So a while back, FF twitter was chattering about pc/npc ships.

You know what that means? It means it is OPEN
SEASON for me to talk about Emmanellain/Ritanelle. “But,” you say, “nobody asked?” Too bad, you get to hear it anyway. Emm’s not popular but he’s my fave dammit so I Will Have An OC Smooch Him.

• Rita met him in a bar like 15 minutes after fleeing to Ishgard &
  went “hi, new bestie/FWB!”
• They bond over being the Family
  Disappointment tbh, both being the youngest with very dignified, very disapproving elder brothers…and both being pretty sure their family hates them and would be happier with them gone.
• the very first time she met Artoirel was the morning after Emm took her home to Fortemps manor and she woke up on Emm’s couch in Emm’s shirt. Artie did not approve.
• he super did not approve when he found out she was one of the Scions now crashing in his manor
• She taught him to tabtarget w/ titan-egi as a training dummy so he didn’t totally embarrass himself in the grand melee!
• …She also used this to practice her rogue skills. Since he’s a terrible fighter and she’s a terrible rogue, this was a much more even match.
• They’re mostly Just Friends but they also bang a lot…and she spends a lot of time bragging about him. "this dumbass has so much love in his heart plz Love Him”
• thanks to her, many adventurers learn Important Emm Facts like “he’s not a great fighter but the things he can do with his tongue make up for it” & “he is Made Of Anxiety but he also wants to Love” & “for a good time call…”
• his social life takes a huge upswing after meeting her, tbh, because she has Zero Shame re. bragging about her conquests.
• Emm, meanwhile, just spends like 75% of his time around her starry-eyed because she’s a Scion and a summoner. She kills primals for a living and she likes him.
• she thinks he’s funny and sweet and good in bed! him! he is liked! emm becomes every “good job!” doggo meme as soon as he hears her complimenting him.
• Emmanellain is minimum height. She thinks he can accurately be described as “tall, dark and handsome.” To be fair, she’s 5’10" which is pretty pint-sized for a giraffe.
• Every time I think of her leaning up on tiptoes to smooch him after the grand melee = A+
• (He was deeply, deeply embarrassed. People saw that. In public. But she was holding his hands in both of hers and telling him she was so proud of him so…it was bearable)
• He can, and has, picked her up off the ground with particularly exuberant hugs.
• Also, since she has the Echo, she knows his Deep Dark Secret which is that he actually has a heart of gold, because she Echoed him taking in Honoroit and was like “dawwwwww” in perpetuity.
• She hadn’t meant to, but she’d been cold and complaining about it, still new to Ishgard. Unthinking, he’d slid his coat off his own shoulders and slipped it onto hers, wrapping her up in warm fur and velvet, and she’d seen–
• –it lays too heavy on this boy’s shoulders, he’s so terribly thin and small and the man’s heart aches, such a clever lad shouldn’t be left in the cold–
• –”come with me,” he says, and thinks that he’ll die before he lets this boy feel cold or hunger again–
• –it envelops her, this feeling of warmth and trust and safety. the boy hasn’t had good things or kind words from many people, but he knows (books food a few coins pressed into his palm shiny and silver) that this nobleman would never hurt him–
  
• “Oh,” she says, blinking back to herself and meeting Emmanellain’s now-concerned gaze. She can’t help but smile. “No, I’m quite alright, only lost in thought.”
• After the first peace conference–the one that failed–Artoirel made the mistake of trying to apologize to her for his brother’s actions, since she’d been in the crowd. He wound up flattened against the far wall while she lectured him on throwing Emm to the metaphorical wolves for years. 
• They bicker over food a lot. She thinks Ishgardian food is too heavy, he thinks Ul’dahn and Lominsan food seems to have misplaced a few extra portions. The one thing they agree on is desserts.
• “but where’s the rest of it,” Emm asks sadly of his empty plate
• His pickup lines are terrible. She genuinely finds them, and his dirty jokes, hilarious.
• He returned the favor re. tab-targeting by teaching her to waltz for an end-of-the-war ball. She adores dancing, and he’s canonically very good at it!
• She absolutely bonded with him over Honoroit. “we both have these smols who are very much smarter than us and we’d die for them”
• Emm: “mine’s better”
• “yoU TAKE THAT BACK”
• Rita suffers from Shroud-related nightmares. After discovering this–because she’d flailed enough to wake him up before diving under the bed while stammering half-incoherently about how the trees were going to eat her–Emm spent the rest of the night holding her tightly, face grim, and silently vowing revenge on anything larger than ivy.
• he’s definitely made drunken threats against a tree. and Wailers. and the concept of padjals.
• “She kills gods. She kills gods, and dragons, and–and you made her afraid.”
• He’s perfectly polite to any Wailers that pass through Dragonhead. Perfectly, viciously, magnanimously polite. Why yes of course you’re welcome to sleep by the fire, and oh if you want to help while you’re here we just so happen to have (dangerous/filthy) jobs…
• They are in a constant cold war for Control of the Blankets. Emm tends to burrito himself in them, to her consternation
• She is the one-person cheer squad for his potential, which absolutely baffled him at first until she explained her backstory. “The last time I panicked I killed two people so really, you’re doing much better! And if I could do it…”
• He’s gotten over his fear of scalekin enough to–very cautiously–pet Melusine, her drake. When the giant firebreathing lizard put her head in his lap and went to sleep, he was trapped in that chair for an hour.
• He has not yet met the dragon Sierr Kha, but he has met her son Eshet at some point since HW, mostly because Eshet is intensely curious about mortals–and Emm, for his part, is entirely willing to talk to tiny dragonets for hours.
• Rita didn’t find out about that until later and was Very Mad that she’d missed it.
• He loves spoiling his friends with gifts and presents, and is remarkably good at finding stuff they like! For Rita, this means jewelry, blank books, stationery, aetherically-enhanced ink, and fancy clothes.
• …After she teaches him to direct his attacks, he gives her a pair of steel-clawed gauntlets, sized to fit her hands perfectly. She’s rarely seen without them.
• Her Fortemps-sigil earrings are also from him, pressed into her hands before she went to fight Bismarck. “Every…every little bit helps, doesn’t it, old girl?”
• Someone absolutely spreads rumors that she’s his mistress. He is furious and probably tries to punch them. She thinks it’s the most hilarious thing she’s ever heard in her life.

“We come from Gridania, in the Twelveswood. We have need to meet with Lord Emmanellain.”

“Of
course, sirs. Rest by the fire, and I will fetch him for you at
once.”

Honoroit did not run. For one, it was undignified. For another, undue haste would be suspicious and one of the two Wailers now sitting by the fire looked like he had sharp eyes. However, it was the man’s comrade who struck fear in his heart; he’d known Mistress Ritanelle had a brother, but the strong family resemblance was unmistakable. Her words floated through his mind as he strode down the halls to his lord’s chambers.

“Near as much of a chocobo’s arse as Artie…never approved of a thing I did…prob’ly glad t’ be rid of me, all things considered…might well do for me himself if he caught me.”

This was a situation that called for subtlety. Fury, let my lord grasp the meaning of that term for once.

The Fury was on his side, it seemed. A moment’s keen listening outside the door brought only silence interspersed with the faint scratching of a quill, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He’d been less cautious once, and neither of them had looked him in the face for a week. Emmanellain had at least been sure to lock the door after that, necessitating his sharp knock now. “My lord? We have something of an emergency.”

The quill stopped. “Come in!”

The chambers given to Dragonhead’s commander were dark. Dark stone, dark wood, and dark wall hangings; those last had once been tapestries depicting various saintly defeats of dragonkind, but his lord had deemed it prudent to replace them with pastoral scenes. The overall effect was slightly cavernous and made crossing the floor difficult without tripping over any of Mistress Soleil’s discarded (mostly black) outerwear, so he pressed his back against the door instead. Honoroit secretly would not have been surprised if the desk had been salvaged from the Stone Vigil; it was creaking alarmingly as Emmanellain set his report aside and heaved himself out of his equally ancient chair. He was in his shirtsleeves, his hair a ruffled mess that Honoroit’s fingers itched to fix. “What’s the matter, my boy?”

He winced at what he had to tell, feeling his ears dip. “Ah. There are a pair of Wood Wailers in the front asking for you, my lord.”

“What?!”

Oh. Mistress Ritanelle is awake. The bed was a canopied, four-postered monstrosity; the curtains rattled on the frame as Ritanelle Soleil, eikon-slayer and Scion of the Seventh Dawn, yanked them aside to poke her head and one arm out. Her unbraided hair fell over her shoulders, and Emmanellain’s shirt was far too large on her. Before she could start demanding answers–her green eyes were wide, her knuckles white on the fabric–he started talking. “They only just arrived; from their garb, I would venture to assume they plan to stay a while.” He hesitated, watching her face. “I should not like to presume, Mistress, but one of them bears a strong resemblance to you.”

She was already pale, but contrived to turn paler. “Oh, gods.”

Emmanellain’s ears pinned back against his head; Honoroit saw the rising panic in his face before he forced it back down with a deep breath and clenched fists. When he found his voice, it was admirably controlled, with an edge of steel to it. “Never fear, old girl. I’ll stall them as long as I can. Honoroit, help me with my armor, there’s a good lad.”

“I’d offer to help, but I have to go–” Ritanelle was wasting no time; the curtain fell back, and a great deal of rustling was happening on the other side. “Gods damn it, kiddo, do you see my skirt–” A hand snaked out from the curtain to grab it off the floor as Honoroit passed.

His lord’s armor was not as complicated as some knights’ were, but it was decidedly faster to don with help. One day, he thought as he helped adjust the lay of the padded leather doublet that stood between Emmanellain and his own chainmail, I’m half tempted to contrive illness and see how long it takes for him to get ready for the day by himself. “Have you a plan, my lord?”

Silence, aside from their breathing and the clanks and rustles of armor. And then Emmanellain took a slow breath, seemingly to steady himself. His ears trembled in their flattened position; his voice was the most venomously cheerful thing Honoroit had ever heard, all honeyed acid. “Of course, dear boy. I shall be simply the most congenial man they have ever met. It will be a terrible shame, of course, that I have no useful information pertaining to their inquiries. And an equally terrible shame that we are ever so busy, and perhaps since they are in the area they could help with some of our more dangerous duties.”

The curtains moved aside as Ritanelle swung her newly booted feet over the edge of the bed. “Emm.” She hesitated, looking him up and down. “Be careful. My brother is…”

Emmanellain lifted a hand in polite refusal of the cloak Honoroit held out and took the few steps necessary to stand by her side, taking her hands in his. “Rita, after all the times you’ve fought for us, I will be damned if I can’t be your knight now.”

She grinned at him then, fierce and wild. “Promise you won’t punch either of them when I’m not there to see it.”

Honoroit cleared his throat before they could start gazing cow-eyed at each other or, Fury forbid, start kissing. There was only so much sap he could tolerate witnessing from his liege lord. It was bad enough directed at Lady Laniaitte. “They will be awaiting you, my lord.”

“Ah! Yes, of course.” As Emmanellain swung back to his side, he flashed him a smile. “Perhaps if we’re quite lucky, I can convince them to buy a few copies of your book!”

“My lord!”

The travelogue he’d written about the Sea of Clouds was making quite enough gil without his lord’s vocal and enthusiastic backing, but Honoroit found he couldn’t complain about the extra sales even to himself. No such restriction laid upon the selfsame lord’s cheerful ruffling of his previously neat hair, however, and he glared halfheartedly at his back as they strode down the corridor together.