RELATIONSHIPS: Lunya/G'raha
ERA: The 7th Astral Era - Crystal Tower quests
WARNINGS: None
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 09/05/19
DETAILS: Written for ffxivwrite2019. Prompt: "shifting blame".
The sky above Mor Dhona was a violet and pink haze on one of the evenings Lunya found herself back in Saint Coinach’s Find, flushed against G'raha Tia's side as they laid on the scaffolding that towered over the camp with a thick tome open before them.
Not being a Sharlayan scholar herself, Lunya could only understand a fraction of the long, flowery words written within his books—but G'raha was a patient man when not confronted with the desire to see history unfold with his own eyes, and he quietly explained concepts she didn't know as she leaned her head against his shoulder. All the while, his feline ears remained pricked and alert, waiting for the sound of their quarry falling into their trap.
The dinner bell was approaching when it happened. The Miqo'te's ears flicked forward, swiveling in the direction of Rammbroes's tent and his tail swished behind them in excitement. Lunya propped herself up on her elbows, abandoning all thoughts of how the Allagans managed an economy and now on full alert. G'raha tilted his head, his visible eye squinting in concentration as he listened, and then he smiled in satisfaction.
"He found them." The book was carefully closed shut and placed in a pile with the rest in their hiding place. Together they inched forward on their stomachs, carefully peeking over the ledge of the scaffolding above the Find to watch as a panicked Rammbroes stumbled out of his tent, frantically trying to shake four buckets worth of mitten crabs from his bedroll. The commotion drew the attention of half the camp, who started to circle their leader with a mixture of bafflement and horror. "Gods, those are larger than I thought they'd be. Where did you get those?"
"The Tangle," Lunya said proudly. It was nearby after all, and the mangroves were long polluted by the Castrum next door—nothing in there was edible anymore so it wasn't a waste of perfectly good food. "I could have fished up more, but then I would have been late getting here and I know how dearly you miss my company when I'm gone."
G'raha stuck his tongue out at her, though they both knew she spoke the truth. "Are you certain it wasn't because of the toads? Brat," he said affectionately, reaching out to ruffle her hair. Lunya dodged it, rolling back onto their pile of tomes and jostling one of them off the platform. A panicked trill rolled up in the historian's throat as he started to lunge for it, but Lunya reached out and plucked it from the air with a practiced ease before he could—holding your grimoire still while casting could only amuse you for so long, after all.
"Watch who you call a brat, Ser Pouty," she warned, handing the book back to him. "I may be tempted to spend more time at the Rising Stones than here otherwise."
The two of them sat up, Lunya crossing her legs beneath her and G’raha leaning on his hands. "I have been meaning to ask," G'raha ventured," but why do you spend so much time here these days instead of with the Scions? Don’t take this to mean I do not want you here—but do they not ask for you?"
Lunya made a face. It… wasn't as if she didn't like the Scions, really. They were kind enough, and she trusted them as comrades. But being recruited by them so she could fulfill a purpose for them, because she had the Echo and a blessing from a giant crystal? It didn't feel like a great foundation to build a friendship on, and she wasn't sure if they even saw her as anything more than a weapon to begin with. Not to mention the whole fiasco with their background-check of her. She wanted to explain, but the words didn't come out. If she voiced her fears, would they become reality?
Thankfully, it seemed that G'raha had become distracted by Rammbroes shouting after getting pinched by one of the crabs, and instead of waiting for her answer he mused, "I suppose we should try to help him get rid of them…"
Lunya wanted to suggest that they could just leave him be—Rammbroes was a grown man after all, and surely he could handle six dozen or so crabs in his tent overnight—but then a hand clamped down hard on the top of her head and another on G'raha's shoulder from behind them.
"And just what is our indomitable Warrior of Light doing up here, skulking about with our resident Student of Baldesion when she never announced her presence in the camp?" Cid's voice right in their ears sent identical chills running through them. "The two of you wouldn't happen to be making mischief again, hm?"
"It was G'raha's idea!" Lunya squeaked, though it absolutely wasn't. She quickly reached for the hood of her robe before Cid could make a move to pick her up by it. He had succeeded, once, when they were traversing through the Stone Vigil—she had been so excited upon seeing the Enterprise that she nearly toppled off the ledge into the courtyard and onto the slumbering dragon guarding it. Though she was plenty grateful for the save, being swept up by the nape like a pup in front of Alphinaud, that pompous little shite, was frankly humiliating. If he tried to do it again in front of G'raha...
But Cid clearly had no reason to do so, with her trapped under his hand like this. Instead, he turned to look at their historian accusingly.
"You were the one who thought it'd be funny to place crabs—an established favourite food of a certain someone I don't think I need to name—in Rammbroes's bedroll?"
"Indeed, ’twas I," G'raha said, smoothly taking the fall for Eorzea’s champion. Only the slight twitch of his tail gave away that it wasn't the truth. "You're welcome to join us next time. We were considering moving Nazyl Duzyl's tent an ilm to the left every night." Cid heaved a deep sigh.
"How did you know we were up here anyway?" Lunya sulked, crossing her arms. In answer, Cid pulled at one of the silken rabbit ears she wore on her head. "Oh."
"Next time, let's dress up in the Sons' uniforms," G'raha fake-whispered to her conspiringly. “They’ll never catch us like that.”
Cid rubbed his temples as he stood from his squat behind them. "You kids," he sighed good-naturedly. "Dinner will be in a bell. I'll let this slide so long as I don't have to catch you swapping the notes of all the Sons around for a third time."
"We only did that once, old man!" G'raha called after him as the Garlean descended back down the ladder to help Rammbroes, then huffed as he stood. The motion blew a lock of crimson hair from his face and for a brief moment, his vermillion eye was visible as he looked down at Lunya. It never failed to strike her just how nice a shade it was, and she would perhaps always wonder how so many people turned such an endearing and utterly enrapturing man away just for that. "You owe me for that, Lanya."
"My hero," she said sweetly, accepting the hand he offered to pull her up. "However can I repay you? I could teach you magic, or let you win an archery contest. Maybe you'd like me to replace those awful coeurl-print trims of yours. Would you like a bow blessed by the elementals and carved from an ancient tree? Shall I climb the highest mountain and pick for you a flower that blooms only once every two centuries?"
G'raha made a dramatic show of thinking about it, pacing back and forth as he tapped his chin in thought. "I suppose, if I must accept but one reward for my heroics, you can let me come with you when we're done exploring the tower."
Lunya stared. That was not an answer she remotely expected. She had fully expected him to try taking up residence in the tower once NOAH’s expeditions had ended, or at the very least remain at the Find for more moons to come for the sake of his research.
"A traveling companion wouldn't be unwelcome," she ventured, daring not to let any emotion stray into her voice. "Though I'm afraid it's not a life you can drag your tomes around on, and I'm sure there are places out there that Allag hadn't sunk its claws into. I wouldn’t want you to be bored."
"Life is far from boring around you. It is a noble sacrifice I will just have to make, then," her stupid, stupid Miqo'te said with an infuriatingly nonchalant shrug. "I insist that I get to be in charge of your biography, of course. The bards will be all over it. I shall lovingly hand write the tale of the Warrior of Light and the time she narrowly avoided breaking her arm in the Fogfens after a dashing Sharlayan man saved her from her worst nightmare: gigantoads."
"Oh, certainly," Lunya agreed. "Except you'll never finish it, on account of you dying prematurely to Rammbroes once I foist the blame for the crabs on you to his face." She then leaped off the scaffolding, scaring the living daylights out of Wandering Breeze when she landed next to him with the same ease G’raha had when they first properly met.
G'raha yowled up above. "I'll accept the blame for you, but that's my trick, you miniature she-demon!"
Lunya was already halfway across the campground by the time he hit the ground too, and they began what had long become routine—a playful chase, almost a dance, through the northern shore of Silvertear. The Find was filled with their laughter for yet another night as she tore through the crystalline thicket, G'raha bounding after her with a lopsided grin, his precious tomes forgotten back on the scaffolding.
The memory would torment her later, much later, when she remembered just how willing he was—is—to take the fall for her.
"Fare you well, my friend—my inspiration."
"RAHA!"
