Got overambitious and planned to take this story somewhere else entirely when it didn't need it. So, belatedly, here's the original final chapter that I at some point abandoned, polished up a little. Thanks for reading.
—
F'lhaminn has yet to meet her equal in knowledge pertaining to the realm of fragrant herbs and flowers. Though the world is indeed vast, it is no meagre feat to surprise a woman of her botanical experience. Yet she is presently as touched as she is flabbergasted to receive, as a gift from her frequent patron of late, five individually wrapped flowers, all of the same species, possessing an appearance the likes of which F'lhaminn has never seen, and indeed a scent unlike any she has ever smelled.
They are… new. Their fragrance might have small similarities with things which she knows, but at its core the smell is entirely unique within her olfactory library of experience. It has been years since F'lhaminn has undertaken an adventure of significant enough magnitude to unearth an entirely new scent. And yet, on this unremarkable day, out of the blue…
"Where in Eorzea did you find these?"
Apparently F'lhaminn's awe-filled delight is quite transparently plastered upon her face, if the other miqo'te's fidgeting, mouth-devouring smile is any indication. In reply, F'lhaminn is told she will receive more whenever she wishes—she need only ask.
"Hah! What is this? Keeping the source of your gift a secret like some playground flirt, are you?"
But in response to her tease, she receives a blushing nod. Clarifying, her gifter says that these five flowers themselves are not the gift, but rather the ongoing promise of their supply. And that is cleverly planned. For truth, should F'lhaminn learn the location, she admits that she is likely to go on her own in order to spare the Warrior of Light the trip. It is a wise refusal, even if the underlying cause of this gift in its entirety remains baffling.
"Then, I do not mind. Be warned, however. I will not hesitate to ask when I am in need of more. No matter how busy you…"
She stops when her response seems only to further delight the young woman, who pats her own chest while insisting that F'lhaminn can rely upon her, no matter the situation. The fiery conviction in her eyes is a bit… adorable.
Confusingly, the charming sight delays F'lhaminn for just a moment in asking her question—in prying as to why this young woman would go through so much trouble for a gift—and that delay is all it takes for the Warrior of Light to be accosted by no less than three, then four, then five of her fellow adventurers, all eager to exchange information and refine their plots to save the world.
She supposes she can wait. She has some experimenting to do in the meanwhile. Her mind is awhirl with all the ways she ought to try extracting this fragrance, and to what end she will apply it.
The Warrior of Light is like as not to receive a resupply request from F'lhaminn rather soon.
You dare think that you might have pulled that off successfully. Nay, even a tad… smoothly. Oh, she is a new kind of beautiful when surprised. Drat—there are others approaching that demand your attention. Certainly, you can spare just a few more moments of watching her retreating back before you divert your focus.
A faint twinge of impatience flits through your chest. Haurchefant could go on and on about setting up the 'perfect moment', or crafting the 'ideal confession'. But the gratitude and curiosity F'lhaminn regarded you with just now makes you want to clarify your intentions on the spot. Maybe you even would have if the threads of companionship in your fellow warriors hadn't drawn you away. Well, a little impatience feels good, you think. It feels indulgent to be uncertain over something so personal, instead of floundering in the doubt of whether or not you'll be able to save every innocent life the next time a primal rampages.
On the following evening, four of the flowers remain unwrapped, time having permitted F'lhaminn only a single experiment thus far.
After a day of bustle and errands, another night of bringing sustenance and relaxation to the Rising Stones descends. It is a veritable madhouse, overflowing with comings and goings. Members returned from long absences are accosted a dozen times on their way to the meal they desperately need. Those setting out trade firm hugs with friends or perhaps quiet whispers with a lover. F'lhaminn is in her element, mind and soul and hands all tingling with the energy and bustle that she'd once thought herself glad to be free of. She hadn't been wrong, per say. But there are seasons for things. There was a season of solitude, and that is a season she remains grateful for. That was a season destined to end, however, and give way to another blooming spring surrounded by life and activity and friends.
No matter how packed the hall, eventually, always, it thins. It is often difficult to know how late her recent patron of interest will stay. Sometimes she is one of the very last to retire. Other nights, she is gone after thanking F'lhaminn for the meal, despite the fact that no one can recall seeing her slip away.
But nights like this one are always a little more predictable. When the hall is full and the hungry come in droves, though she would assuredly be among the most deserving, the peculiar young miqo'te waits until there is no one else left to fill the vacated seats. It doesn't seem to be an obsession with selflessness, really. Quiet though she is, F'lhaminn notices how much she loves to slip in and out of conversations—to listen and smile and maybe even laugh. Perhaps she waits so long to eat because she simply doesn't want to waste even a moment spent immersing herself in the camaraderie of it all.
F'lhaminn blinks away a melancholic feeling and re-immerses herself in the present. Tonight, that girl is indeed the final diner, and the counter has emptied by the time she sits. From the few patrons scattered elsewhere about the hall, a hum of conversation and occasional laughter still echo mirth like wind chimes on a gentle evening. In a way, this ambient orchestra encompasses the pair at the counter, isolating them just a little. It is a good moment for a more private conversation, and the posing of the question she lost her chance to ask the night before.
"You know. I must admit to being more than a tad puzzled. If I were to make a light jest, I would even say I might be concerned. Your… gift last evening—and I mean the initial gift alone, not even speaking to your rather impressive accompanying promise—is truly wonderful. As someone who has scoured Eorzea for rare and precious flowers, I know that you did not come by them easily nor accidentally. My half-jesting 'concern' is that… well, if you spend this much time finding gifts for all your friends, the world may be in quite a perilous—"
She's interrupted with a vigorous head-shake. And a quiet, intense pair of words.
"…Just me?" The nod that follows is both quick and deep. "Then… that is my concern alleviated, but not my puzzlement. May I ask why?"
There is something of a long moment of thought on the part of the younger miqo'te. In her hesitation F'lhaminn swears she can watch the girl visibly struggle to assemble her thoughts. Finally, she begins. She begins to tell F'lhaminn why. And once she starts, her words run with such unexpected readiness and detail that F'lhaminn is more swept up in the flow than she was even at the culmination of any of this girl's masterful stories about delves into Eorzea's most terrible depths.
The gift, she is told, is at least partly an expression of gratitude for F'lhaminn. This, to F'lhaminn's almost immediate shame, results in a final bid to interrupt before the flow takes her completely.
"Gratitude? For a warm meal now and again? Such is merely my duty and my pleas—"
Yes, gratitude. For F'lhaminn, who rummages through her satchels and arranges their contents into easily understood categories. F'lhaminn who knows her favorite foods and still manages to make new dishes based on those preferences every time. F'lhaminn who steals clothes from her room in order to have them mended before she next strikes out. F'lhaminn who stays up late to wait for her return. F'lhaminn who knows that she sleeps fitfully, and always wakes her gently so as not to startle her from her from an accidental dozing off.
To this F'lhaminn, she concludes, she would travel to depths and peaks of the world to show her appreciation. And then, before F'lhaminn can arrange her flustered thoughts, the quiet young miqo'te presents the same, starting question back to her.
Why?
"Hm? What do you…"
But she realizes her patron's question is merited, as soon as she takes a moment to reflect. Hearing her actions all enumerated back to her, it is hard to deny that F'lhaminn does do quite an immense amount to help this particular adventurer.
"…I… should think that ought to be a question with a rather unsurprising answer. I am here to assist my fellow Scions in whatever way they require—to provide a home for them to come back to, a place for them to leave their cares and burdens and…"
F'lhaminn trails off unprompted, for she knows that while her words are not false, they are words meant to avoid, somehow. While she pauses to find words that are more honest, she stumbles upon a possible interpretation of her own actions that she most certainly does not intend, and hastens to clarify:
"It is not because of what you are, you know. I am here for my daughter, for one thing, and I am not someone who views you as any more special than the rest of the Scions, whatever your title. I do not treat you differently because I think you are better. I do not treat you so because you are the Warrior of Light."
The young woman in front of her then beams—shines like a midday sun—and nods like it's the best thing she could ever have heard from F'lhaminn's lips. F'lhaminn feels compelled to throw back some hastily assembled question—earn a brief reprieve to get back her footing in this conversation—but she unfortunately remembers that the ball is still in her court: she has just expressed a why not, but has yet to answer the why at all.
Just as F'lhaminn thinks she has found a way to express that she may have a fondness for the young woman that is perhaps unique from the other Scions, the other miqo'te opens her mouth and miraculously does F'lhaminn the pleasure of taking the conversation back.
Most curiously, the young woman across the counter, despite having just retaken the reigns, appears uncharacteristically… uncertain. She starts, then stops. She begins a sentence with a single word and then seems to reject its direction. This alone secures F'lhaminn's undivided attention.
The girl starts to work through halting sentences, immediately less eloquent than F'lhaminn has ever heard her speak. In… in the same way that F'lhaminn does not treat her with special privilege because she is the Warrior of Light, the young woman insists that her gift to F'lhaminn is not merely an obligatory thanks—not even just sincere thanks. She again stumbles over her words and restarts twice, seemingly intent on conveying both her gratitude as well as the fact that she would resent her gifts being perceived as only a product of gratitude. It seems to F'lhaminn to be a silly but amusing distinction that only someone so young would feel compelled to trouble themselves with expressing, but she is content to quietly wait out this line of thinking nonetheless.
The young miqo'te's words become ever more jumbled and less coherent, and after another minute they find themselves staring at each other in silence: F'lhaminn as interested as she is confused, and the Warrior of Light (who had at some point before all this started had polished her plate completely clean) looking as though she is trying to work up the courage to say something that will wrap up her fraying threads of meandering intent.
"Oh come, what is it, already?" F'lhammin tries not to appear too amused at her diner's ineloquence. "Twelve, you needn't worry yourself so much over this. I understand, you know. It's rather cute that you're so insistent on both thanking me and making it clear that you appreciate me independently of that." F'lhaminn reaches out and pats the young woman's head on pure instinct, as it just seems right in this situation. "I understand. I like you too."
She imagines it to be a harmless thing to say, but the body beneath her hand suddenly stiffens, so much so that F'lhaminn retracts her contact in concern. There is a small pause, then a quiet whisper, and then the nimble miqo'te pushes herself up and forward and kisses F'lhaminn across the countertop.
Kisses her like a feather. Like she can barely believe she's done it. Like both of them can barely believe she's done it.
F'lhaminn's shock is of the variety that leaves her with absolutely no notion of what to think for a few moments, much less what to do. It feels terribly mean of her that the first thought that does flash through her mind is that this is not even remotely within the realm of things she had ever considered possible. Not for an instant had this explanation for the young woman's extra measure of kindness occurred to F'lhaminn.
Mayhap this mindset of F'lhaminn's is clear upon her face (as many of her emotions seem to be in front of this girl). The Warrior of Light has stared down primals and laid them low, but while she does not avert her gaze from F'lhaminn's when she pulls back to search the older miqo'te's expression, she does look... distraught. After a few moments, she slips off the stool. She keeps eye contact, continues to turn so pink that anyone who stumbled into the room right now might have a hard time recognizing her, and then bids a soft goodnight and thanks for the meal. Her stride is steady up to and through the door, after which F'lhaminn can no longer hear it, though she does imagine she hears running, padded footfalls through the stone.
As if.
A brief flash of bewilderment makes her wonder aloud if she has a bit of the Echo herself. For the girl who just ran off is still on the stool, still distraught, not dismounting just as she had in that vision—
F'lhammin catches her wrist, gently as she can, but not so gently that it fails to convey just how much she wishes the girl to stay. And, oh, the surprise in those (admittedly very pretty) eyes confirms F'lhaminn's suspicions as clearly as if she really had seen the future just a moment ago! Hah hah! An Echo only good for predicting confess-and-run scenarios perpetrated against her by daring young miqo'te! What an entry for the history books that would make.
"My dear, I do believe you just kissed me and thought to run away." Tension all throughout the girl's—damn it—the young woman's frame speak to how much she would still like to. "Fortunately for you, I find that inclination in you to be a fraction more adorable than it is childish." She's mostly stalling for time, and not doing an excellent job of speaking neutrally as she does so. 'Adorable' was a poor choice of word, as now she has to ask herself if she means that as an older woman fondly rolling her eyes at her junior's immaturity, or in... anything close to the way that this unpredictable young woman has just brought to F'lhaminn's attention.
Her attempts at filling the space with bemused words do not resume for the moment. As the adult in this situation—damn, and there she goes again! Listen to her, taking refuge in some imagined separation between them, as if this warrior who bears more weight on her shoulders than F'lhaminn could ever imagine is anything close to a child, no matter their relative gap in age. Twelve above, she's been doing this all along, hasn't she? Not belittling this young woman, per say, but putting her in a box that forces an easy separation—a minimal distance that does not need to be questioned or evaluated, and can just be maintained without a thought. It would have been maintained, had not this boldly timid thing just challenged it with a feather-brush of—
A barely audible word is whispered from across the counter. F'lhaminn feels more than hears it, from the lingering connection of her hand to wrist.
"For what, kissing me without my permission? I don't appreciate that sort of thing in general, but I am also a bit of a romantic. I initiated a further intimacy between us by touching your head, and I am not upset that you initiated slightly more intimate contact yourself." Because gods, she really was so unbelievably sweet about it. It was not a stolen kiss, it was a communication of affection in an adorable non-invasive—
Again with the 'adorable', even if it was her inner monologue. And, what of it? F'lhaminn is rather... alarmingly certain that she already knows her answer to this confession. She isn't stalling any more so much as trying to soak it in. And for just a moment she does wonder if she should think about this more carefully; if she should request a delay in which to consider her response with due deliberation. The moment dies rather swiftly on the heels of its birth. F'lhaminn, once famous among her friends for her discerning tastes and dozens of spurned admirers, nearly laughs aloud at the realization that she has not a single reservation (not a real one, at least, now that she has discarded this imagined distance born of age), and only a steadily increasing number of rather glowing endorseme—
...There will be time enough later to laugh at herself for how steadfastly she is avoiding the rather obvious truth in her heart that has finally been forced into realization within her mind.
She is cute. She is kind. She is thoughtful, darling, and outrageously brave. And F'lammin's fondness for her is rather more than just that of a chef to her most faithful diner.
F'lhaminn leans across the counter and gives her own (just slightly heavier) feather kiss.
"I would never have taken you to be so timid in this realm. Surprise did not mean I was going to reject you. And surprise me you did. It would be silly to further a narrative that I was anything but shocked. But... well, your affections—past and present—have won me over, though I had not thought to wonder if they might have until you made things a bit clearer just now. So, assuming that your kiss was a question and not just a—"
The nod is so emphatic that it is nearly dangerous at this proximity of faces, but F'lhaminn's immediately feels rather stupid for doubting the Warrior of Light's dexterity, even if her face is currently flushed with an inordinate amount of blood.
Finally, only faintly louder than the earlier apology, but easy enough to hear when F'lhaminn can see the words emanated in her quite striking eyes, she asks without any ambiguity.
F'lhaminn would laugh if only she were not worried it would startle the girl at this distance, so she lets the mirth swim in her eyes instead. Twelve above, how long has it been since she was anything so quaint as someone's girlfriend?
"Mm. I would love to."
