commerce with alarming frequency, the responsibility of deal-making fell to Fyrilwaen. He was neither the oldest or the youngest, and so had just enough charm and wit to be a reliable salesperson. "You've found the right boat, aye. Unfortunately we are not in business tonight, as we've just finished some repairs and haven't had a chance to take her out yet. Besides, it's dusk already. I'm not sure you want us navigating around the Cieldalaes in the pitch dark. Llymlaen rewards those who first guard themselves, as they say."
Berwyn began to say, "We could do it, of course-" but Rochs gave him a quick jab on the back to shut him up.
"Come back in the morning and we can discuss the finer points. We apologize and bid you goodnight." Fyrilwaen turned to hoist up a coil of rope when the woman reached out and grabbed his arm for a moment before letting go.
"It appears to be floating just fine," she replied, staring intently into his eyes, and then motioned to the Coeurl, bobbing up and down placidly. "Will you not reconsider? I insist."
Berwyn, seizing the moment, draped - or attempted to drape - one arm around each of the Roegadyn men, and gently pulled them into a closed circle a few yalms away.
"So, what should we ask her for? Five hundred, just for shits? Imagine: if she says yes, we've paid for Fyr's trip twice over and then some!" Berywn said wryly, out of earshot of the woman.
Fyrilwaen let out a low groan. "Wait, wait. Wait! Slow your chocobos, Berwyn. I got up before the sun in Gridania today, and all I want is to lay my head down on a feather-filled pillow and dream about something much more pleasant than you two oafs. She can wait 'til morning."
The sound of the woman's coins jingling and clanging punctuated the air between the conversation as she counted in the open what she had brought with her. Clearly, she had come prepared.
"One thousand. One thousand gil for immediate passage to Vesper Bay, and no questions asked. Do we have a deal?" she said from a distance.
Berwyn raised his head to acknowledge the offer, ducked back in to discuss, and just as quickly raised his head again in disbelief at what his ears had now fully processed. Fyrilwaen too assumed that he had misheard, but the seriousness of the woman's face quickly disarmed him and he took on a look of shock. He quickly did some math in his head.
"Thal's Balls," he said more loudly than he intended.
Rochs's eyes narrowed, then softened.
Berwyn hurried over to the woman, subtly encouraging her to put her gil out of sight, and looked inquisitively back at the two Roegadyn. "What do you say, gentlemen," Berwyn said in a voice somewhat more frantic than usual, "do we have a deal?"
Fyrilwaen turned to Rochs for something - a subtle affirmation that he would indeed get to sleep in his own bed tonight, perhaps - but the older Roegadyn was already making his way to the woman to take care of her belongings.
"We'd be happy to have you, my lady," Rochs said in his deep grumble of a voice, "and would be honored to know with whom we are traveling."
"I'm not paying you to ask my name," she said curtly, and helped herself onto the boat. "I'm paying you to get me there as quickly as you can. Are we agreed?"
Fyrilwaen stepped forward.
"Understood, my lady," replied Fyrilwaen with a quick nod that hid his apprehension. "Belay the packing up, gentlemen. I suppose we're going on an adventure."