The sun was down - had been for nearly two bells - when she finally climbed the last of the white stone steps to her small shop. The sun was down, but it wasn't dark - not really. The sky was clear - as it often is in this corner of Eorzea - and the stars and moon shone brightly, almost festively. The sylphlamps were glowing under the two willows that framed the building, trapping their soft pink glow under their hanging branches. Color surrounded her in Mist - not bright, really, but it was very rarely dark, here.
The white-haired viera didn't seem to notice this festivity tonight - she had a focused look on her face, her mouth in a proto-scowl as she shook a ring of thick, complex-looking keys from her satchel, singling one out almost automatically and fitting it into the lock in the black door. She slipped in, closing the door behind her with perhaps a bit more force than was strictly needed. She stood in what she thought of the as the showroom - in the actual dark - for almost a minute, breathing, reaching out, sending aether through the floor and into her workshop, finding the small, tumbled and polished lump of black tourmaline. Aetherial pressure built sharply - and released suddenly, as her carbuncle launched itself toward the stairs to greet her. She squatted there at the door, anxiety and concern on her face washing and expanding to a smile as she caught the heavy bundle that flung itself at her by way of a hello.
~~~
It was Rising again. Sindri found the relatively new festival jarring, hopeful, and all too comfortable. Heroes they couldn't remember had saved them from a terrible calamity - but the empire still marshaled it's forces, still held entire cultures hostage, threatening to stamp out everything that made these peoples different, special. She'd watched it happen for over one hundred years, and didn't see an end to it. Rising was good for a bit of coin, if you pandered to the revelers with a bit of blue crystal ornamentation, but the sheer hope and thankfulness of the festival wore thin in her - it felt like only a respite, a few beats before the other boot dropped.
She channeled a bit of aether to the lamps - illumination modules, as the old manuals called them - and headed downstairs. She stripped her light, summer robes, strapped a thick leather apron over her smallclothes and began stoking the forge.
She missed her people - she had wandered farther and farther from the forests over the years, but that hadn't helped. Every year around this time she began to think again about her decision to leave, to try to help those that didn't have the protection that she had growing up. Every year she wondered if she had made a difference, wondered if the empire would decide to conquer the viera next, wondered if anyone there remembered her. The only solution she found was to put her head down and work. To fashion things - deadly things, powerful things, beautiful things. If she had never left, these items would still be unformed - so if to no one else, it was worth it to them.
The black tourmaline carbuncle was sitting there when she turned, a hammer in its mouth, waiting.
The white-haired viera didn't seem to notice this festivity tonight - she had a focused look on her face, her mouth in a proto-scowl as she shook a ring of thick, complex-looking keys from her satchel, singling one out almost automatically and fitting it into the lock in the black door. She slipped in, closing the door behind her with perhaps a bit more force than was strictly needed. She stood in what she thought of the as the showroom - in the actual dark - for almost a minute, breathing, reaching out, sending aether through the floor and into her workshop, finding the small, tumbled and polished lump of black tourmaline. Aetherial pressure built sharply - and released suddenly, as her carbuncle launched itself toward the stairs to greet her. She squatted there at the door, anxiety and concern on her face washing and expanding to a smile as she caught the heavy bundle that flung itself at her by way of a hello.
~~~
It was Rising again. Sindri found the relatively new festival jarring, hopeful, and all too comfortable. Heroes they couldn't remember had saved them from a terrible calamity - but the empire still marshaled it's forces, still held entire cultures hostage, threatening to stamp out everything that made these peoples different, special. She'd watched it happen for over one hundred years, and didn't see an end to it. Rising was good for a bit of coin, if you pandered to the revelers with a bit of blue crystal ornamentation, but the sheer hope and thankfulness of the festival wore thin in her - it felt like only a respite, a few beats before the other boot dropped.
She channeled a bit of aether to the lamps - illumination modules, as the old manuals called them - and headed downstairs. She stripped her light, summer robes, strapped a thick leather apron over her smallclothes and began stoking the forge.
She missed her people - she had wandered farther and farther from the forests over the years, but that hadn't helped. Every year around this time she began to think again about her decision to leave, to try to help those that didn't have the protection that she had growing up. Every year she wondered if she had made a difference, wondered if the empire would decide to conquer the viera next, wondered if anyone there remembered her. The only solution she found was to put her head down and work. To fashion things - deadly things, powerful things, beautiful things. If she had never left, these items would still be unformed - so if to no one else, it was worth it to them.
The black tourmaline carbuncle was sitting there when she turned, a hammer in its mouth, waiting.
