Tiphanie Mercer, aide to Madame Tempscire of St. Louvianne’s Parish, Foundation, seen here in a rare moment of repose.

prompt 26: not a weapon

The
shortsword was a gift.

Her
fellow blacksmiths—her friends, it was still so strange to
think she still had friends—had all but pressed it into her
hands when the chirurgeons had pronounced her recovered enough to
take light exercise. Rolfe, grinning sheepishly, had told her that
she deserved a much better weapon than a wrench, and by now they’d
all had the story of her past service out of her. She ought to have
something to defend herself with, they’d said, in case of another
attack. Speechless, she’d taken it and stammered something about
how they were too good to her, they shouldn’t have—and then she’d
all but fled.

You
really shouldn’t have, she thought as she slid the blade out of
its sheath. It was maybe a fulm and a half long, double-edged, and
someone—probably Etielle—had polished it to a mirror sheen. While
it wasn’t heavy by any means, her fingers itched to drop it; it was
an impulse only stayed by the sight of her own reflection.

Her
roots were growing out silver, and her bangs had fallen in her eyes.
Her hand hovered in the air for a moment, uncertain, before she
pushed them aside to bare her third eye to the open air. No point
in hiding it anymore, is there…? No, I guess not. The last time I
was so exposed…

It
had been three years since she’d sat in the afternoon sunlight with
a sword in hand, her hair pushed away from her forehead without even
a hat over her eyes. Then she’d been oen Gallius, a soldier
of the Garlean Empire, and Eorzea had been the hostile soil she’d
been trapped on instead of the welcoming arms she made a home
in—another thing she could barely believe, she had a home,
and when the Resistance triumphed she would go back to her tiny flat
in Limsa Lominsa with her dog. She would never wear imperial black
and crimson again, and if she took up arms it would be for Eorzea.

It
had been three years since she’d held a sword with intent to use
it. Objectively, it made perfect sense; the imperials were bound to
come again, and even the crafters needed to be able to fight when
they did. Venditor had been a firm teacher, and her muscles
remembered each strike. If she had to, she could fight like that
again.

The
castra had been cold and dim and stinking of fear and hatred. There
had been blood on the walls, in her comrades’ eyes, on her hands.
She had been oen Gallius or you there; her helm had
covered her face. Faces didn’t matter when all anyone looked at was
your rank and nametag, and all they cared about was how good you were
at following orders.

She
sheathed the sword. She’d always been better at hand-to-hand
anyway.

prompt 25: blood and ceruleum

A
proper woman of the Bayaqud can ride with or without a saddle. She
can hunt, kill, and cook her own game. She can shoot the wings off a
fly from thirty paces, and then do the same while she and her target
are moving at speed. If need or her own inclination drive her, she
can wrestle a man twice her size to the ground. It’s good if she
has some skill with music or embroidery, but it’s not necessary.
When she’s acclaimed as a warrior of her tribe, she paints around
her eyes with black kohl each morning; it shows her status and
protects her eyes from the glare of the sun. She takes as many
husbands as she can support, but never more than those afforded to
the khatun or the udgan. She tends her herds and tribe and protects
them from danger, even if it means her life.

Gantsetseg
is a proper woman of the Bayaqud. She can’t play the morin khurr
and her embroidery is a hopeless mess, but she can ride and hunt and
cook and wrestle. She can shoot anything with anything, and
she never misses. Eventually she’ll take a husband or three as it
suits her, and have children. For her tribe—for the Scions—she
would fight the gods themselves. And every morning, she paints kohl
around her eyes.

This
morning, alone in her yurt, she closes her eyes and sets her brush
down. Under her heavy rugs, the floor of her yurt is jointed metal
made to fold into wedges for easy transport. Machinery hums through
her horns, the steady chugging of the magitek modules that keep the
tent warm on this cold winter day. The walls are heavy felt,
festooned with banners and hanging rugs, but the lattice supporting
them is steel. Outside, where her tribe would fence in their horses
for the night, she has a refurbished magitek reaper. She spent last
night cleaning and oiling a rifle instead of polishing a bow.

She
remembers the day she rode back into Bayaqud Iloh on that reaper,
painted a blue so vivid there was no possible way to mistake her for
an imperial. She remembers her parents clinging to her and crying
with joy, remembers kneeling in front of her khatun.

“I
swear on my honor as a warrior of the Bayaqud—in the names of our
tribesmen—I will bring to you the Garlean emperor’s head.”

An
imperial officer’s helm. A shredded tassel from the emissary’s
robes. A broken gunblade. These trophies of Garlemald, she has
brought to the Bayaqud—and each time, the same questions. Your
Scions bring us no crowned heads, Tseko? No three-eyed skulls?
She winces to think of her uncle Tsagai, who would have separated
Alan’s three-eyed skull from his shoulders whether he wore a crown
or no.

The
Bayaqud have allies, or they have enemies. A proper woman of the
tribe knows which is which. On the Steppes, she does not say This
tribe is my deadly foe, but I shall offer my hand unreservedly to
this single member, lest she find it severed at the wrist. She
doesn’t think about their eyes, or their quick, shy smiles, or
their clever hands; doesn’t want to trace the breadth of their
shoulders or the scars carved into their scaleless skin. She doesn’t
fret over the wounds to their bodies or hearts, or open her yurt to
them. She certainly doesn’t wonder about kissing them.

She
thinks about Alan’s arms, the way the skin around his eyes crinkles
when he laughs. She thinks about that first, fierce hug after they’d
realized Omega hadn’t killed any of their friends; of the way he’d
grinned, exhausted but proud, when they’d finally figured out the
secret to getting the Allagan transmitters to function after long
bells of work that had seen her screaming and throwing things at her
walls at least once. She thinks, briefly, about Alanais pyr Venditor
and how a single arrow fired a few ilms to one side might have ended
it all before it began.

“Gan,
there’s coffee!”

She
can’t stop the grin that splits her face, baring fangs. “Coming,
Al! Leave some for me!”

She
drinks coffee in addition to kumiss and butter tea. She fights with
magitek now, and not a bow or her bare hands. She still rides a
horse, but it’s a former imperial-issue reaper that carries her
into battle most days. And when she sees Alan Vesper—once a decurion of the XIVth Legion, once her sworn enemy—in the crowd, she can
only think of long bells of laughing and planning together, of strong
arms around her, of a hard day’s ride and the cool water that
awaits her at the end.

Well.

Perhaps
Gantsetseg is not quite a proper woman of the Bayaqud after
all.

Eureka: Pyros

Or: “Well, at least parts of me are warm this time.” – Ritanelle Soleil, Scion of the Seventh Dawn