The deepest parts of the Black Shroud there was a patch of moss. On that patch of moss was a log, and reclining against that fallen log was a bard. He'd been singing, or attempting to, before the song petered out in his throat, and he'd slipped into that cozy soft space between waking and dreaming. A half eaten sugar cube laid on his chest, rising and falling in tune of hisslow breaths.
Then there was the sound of twinkling bells and rustling leaves. Not the wind, though. Never just the wind in the Shroud's green heart.
"Singing one! Singing one is here!" chirped a voice.
A sylph, no larger than a gaelicat, bobbled in the air before him. Its bulbous head housed a pair of wide, endlessly curious eyes, and its floating leaflike body was the picture of sylphish youth, unburdened by the weight the forest carried. The sylph had known him for its entire two years of life, a constant, honey voiced feature of the glade beyond Little Solace. The kind of place where few travelers dared to tread.
The bard didn't turn his head, but he smiled at the sound of it. "Bellaxio. You're a windchime in a storm, cher. What troubles the air around you?"
Bellaxio the sylph zoomed closer. Its tiny hands wrung together, "This one has seen a thing! A walking one shaped thing! In stone nest by the laughing water!"
"Oh?" The bard picked up the sugar cube and offered it in the sylph's direction. It gleefully snatched it up. "And what did you see?"
"A binding!" Bellaxio proclaimed, voice trembling with awe. "A great binding! With petal fall and loud happy noises and, and, and, a sharing of shiny circles! Two walking one became... one! Two walking one are now married one!"
The bard laughed. "A wedding, then! Very pretty, isn't it? Knots and promises and all of that."
Bellaxio buzzed with intensity, floating down to land on his knee. "This one has thought. This one has considered!" It took a deep breath. "Singing one should not be singing one."
That made him pause. "Non? What should this one be then, petit? Sleeping one? Eating one?"
"No!" A tiny foot stamped his leg. It was a teensy thing, something that would never know the earth. "Singing One should be... Married One!"
He fought to keep his composure, but once the first laugh escaped him, it was over. Ha, ha, ha.
"Oh, little Bell!" he said, ghosting a touch to his blindfold to dab away a proverbial tear. "Your words are a dagger to my lonely heart!"
"This one is not little! This one is two sun cycles!"
"And I," his voice dropped to a whisper, "am a creature of wind and sky. A married one needs a hearth, not just a hollow log."
"Then find a hearth!" Bellaxio insisted, logic as unassailable as oak. "Walking one live in hut house by shiny crystal! Walking one that smells of bread! Smiles at singing one's song!"
"Ahh, she smiles at everyone's song, cher."
"The grumpy book one! Lets singing one sleep in soft chair!"
The bard's smile turned wry, "He would sooner marry a worm. And he would make for a terrible husband."
Bellaxio deflated, leaves curling like wilted petals. "But singing one will always be alone. Always walk away when wind says! Never stay here with this one!"
The bard brought a hand closer until he could feel the soft brush of the sylph's leafwings against his fingers. "I will always come back, little Bell. The wind under your wings, the wind that rustles the leaves, that is me, singing my way back to you."
He felt Bellaxio's tiny form nestle against the curve of his palm. "So singing one is already married one... to the wind?"
"Oui," he said with a smile, lying back down on the moss. "Married to the wind, the road, and the next silly song. And I have a promise to a certain little sylph to bring songs and milkroot for as long as these old trees stand."
As the bard began to hum a slow, meandering tune, Bellaxio decided that, while drifting to sleep on his chest, this was good enough for now.
The bard woke to the feeling of being watched. Not by the trees. He was always being watched by the trees. This was different. Smaller.
Fluffier.
His head tilted just so, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I can hear your pompoms, you know. You rustle louder than a sack of stolen nuts."
A chorus of gasps, equal parts high pitched and terribly offended.
"We don't rustle, kupo!"
"We're very sneaky, kupo... you just cheat with your ears!"
"Stolen is such an ugly word! Isn't there a law against bards saying ugly words?"
With the flap of leathery wings and scrabble of teensy claws, three moogles perched on the log above the bard like the smallest, angriest, fluffiest tribunal. Pompoms dangled indignantly, their little paws crossed in perfect synchronization.
"Ah." The bard sat up slowly so as not to disturb the still sleeping Bellaxio. "The courts convene. To what do I owe the honor, mes amis?"
The centermost moogle, who smelled of an old dusty attic, inflated like a bullfrog. "We have information, kupo. Very important information. The kind a wandering bard might want to know!"
"Do you now?" he intoned warmly. "I suppose this information comes with a price?"
"No, no. Well, yes, kupo! A small favor, actually!" piped up another, this one with a pompom so heavy that it kept bumping into its face. "Hardly a favor at all. Barely even work, really! Just the kind of thing for you!"
His head tilted. "Information first?"
The leader of the moogles sounded absolutely scandalized, "Favor first! Information after! That's how businesses work!"
"We won't be tricked, kupo!"
" Or bamboozled!"
"Or hoodwinked!"
He laughed, "Ahh. What is this mysterious favor?"
The moogles huddled, whispering in a great rustling of fur and pompom and flapping wings. Then, their musty-smelling leader announced, voice saturated with poorly concealed desperation: "There's a merchant at the settlement, kupo. He's got honey... the good stuff! The kind we dip kupo nuts into! "
"But he won't sell to moogles, kupo!" another wailed. "Something about us being a 'business risk'!"
"Very rude, kupo!"
"We have coin, kupo! Good coin! But they say no moogles and shoo us away like-"
"Little nuisances?" he offered.
"Exactly, kupo! Wait..."
The lead moogle gave a big AH-HEM!, as if a throat noise could help restore all the lost dignity. "So! If a respectable bard were to purchase honey on our behalf, we could share some very, very, very interesting gossip that the merchants were talking about, kupo! Gossip we overheard! While we were definitely not trying to steal honey!"
"More like liberate, kupo!"
"We were going to leave coin!"
"... Eventually!"
He considered this, idly padding the sleeping Bellaxio's head. The little sylph stirred but didn't wake. "And this gossip concerns me?"
"Oh yes, kupo! Very much concerns you, 'Singing One'! Very important!" The moogle's wings fluttered. "But! Favors come first. It's just good business!"
"Honey before anything, kupo!"
"Business is business!"
He tilted his head, weighing the earnest desperation in their voices against his curiosity. There was information important enough that moogles were willing to negotiate rather than simply nicking or chattering it freely, as was moogle nature. Intriguing, he supposes, or at least, more intriguing than this current affairs of doing nothing and sunbathing. "How much honey?"
"Two of the big pots, kupo!"
"Three would be better..."
"Don't be greedy, kupo!"
"Three is practical, not greedy!"
"Two pots," he says firmly, "and you tell me this gossip immediately after. No games," he held up one finger. "No forgetting," a second finger, "no 'we just need one more tiny favor first'." A third finger. "Agreed?"
The moogles huddled again, chittering and arguing in what was doubtlessly a very heated debate. Finally, the leader emerged. "Agreed, kupo! Two pots! We will tell you everything the merchants said, even the boring parts! "
"I don't think I need any boring information about grain prices, hmm?"
"Deal, kupo!"
The bard carefully shifted Bellaxio onto a soft cushion of moss before standing, brushing leaves from his clothes. "Lead on, then. Let's get you your honey."
The Hawthorne Hut sat at the edge of the settlement, larger than most things built in the East Shroud, put together with the sturdy confidence of a family that weathered generations in the area. Smoke curled from the chimney, and the air was thick with the drowsy hum of the forest. The bard approached with his usual ease, all grace and a hum in his throat. Three moogles trail behind him in what they believed to be a subtle formation, or at least as subtle as three moogles bumping into one another and whispering could be.
A merchant had set up a modest stall, likely a trader who braved the trek from the Honey Yard to supply Wood Wailers stationed this far out. Wares, like most things of the Shroud, were practical: preserves, dried meats, leather goods, and most importantly, several large clay pots of honey that smelled sweeter than anything in the forest. The merchant, a broad shouldered Roegadyn with the rugged demeanor of someone who'd been making dangerous treks forever, shifted from wary to cautiously welcoming.
"Afternoon." He rumbled, like stones grinding. "Don't see very many wanderers this deep without an armed escort. Especially not..." His eyes flicked to the blindfold. "You're that bard. The one the sylphs go around yappin' about."
The bard raised his palms in faux modesty, "Guilty as charged, mon ami. I'm in need of honey, if you have it to spare. The Shroud's honey is the best Eorzea has to offer, after all."
"Flattery, but true." The merchant's eyes narrowed in suspicion, then darted past the bard to where moogle shaped shadows were trying very obviously to hide behind a tent. The Wood Wailers didn't seem to mind the moogles. The merchant clearly did. "This wouldn't be for someone in particular, would it?"
"For me," he said smoothly. "I have a terrible sweet tooth. Two pots, if you'll part with them."
The merchant snorted, clearly not buying it, but coin was coin. "Two pots, that'll be..."
"Highway robbery, kupo!" came an indignant yowl from behind the tent.
The merchant's tone turned tempestuous. "I knew it! Listen here, bard. I don't care how silver your tongue is! I'm not selling honey to moogles! Not after last time. They still owe me for three sacks of beans, a bolt of silk, and my best cooking pot! Which I'm certain I've seen them using as a bath!"
"It was dirty, kupo!"
"It needed washing, kupo!"
"We were going to return it, kupo!"
He fought back a smile, "I assure you, good man, the honey is for me. What the moogles do with their own time with their own honey they might hypothetically receive as a gift from an anonymous source is entirely their business."
The merchant stared at him, then the quivering tent. Then back at the bard.
"You're paying double."
"Very reasonable, sir."
"And if they cause trouble, it's on you."
"I accept all responsibility." he lied.
The merchant sighed a great and heavy sigh, the sigh of a man who'd long since given up trying to understand some of the Shroud's inhabitants, and began wrapping two large pots of honey in cloth. As his big hands worked, he muttered: "Y'know, you're braver than most, wandering out here. "
The bard's hands busied themselves with counting out coin, one, two...
" Or crazier. We had someone through here just yesterday... "
Three, four, five...
"... some terrifying knight from up north. Full plate, a sword like an executioner's blade. Got an aura that made even ol' Rolfe nervous."
Six, seven, eight... "A knight, here?"
"Aye. Ishgardian, by the look of him. All iron and ice and that feeling they carry. You know the one."
Suddenly, fifteen gil placed down on the table. " Mmhm. "
The merchant offered the wrapped pots. "Asked if anyone seen a man around here... you know, blindfold, iron guitar, silver tongue. Rolfe invited him in for tea. You know how he is about hearing out stories. Knight wanted to know about the bard."
The moogles, for a rare occurrence, were silent.
"Did Rolfe tell him?" he asked, voice light.
The merchant shrugged. "Told 'em you come and go. Figured it wasn't a secret... damn near half the Shroud has heard you bellowin' rhymes to hives and trees at one point or another. " He paused. "Should he not have?"
"Non, non. Rolfe did fine." his hands found the honeypots and his smile stayed but different now: something more complicated. "Is the knight still around?"
"Aye. Rolfe offered him a room. Better to wait in comfort than camping in the shroud with the Redbellies and the boars or worse." The merchant gives him a curious look, "Friend of yours?"
" Mmm. Something like that." He tucked the honey under one arm, offered the merchant a distracted nod of thanks, and turned back to the flap of moogle wings. They had emerged from their hiding spot shamelessly.
"That was our information, kupo." said the musty-smelling moogle. "The scary one? He's here, waiting for you."
"From the frozen north, kupo! Where even the stones are cold!"
"With the sourest face, kupo! Like he bit into a lemon made of even more lemons!"
He crouched down, setting the honey pots gently in front of them. "Then you've earned this fairly, mes petits. Thank you for the warning."
The moogles, if they'd been solemn, immediately brightened up anyway: they swarmed the honeypots with delighted cries of "kupo!". The musty-smelling moogle lingered, pompom swaying as it studied the bard's face.
"You're scared, aren't you!? I wouldn't blame you! "
"Mm, non. Not scared."
"But he's very scary! Scary enough that the trees don't like him. Not one bit!"
The bard smiled something warm out of genuine mirth: "The trees don't like most folk, do they?" He straightened, adjusting the guitar on his back. "Enjoy your honey. And stay out of trouble."
"We make no promises, kupo!"
The bard laughed and wandered towards the crackling hearth of Hawthorne Hut.
The door opened with a low creak, and warmth from the hearth rolled out in welcome. The interior was heavy with the scent of tangy woodsmoke, beeswax, the earthiness of dried herbs, and beneath it all: a cold, sharp scent of oiled steel. Rolfe Hawthorne sat in a chair near the fire, his voice entangled with the enthusiasm of a man who found a captive audience. Across from him sat an iron knight.
A knight that was exactly as the moogles had described: colder than the cobbles of the Holy See, every slab of armor fitted seamlessly with the precision of Ishgardian craftsmanship, making what would've been clanking armor into shifting sighs. His greatsword leaned against the wall within arm's reach, an invisible but dark magic emanating from it, ridiculously out of place to boot.
He was man of hard lines and sharp edges, weathered as a Coerthan mountainside. The kind of man that forgotten how to be young, if he ever knew. This figure sat still, so still in fact that one could've been forgiven for thinking he were just a creaking dullahan, but ther was a attention fixed on Rolfe. Only half present, but attention nonetheless.
Being around the knight felt terribly awful, really. No matter what there was a terrible sense of gloom that followed him like a morning frost. The kind of person who would kill in a glance unprovoked. The kind of person who probably has. And also the kind of person that seemed terribly, profoundly, absurdly silly surrounded by honey jars, dried flowers, and potpourri.
The bard's smile bloomed.
"And that's when I told them, 'If you think that's a Hawthorne, wait until you see'- ah! " Rolfe cut himself off as the door opened wider, grinning in delight. "Speak of the Spinner and She Weaves! Our bard!"
Avraux's head turned like grinding stone.
"It's you." Avraux said, his voice falling snow through Gridanian trees, too quiet for an Ishgardian accent to dust the syllables.
"It's me indeed! " the bard dipped into something theatrical and rose with just as much energy, "You're a long way from home, aren't you?"
Rolfe glanced between them, sensing something. "Well! I see you two know each other. Ser Lothaire here has been waiting since yesterday. Barely said a reason as to why, mind you, but I figured it was something important. Doesn't seem like the type to travel light." He stood, stretching with the energy of a man who's been manuvering old joints forever. "I'll leave it to you. Need to check on some things anyway... the wood wailers mentioned that things were getting aggressive near the honey yard."
"Thank you for your hospitality, Ser Rolfe," Avraux said, inclining his head with frigid formality.
"Bah! None of that 'ser' business. I'm a retired adventurer, not any knight!" Rolfe clapped the bard on the shoulder as he passed. "Don't let him brood too much. Ishgardians do that when you're not careful. It's the cold. Freezes their face solid like that!"
He was gone, a masked Wood Wailer in tow, leaving the two of them in the honey warm quiet of the hut. The knight hadn't moved, but there was a tension in him, a blade half drawn. Neither of them spoke.
"So." He stepped closer with his easy grace. "You came all the way from Ishgard to squat in a cottage and, what? Wait for gossip? Hope I'd wander by?"
Avraux's jaw tightened, "I was informed you frequented this area."
"I do." His head tilted in bird-like curiousity. "But the shroud is large, cher. And I am, as you might have noticed, frequently elsewhere."
Avraux was staring hard at somewhere that wasn't the bard. "Yes."
"'Yes'?" He teases. "You travel for days through the shroud... which you hate, if I recall! Sit in a stranger's cottage, and all you have to say is yes?"
Avraux said nothing. One gauntleted hand flexes against the iron plating of his knee, scratch, scratch, scratch.
The bard laughed softly, closing the remaining distance like approaching a creature that would bolt. When he reached the knight, he perched on the arm of Avraux's chair, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched.
"You know," he said conversationally, "most people send letters. Much easier than tracking someone through unfamiliar and hostile territory."
"You don't stay anywhere long enough to receive letters."
"Ah!" His smile grows. "So you considered it! "
Avraux's eyes cut to him briefly, then away. "No."
"Liar." the bard admonishes affectionately, bumping their shoulders. Bump, bump. "What is it, then? What drags the grim knight of Ishgard all the way to the land of honey and sylphs?"
Bump, bump.
Avraux sat completely neutral.
Bump, bump.
"I..." he stopped, then started again. "It's been a few months."
"It has." agreed the bard.
"You left."
"I did."
Avraux's hand flexes again. Scratch. "The shroud is dangerous."
"So is Coerthas."
"That's different."
"How?"
Avraux didn't answer.
The bard's hand crept out slowly, fingers like spider legs, touching to the back of the knight's gauntlet.
"You were worried."
Avraux said nothing. He didn't pull away either.
"You shouldn't be here." he finally responded, voice low. "Alone, without..." he stopped, jaw working. Pop.
"Without you?"
The hut was silent.
"Oh, ser." His smile softened into something terribly complicated, something fond and sad and unbearably gentle. "What am I going to do with you?"
"You could stay somewhere safer."
"I could." Fingers ghost the knight's gauntlet, following the grooves of his metal plates. "But I won't."
"I know." Avraux admitted in the quiet way he says everything.
"Yet you're here anyway."
Avraux turned his head then with the sound of leather and metal, just enough to look at the bard properly. The bard's head inclines to him, hood and all resting against Lothaire's face. Avraux's cheek felt like something cold and hollowed out and clenched like his teeth were grinding inside.
"How long can you stay, ser?"
"Three days."
"Three whole days! Ser Lothaire, you spoil me."
"It's not..." Avraux stopped. His hand, still beneath the bard's fingers, turned slowly until their palms were almost touching. Almost. "I need to return."
"Of course you do. Duty calls, knight's honor, and all of that." His thumb brushed against the edge of the gauntlet. "But you have three days, and you came all this way."
Avraux's hand, still hovering near the bard's, trembled.
"Why not come with me? Let me show you a bit of the Shroud. There are gentle parts. Places even a knight like you might not frighten."
"I don't like wandering."
"Non, I suppose you don't, " agreed the bard, "But you came all this way to find me, so you might as well see what all the fuss is about, non?"
Avraux was quiet for a long time, and the heavy weight of his gauntletfinally settled, not holding the bard's hand but resting against it. Solid, still, and unutterably careful.
"Three days."
"Three days indeed," echoed the bard, and then playfully: "Perhaps you could try not seeming so miserable about it? People will think you are my hostage!"
Avraux chuffed like a worg.
"Come on, then." The bard stood, their fingers now intertwined, leather and skin on iron and something grimmer than that. "Let's start with something easy. There's a sylph I'd like you to meet. The little one thinks I should get married!"
Avraux rose with the fluid grace of a trained warrior. "That's not easy."
"It will be when they see you. The little one will probably decide you're too scary and fly away on the breeze!" the bard says, giving Avraux's gauntlet a deliberate squeeze.
"I'm not..." Avraux stopped. Stared. Shifted his jaw. Pop. "Are you mocking me?"
The bard's grin was radiant. "Always, ser knight."