Traveler

Azlyn didn’t know what else she had to do, so following the advice of her friend, she hit up all three guilds. Each of the guilds were looking for new recruits to train—and she had some time on her hands. Given a quick entry exam in each, she quickly picked up the beginning sets of skills. The examiners of each guild were impressed at how she managed to learn it—and each handed her equipment sets.

By the time she was done, she had five sets of classes she could switch between. Granted three of them she was still learning with.

It was around this time that she received a call from Kida. “Yo, where you at?”

Azlyn looked at the fountain in the Emerald Avenue. “I’m sitting by the fountain in the Emerald Avenue.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

She waited, shuffling through her supplies and made sure she had plenty of potions for her next trip. Before long a blue haired Au Ra popped into view. She was running in her knee-high boots, clacking with each step she took. “Hopefully you weren’t waiting long.”

Azlyn shook her head. “No, I just got done over at the Pugilist’s. They said I’m pretty agile for my age, and I should continue training.” She mimicked the hand motions and feet shuffling. “I’m looking forward to learning more. How’d the hunt for ore go?”

Kida smiled. “Check out this hunk of rock.” She produced a shiny piece of ore. She could already tell it was high quality material.

“Wow.” Azlyn exclaimed. “Good job!”

The girl rubbed a finger under her nose. “Aw—shucks. But hey, you ready to hit the road? We’re going to head back the long way.”

Azlyn quirked her head. “Any reason why?”

The girl nodded, pulling out several postings she grabbed on the way over. “I found some low-level monsters we can hunt—and you can practice more with your new classes. I, for one, want to see you in action.”

“You do?”

Again she nodded enthusiastically. “Come on, we can ride on over to the desert and find our quarry! It’ll be like the good old days in school, except—you know less teachers telling you what they think you should know.”

Azlyn laughed, agreeing with Kida. “Alright, but what do you mean ride?”

Kida tilted her head at her question. “You know, riding your mount?” The look on her face explained it all. Kida widened her eyes. “Have you been walking this whole time?!”

She shrugged. “Yeah, isn’t that how everyone does it?”

Kida shook her head vigorously. “No-no-no-no, we must rectify this immediately. Come with me.” She grabbed the girl’s wrist and dragged her out of the city proper. She was practically sprinting to keep up with Kida. They ran to the closest gate, Kida neither caring which exit they took, and went into the field. They hurried past all of the refugee camps and further into the wilderness before Kida let her go.

“Alright, I’m going to make your traveling process soooo much simpler and easier.” She produced a whistle from her satchel. “This is a whistle mount. It’s a magical whistle that uses aether to summon something that will carry you wherever you lead it. Watch this.” She blew into the whistle, and the music of magical aether spun together in the air. Magically appearing, a narrow, two-wheeled contraption appeared. Its sleek, gun metal alloy coat shone in the setting sun. Kida hopped onto it, straddling the middle of it. It looked like a mechanical version of a bi-pedal vehicle. “This is my baby, hop on—you’ll have to hold onto me tightly. This is supposed to be a one-person mount, but we’re both small. It should be fine.”

Azlyn reluctantly climbed on the back, luckily, they both were small and could fit on it just fine. If she had been a Roegabyn, it would have been a different story. She felt a rumbling from under her seat, as Kida started to turn the handle bars up front.

“You sure this i—ahhhhhh!” Azlyn screamed, clutching onto Kida who laughed loudly into the air. Her mount roared to life, tearing into the desert dirt and racing down the path. Azlyn clung to her tightly, feeling the wind snap all around her.

They travelled like this for almost thirty minutes, before Kida skidded to a stop at a sand dune. She looked over her shoulder to see a shocked Azlyn clinging onto her for dear life. She tapped onto her arms wrapped around her waist. “See—super fast.”

Azlyn had to pry her hands apart from how tightly she clung. “I—I think I’m going to be sick.”

Kida rubbed her back, as Azlyn attempted to walk off the ride. Her legs felt like mush after being as tense as she was. “You got about two minutes, and then we’ll have to address our quarry.” She pointed down the dune to a pack of jackals. She lifted the paper with their target information.

The Au Ra with the white lochs decided to pull out her grimoire, summoning her familiar to her side. The emerald carbuncle popped out from the book with a curious look on it’s face. It looked up to Azlyn before becoming excited to see her. It raced between her legs, and its tails were rapidly shaking up and down. She went to pet her carbuncle. “Yes, it’s good to see you too good boy.”

It mellowed under her touch, and she looked to Kida. The girl had already begun stringing her bow and preparing several sets of arrows. “All ready?”

Kida nodded. “Let’s get done to business.” Her mount disappeared in a poof of aether, and she ran to the edge of the hill. Jumping off the hill moments later, she let loose a rain of arrows down onto the pack below. Azlyn jumped into action following her and commanded her Carbuncle to keep them herded in a circle.

The fight lasted no more than one minute or so, as the jackals succumbed to many of the arrows raining down upon them. Her carbuncle herded the rest that were barely alive, where she cast a wave of miasma into them. Kida picked the stragglers off one by one, as some started to drop due to the poison inflicted upon them. It was a short fight.

Kida whistled. “Nice!” She went to gather any resources she could from the jackals, collecting any teeth, hide, or meat that she could. When she was all done, she turned to Azlyn who had bid her carbuncle a good night. “It just occurred to me that I have an extra mount in my bag—I got it from a traveling merchant. It’s not really my speed, but it could be for you.” She reached into her bag, and pulled out the item in question. She also started to pull out several other items.

“You know what, you’ll probably need this, or and this—can’t leave the house without this.”

Before Azlyn could determine what had happened, she had been handed quite a haul of goods. She laid most of the items on the ground. “By the Twelve, how do you carry all this?”

Kida smirked, “You never know what you’re going to need—and that my dear is a personal secret.” She winked, but helped the young Au Ra packed her satchel up so that it was better organized. She had been given several different potions, that helped plenty of status debuffs and ailments. She even through in some rations that would give her an energy boost. “Oh!! Check your mount out! Check it out!” She started to shake the girl as excitement overtook it. 

Azlyn retrieved the whistle from her pocket, wondering if it would be as fast and treacherous as her two wheeled mechanical beast. She blew into it, letting the music from the whistle shift the aether around her and the world surrounding them. Emerging into existence were two bomb lanterns held up in metal chains, that were holding up a bench to sit on. Oddly, it reminded Azlyn of a palanquin like the ones close to Doma’s Capital. It hovered off the ground, stopping just in front of Azlyn. 

“This is pretty cool.” Azlyn sat down on the metal bench, she traced her fingers over the intricate metal frame of the seat and looked up to the two balloons that held her aloft. “Not super fast either.” 

“Direct it forward!” Kida said, instructing her on how to proceed. Before long Azlyn was steadily skating over the dunes in her palanquin. Hopping off of the mount with ease, she smiled to her friend. 

“Thank you Kida, you didn’t have too—really.”

Kida waved off her concern, “We have to look out for each other—especially in this type of world. Now let’s go onto the next bounty!” Kida summoned her crazy fast contraption and waited for her to hop on. Azlyn rolled her shoulders and set herself on the back, holding onto her tightly.

“How many bounties do you have Kida?”

The girl yelled over the roar of the engine. “About nine more!”

Azlyn would have gaped at the amount but didn’t have enough time to react—as for the remainder of the night they were out hunting monsters and gaining the experience like typical adventurers did. About five monsters into their hunt, Roll had called them to ask where they were. When she determined their location, she arrived riding her own mount. It was a red feathered chocobo, that was armored in a purple, gold, and yellow majestic set. She sped alongside Kida’s mount, her chocobo keeping pace with their pack.

It early in the morning by the time they slowly wandered into Gridania, having been out all night hunting Kida’s monsters. Roll stretched her arms up, popping her sore and stiff muscles. Azlyn was tired, but she felt a bit energized as well. 

Kida presented her to all the local aetherytes, while Roll chewed on some jerky bits she had left over from her fishing trip. She then reached into her bag to start feeding her chocobo.

“So did you finally catch your fish?” Kida asked over to the shortest Au Ra in the group. 

Roll smiled, she was lost in thought remembering it. “Yeah. It’s was a big one. I can’t wait to fish again. It was a good fish, wasn’t it Markarov?” Her bird khewed happily to her, chomping on the gyashi greens. 

Azlyn smiled. She didn’t realize how much her cousin enjoyed the crafting and gathering. It was true her cousin excelled when she was healing everyone with her conjuring—but Roll looked happiest when she was talking about her passions. “How long have you two known each other?” She pointed between the two with her extended finger. 

“Two years.” Roll stated, while Kida went to wrap her arm around her neck. She grinned from ear to ear. 

“We signed up in Twin Adder’s Grand Company around the same time! We just rose up the ranks together—doing battle levequests, and miscellaneous gathering, and crafting materials that the company required!” Kida looked up to the morning sky. “But you can’t deny we’re rolling in dough!”

Azlyn blinked rapidly. “Oh?” 

Roll shrugged off Kida who excitedly explained how profitable it was. Roll said calmly, “We got enough to get by, but let’s finish the tour of Gridania and go to bed. I need to go night fishing again.” 

Kida poked her cheek in slight protest, “Party pooper.” 

“Still tired.” Roll just responded back. They just bounced off each other as if they’d done it for years. Azlyn chuckled. 

“This should be the last crystal in town.” Roll replied, as Azlyn attuned to it. She felt a connection to several of the gates in Gridania allowing her access all over the city-state proper. She smiled. 

“Yup, now what?” 

Roll deadpanned. “Now home—to sleep.” She waved Azlyn to follow them, and Kida’s rhythmic tapping kept them from total silence. The girl followed her two seniors out from the city proper and into a residential area of sorts—where towering wooden buildings with multiple windows went up. 

“Ah—home sweet home!” Kida replied, looking up to the apartment building. “We each have a room here—but you can stay with one of us. Roll, did you have room?” 

Roll had brought Markarov to the stables beside the apartment complex. As she got her mount settled into its sleeping residence did she shake her head to the two waiting for her.“Heh, I wish. It’s cluttered with all my projects unfortunately.” 

Kida waved it off. “No worries, she can stay with me! I have room!” 

She was led inside the apartment, up to the thirteenth floor. Apparently the two were neighbors on the same floor. “Housing is a bit tricky in Eorzea—you need land plots and permits to build—not to mention a big enough free company to even get a house. So we bought ourselves apartments in the meantime.” 

Roll crossed her arms. “If we start a free company, we’ll need to actually start saving money.” 

Kida waved her hand as if the thought was not a big deal to her. “We can do it—just need a few more people!” 

Azlyn quirked her head. She had heard of the Grand Company’s before—but not a Free Company. “What’s a Free Company?” 

Roll explained, “It’s an adventurer small guild that works with a specific goal. Some companies dungeon delve, others gather materials and complete Company requests. I just want a Free Company so I can build a workshop.” 

Kida smirked. “The house would be nicer though. I’d like an open air bath, and a pagoda with a seating arrangement.” 

Azlyn smiled. “I wouldn’t mind a garden. Or a big kitchen.” 

Roll’s eyes sparkled. “Is this the birth of a Free Company?” 

Kida widened her grin. “What should we call ourselves?” 

Roll instantly said, “Fated!”

Azlyn raised one of her eyebrows to her cousin. “Fated?” 

“Since a Free Company needs an oriented goal, ours can be to follow what our destinies lay out for us—therefore: Fated.”

Kida snapped her fingers. “I like it! Roll, you do the paperwork when you wake up. Turn it into the Grand Company to see if it’ll get approved! They might let it pass if it has three people—two was kind of pushing it.” 

Roll smiled. “On it.” She waved to them before escaping into her room. The door closed with a soft lock, and Kida opened up her room for Azlyn to come on in. 

“Welcome home for now—I’ll lay out a futon for you.” Kida walked into her space with ease. Azlyn walked in examining the interior. There were quite a bit of books on the shelves, a small kitchenette on the side. There was a small room for a bathroom, and an open studio like set up. Kida was standing on top of the bed, pulling down from her top shelf a folded up futon she had kept. 

Since she had plenty of floor space, she laid out the extra futon and gestured to it. 

“I need to do some more work, but feel free to crash. You look tired.” Kida smiled. 

Azlyn hadn’t seen a futon in a longtime—her last time had been when she was home for the Starlight Celebration last year. She laid down on the material, and instantly relaxed. She did feel tired, and before she knew it—she found herself sound asleep.