In the deepest parts of the Black Shroud, where ancient trees leaned close to share secrets in groaning tongues, there was a sunny patch of moss. Reclining against a fallen log was a nameless bard. He'd been singing, or attempting to, before the song unraveled in his throat and he'd slipped into that honey slow space between waking and dreaming. A half eaten sugar cube rested on his chest, rising and falling with slow breaths.
A sound of twinkling bells and rustling leaves. Not the wind. Never just the wind in the Shroud's green heart.
"Singing one! Singing one is here!" chirruped 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, soft voiced feature of the glade beyond Little Solace. It's 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?"
The sylph, Bellaxio, zoomed closer. Its tiny hands wrung, "This one has seen a thing! A walking one shaped thing! In stone nest by the laughing water!"
"Oh?" The bard plucked the sugar cube and offered it in the sylph's general direction. It snatched the cube with glee. "And what did you see?"
"A binding!" it 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! Walking ones are now a married one!"
The bard laughed gently. "A wedding, then! A very pretty ritual. 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 small enough to be a suggestion of a foot, something that would never know the earth. "Singing One should be... Married One!"
The silence lasted for a heartbeat. He fought to keep his composure, but once the first chortle escaped him, it was nothing but breathless laughter. It was the kind of delight that was as bright as the sunlight through the ancient canopy.
"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 conspiratorial 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!"
"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 drooping 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 whisper-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 as if it were a hollow. "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 story. 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 as loud as a sack of stolen nuts."
A chorus of gasps, both 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! Bards should be banned from saying ugly words!"
Perched on the log above him, arranged like a tribunal of the tiniest and most judgmental things, were three moogles. 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 wore a waistcoat that smelled of an old dusty attic, puffed out his chest with the kind of gusto that would give a toad a run for its gil. "We have information, kupo. Very important information. The kind a wandering bard might want to know!"
"Do you now?" the bard intoned, equal parts warm and amused. "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 hung crooked over their head. "Hardly a favor at all. Barely even work, really! Just the kind of thing for you!"
The bard's 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 softly, "Ahh. What is this mysterious favor?"
The moogles huddled, whispering in a great rustling of fur and pompom and flapping wings. Their leader turned back, 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?" the bard offered, not unkindly.
"Exactly, kupo! Wait..."
The lead moogle cleared his throat, regaining its 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!"
The bard considered this, running his fingers gently over Bellaxio's sleeping form. 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 tiny 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. It was intriguing. "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," the bard said 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, pompoms bouncing in heated debate. Finally, the leader emerged. "Agreed, kupo! Two pots! We will tell you everything the merchants said, even the boring parts about grain prices!"
"Please skip the grain prices."
"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, moogles trailing behind him in what they believed to be a subtle formation. 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 Gridania to supply Wood Wailers and beekeepers 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 caught the light like viscous amber. The merchant, a broad shouldered Roegadyn with the weathered disposition of someone who'd been making dangerous treks for decades, looked up as the bard approached. His poise shifted from wary to cautiously welcoming.
"Afternoon." He rumbled. "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 sing 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. I've been told honey from the shroud is the finest in all of Eorzea."
"Flattery, but true." The merchant's eyes narrowed in suspicion, then darted past the bard where moogle shaped shadows were trying very obviously to hide behind a pitched 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," the bard 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 whisper 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 wheels of cheese, 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!"
The bard 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."
"That's reasonable, sir."
"And if they cause trouble, it's on you."
"Fair."
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 large hands worked, he muttered: "You know, you're braver than most, wandering out here. Or crazier. We had someone through here just yesterday... some terrifying knight from up north. Full plate, a sword like an executioner's blade. Got an aura that made even ol' Rolfe nervous."
The bard's hands busied themselves with counting out coin, "A knight, here?"
"Aye. Ishgardian, by the look of him. All iron and ice and that feeling they carry. You know the one." The merchant handed over 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."
Behind the tent, the moogles went silent, a rare occurrence.
"Did Rolfe tell him?" the bard asked, voice carefully light.
The merchant shrugged. "Told 'em you come and go. Figured it wasn't a secret... half the shroud have heard you singing to hives and trees at one point or another. The bees seem to like it." He paused. "Should he not have?"
"Non, non. Rolfe did fine." The bard took the honey, his smile returning but different now: softer, 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?"
"Something like that."
He tucked the honey under one arm, offered the merchant a distracted nod of thanks, and turned to find the moogles had emerged from their hiding spot. They looked uncharacteristically solemn, pompoms drooping.
"That was our information, kupo." said the lead moogle quietly. "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's taller than me, kupo! Three of me! Maybe even four of me."
The bard 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 brightened immediately, swarming the honey with delighted cries of "kupo!". Their leader lingered, pompom swaying as it studied the bard's face.
"You're not scared?"
"Non. Not scared."
"But he's very scary! Scary enough that the trees don't like him. Not one bit!"
The bard smiles something warm, genuine. "Scary to the trees, perhaps, maybe." 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 turned to the 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 from beams, and beneath it all: a cold, sharp scent of oiled steel. Rolfe Hawthorne sat in a high-backed chair near the fire, his voice enuciating with the enthusiasm of a man who found a captive audience. Across from him, still as carved stone, sat Avraux Lothaire.
The knight was exactly as the moogles had described: he wore full plate the color of tarnished midnight, every piece fitted with the precision of Ishgardian craftsmanship. His greatsword leaned against the wall within arm's reach, tall, foreboding, and ridiculously out of place. A terrible sense of gloom followed the knight like a morning frost, not threatening but present. A reminder of what he was.
He had presence that was all hard lines and sharp edges, weathered as a Coerthan mountainside. It was the kind of demeanor that had forgotten how to be young, if it ever knew. Pale eyes, the color of tepid lemonade, fixed on Rolfe with polite attention, but there was something distant in them.
He seemed like the kind of man who would kill in a glance unprovoked. He also seemed terribly, profoundly, absurdly silly surrounded by honey jars, dried flowers, and potpourri.
The bard's smile bloomed into something soft and helpless.
"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, his face breaking into a delighted grin. "Speak of the Spinner and She Weaves! Our bard!"
Avraux's head turned like grinding stone, and for a heartbeat, brief enough that it might just be imagined, something in the grim face shifted. Then it was gone, behind stone again.
"It's you." Avraux said, his voice as quiet as falling snow, too quiet for an Ishgardian accent to dust the syllables.
"It's me indeed." the bard responds, his voice gentle. "You're a long way from home, aren't you?"
Rolfe glanced between them, grin widening. "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 practiced ease of old joints that refuse to quit. "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 retired, and I was an adventurer!" 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, leaving the two of them in the honey warm quiet of the hut. The bard closed the door softly and turned to face Avraux fully. 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, a smile playing across his lips. "But the shroud is large, cher. And I am, as you might have noticed, frequently elsewhere."
Avraux's eyes fixed somewhere past the bard's shoulder, staring hard. "Yes."
"'Yes'?" His tone turns teasing, gentle but persistent. "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. His gauntleted hand flexed against his knee, gloves tipped with sharp iron claws.
The bard laughed softly, closing the remaining distance with the same energy of a man 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 responded affectionately. "What is it, then? What drags the grim knight of Ishgard all the way to the land of honey and sylphs?"
The silence stretched. Avraux sat completely neutral, but there was an everpresent tension in the set of his shoulders.
"I..." he stopped, then started again. "It's been a few months."
"It has." agreed the bard.
"You left."
"I did."
Another pause. Avraux's hand flexes again. "The shroud is dangerous."
"So is Coerthas."
"That's different."
"How?"
Avraux didn't answer. The bard's hand crept out slowly, giving him more than enough time to move, before touching his fingers 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 as if the words were stuck.
"Without you?" the bard responded, teasing and tender at once.
Avraux's silence was answer enough.
"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." The bard traced a small pattern against the back of the knight's gauntlet, following the grooves of his metal plates. "But I won't. You know that."
"I know." Avraux admitted in the quiet way he does, almost reluctant.
"And 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. There was something raw in the gaze that lands on the bard, something that he didn't have words for. The bard's head inclines to him.
"How long can you stay?"
"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 said nothing. But his hand, still hovering near the bard's, trembled gently.
"Why not come with me? Let me show you a bit of the shroud. The gentle parts. Places even a knight like you might not frighten."
"I don't wander."
"Non," agreed the bard, his smile like sun through leaves. "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 his hand finally settled, not holding the bard's but resting against it. Solid, still, and unutterably careful.
"Three days."
"Three days," echoed the bard, and then playfully added: "Perhaps you could try not looking so miserable about it. People will think you are my hostage!"
Avraux's made a sound like a worg's chuff.
"Come on, then." The bard stood, offering his hand. "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 took the offered hand and rose with the fluid grace of a trained warrior. "That's not easy."
"It will be when it sees 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. "Are you mocking me?"
The bard's grin was radiant. "Always, ser knight."