braemoira

[braemoira]

Braemoira’s canon classes are:

Warrior

Astrologian

Red Mage

Ninja

Machinist

Her mother was an Astrologian who practiced the Sharlayan school of Astrology, and her father was a Dragoon! Both retired now. She had rather a penchant for sneaking from a young age so when she was scouted by the rogues guild and later some fine friends from Doma? She was all too happy to answer the call. Red Mage was picked up during a particularly bizarre day in Thanalan and has since grown for her owing to its history as a class of Revolution, and Machinist.. She’s always been quite fond of tinkering, on returning to Ishgard she found herself at the Manufactory and so wound up falling into it!

Warrior she became as her main single job as she served as an Executioner in Ishgard’s Military!

Late night wol/oc question: What is your OC's canon class?

[braemoira]

Braemoira’s Chocobo is named Bryngewynd! Old English for Bring Wind. It’s a joke on how she always knows her Chocobo- which is prone to sneaking around- is nearby. When she calls for Bryngewynd? It will always be heralded by an onrush of air from her wings flaring and her broad, strong chest slamming the air aside.

What is the name of your WoL's chocobo? Why that name?

[braemoira]

Oh gods yes in a heartbeat. One of Braemoira’s favorite treats is anything made of soft dough, so brownie and cookie dough? She’ll eat that raw she might not even remember to actually bake the brownies. She loves the sensation of licking it off her fangs, and the look of such a feat is rather similar to a dog given peanut butter.

Alisaie has used this fact to bully her on multiple occasions.

alright be honest

does your WoL/oc lick the brownie batter off the spoon?

[braemoira]

A Bird and a Letter

Just… One more prologue, before the actual prologue. Then I swear I’m done. Me and my obsession with prologues will calm down… Some day! But that day is not today.

TW: Alluded Violence & Acts of War.

“What’s it like having thirty six aunts and uncles?” Asked the Hrothgar, to no one, so deep in a sar-chasm it’s amazing she heard her own voice.

Braemoira has grown into herself of late. Sixteen summers old, the time of her as a tiny ball of fur far past. She’s gone through just about every shape it’s possible to be, from minuscule orb to gangly pile of sticks to everything between. She’s only just recently begun escaping the gangle, her broad shoulders gaining some meat to them as she fills out. Somewhere inside she wonders what she will wind up as, but ultimately? She’s got better things to worry about. It’s bloody hard being the adopted almost-kid and actual kid of very nearly a quarter of the entire village, but she does her best. She’s got better things even than that to consider, at least for now.

Like this Chocobo.

Right now, she’s perched in the thorny branches of a Pine, staring down at the Chocobo foraging for detritus some ten yalms distance. Thirty yalms further, and she can see her father slowly stalking closer, keeping low to the ground to hide in what sparse underbrush clings on in fall. The poor thing escaped a sennight ago from the stables, and judging by how it keeps kicking the foliage around it? The saddle and reigns must’ve gotten tangled by its wings, causing it no small degree of pain. She adjusts her standing as it turns to move towards a hardy lingonberry bush, readying the net she has clutched in hand. She stands barefoot, not because she can walk easily without shoes, but because her claws give her far more ample opportunity to dig into the frost-hardened bark than any boot would allow. She glances back, rechecking the plan in her head, and nods once to dad.

It goes off without a hitch.

Leaping ten yalms straight down should, ordinarily, be a rather lethal or at least leg breaking maneuver when you hit the ground. Thankfully, she is not hitting the ground. She is hitting a net, which is hitting a Chocobo. The beast bucks, letting out a shriek of alarm that would ordinarily send its entire flock running, but, there is no flock today. Its thick, springy legs absorb her fall’s shock and transfer it more or less painlessly away, as she clings on for dear life. She thankfully doesn’t have to survive the rampaging thing for over-long- though it does manage to twist its head around and clamp its beak at her wrist a few times- before Vauquelin sprints in. Instead of his usual boar-catcher and leaf spear, he wields a crescent figured mancatcher. Or in this case, Chocobo-catcher. Which he uses to promptly pin its neck down to the ground, stilling its struggles so they can get a length of rope back around its legs and force it to calm down.

Mom damn near phases out of the woods, startling them both. Braemoira might be great at sneaking but her? She acts as if she were born clean out of a tree sometimes. She chuckles, and begins tending to the various cuts and scrapes of a Chocobo never meant to live in the wilderness. “So, Da, what next? Do I get to ride it? Or are you taking it back to Tailfeather?” Braemoira questions, excitement bubbling through her pitch and promptly crushed as he shakes his head. “Nah chief, not today. But soon, yes? For now, you’ve some mail. Go, enjoy~” He answers, exploiting his childhood nickname for her to potent effect. Chief, named such because when she was among the Gang and when they were first returning to home? She was supposedly rather bossy about everything, and of great help to the Clerics in helping everybody settle back into civilian life. She, of course, pouts. For she is not a child anymore.

But she dashes off home all the same.

Home is a two and four story timber hall built in a peculiar way. Two stories in the actual house itself, but four in the old watchtower in the heart of the forest it was originally built as. That tower is what gave her family its name, the Chatelains. Home is the little creeks that surround the house like a Y, and the little bridge that lets them cross freely. They don’t live anywhere near town, and the closest one is certainly not the sort of town anyone would ever have heard of, but it is theirs all the same. She has been able since ten summers old to leap clean over the tiny bridge heading for the front door, and does so now. At this point, something in the back of her head wonders if she even remembers what the cobblestones feel like. Doesn’t matter, mail matters. She hurtles the dozen or so yalms to the door and blasts herself inside. Dashing down the entry hall and whirling a hard right with a caught claw at the doorframe to power her around the corner and into the main room.

And there, upon the table, is a scroll marked with the wax seal of the Holy See of Ishgard.

Her parents reach the house just in time to hear her whooping in excitement. Her joy is enough she very nearly tears the letter apart from bouncing in excitement. She slams into her dad bodily as soon as they enter, eliciting a loud ‘oof’ as nearly 300lbs of muscle and power collide with him. “Well chief? How’re we lookin’?” He asks, glancing down at the scroll clutched in one clawed hand. Her grin grows wider, her usual caution about displaying her teeth gone to the wind.

“Well, I’m going to need that new whetstone afterall!” She answers

The Executioners. One of Ishgard’s many military assets, the Executioners serve as the front line warriors standing in defiance to the Heretic threat, and occasional unbreakable wall of wing-rending terror against the Dravanians. Their chosen weapon, the axe, selected for both the symbolic meaning of standing as the very literal headsmen come to reap the Heretics their due, and for the practical reason of its superior weight permitting them to cleave through armor with relative ease. To train among their ranks is to journey into the Holy See itself. To serve the will of Halone in one of the most direct, physical means imaginable. It is a calling second only to the Dragoon in honor. And thus it is that Braemoira darts off to her room, and fetches the axe she’s been using to train, leaving the letter to fall to the floor.

Where, in boldened font, the word ACCEPTED is clearly visible to any who look.

[braemoira]

Au De Chatelain

A Final Fantasy XIV Character’s Prologue’s Prologue. Which makes maybe slightly more sense. These two idiots are gonna have to get a room.

TW: Violence Against Animals.

Where do you stop, when you’re brushing fur?

Alfasi and Vauquelin know the answer to that now. The answer is when the kid grumbles at you.

The last four years of their lives have been some of the best, and some of the strangest, they’ve ever known. The position rotates on a five year basis, and they’re beginning to grow concerned. Because, for the last four years, their outpost far and away to the north of Falconhead has had a… Mascot. A Hrothgar Girl, found as an infant by the pair one winter evening. All told it wasn’t that long ago, but as the two of them watch the child dance and sprint among the fireweed that coats the forest floor right after the thaw? It feels like a different life entirely. Spring has come at last, and the kid’s grown an awful lot.

Braemoira, they named her. Mountain on the Borderland. Irreplaceable mascot of their unit, even if she has a tendency only recently begun to fade to gnaw on spear shafts and staffs alike. When Redolieux found her last summer damn near chewing through his halberd? It’s a miracle he didn’t shout loud enough to wake the Dravanians their slumber then and there. Alfasi more or less empathizes, having enlarged fore teeth for vegetation, but she cannot fathom the pain of dealing with that many nor that large of fangs emerging. Mercifully, she’s managed to… Almost, stay safe so far. She’s shown a particular love for the pair now minding her as she plays, and they in turn have loved her back. Her first words, were to them both. Or.. The first thing they decided sounded like words rather than a babbling purring noise she stopped making when her eyes finally opened. Much to Alfasi’s sorrow, that sound hasn’t been heard since.

It is Vauquelin, who breaks the quiet morning in the lee of the tower first. They know the kid won’t hear them at this distance, but they also know she can cross it faster than many men can react. She was up and running within the first year, and hasn’t ever slowed down since. It would be fine, if she wasn’t so damnedably quiet thanks to those fur-padded paws of hers. He pauses, and takes a soft breath, turning to Alfasi.

“I want her, and you, to come home with me.”

Alfasi freezes. Her ears twitch, one trained on Braemoira as always, the other turning towards him. How he wishes he had such a neat trick as that. “..What?” She manages to ask, her voice slow and small and so very suddenly out of its depth. He nods, and continues. “My family isn’t one of the high houses but we have some wealth to us. Enough to have land. A house. And.. I want you to make it a home with me. And with her.” He continues, earning her actually turning towards him properly to look at his expression. Her eyes ask if he is joking, and he knows he is not. Something like hope appears in her eyes as she studies him over. “..Why now?” She manages to ask.

“I’ve been.. Thinking about things. Since we found her. Really since I found you. You and your bloody astrolabe, looking to stars I know you can only barely see. And.. Euhgh I’m a soldier, I’m not supposed to sound sappy.” He responds, rolling his hand over before pinching his nose and sighing loudly. He wants to tell her, to say she under the light of the moon is the most beautiful thing he’s ever known. That the thought of being without her snoring in the barracks or.. Elsewhere, he prays, is a thought he cannot live without. The words fail him, but, she nods all the same.

It is just as she is about to answer, that they are interrupted by the sound of a wolf growling.

In an instant, they are up. A lone wolf, smaller than its usual kin from malnourishment, emerging from the brush and stalking towards Braemoira. Vauquelin acts on instinct, catching his spear from the tower wall it was leaned against and throwing himself into a leap towards the one he dreams of calling daughter. Alfasi’s aetheric bolt races alongside him nearly so fast as he moves, her planisphere having never left her lap.

Neither of them were necessary.

By the time Vauquelin is impaling its magic-scorched carcass to the tree behind it, it is just that. A Carcass. And one he did not make. His legs moved back on instinct, out of its striking and thrashing range, but.. For no reason. No blow comes. He frowns. Normally they last a few seconds after being taken out, before the body runs out of essence and the aether flees. But… He looks down, studying the lone wolf. Alfasi is jogging up behind him, and even his lesser hearing can tell that much, saying something to Braemoira but.. It doesn’t quite matter what. Not in the face of this question. His eyes trace it from tail to head.

And he finds a rock, long and chipped sharp by snow wedging, lodged in its eye.

He turns back, and sees the woman he loves healing the girl he wants to call daughter. Healing a cut on her hand from something sharp and jagged. He looks back to the hound, and finds both ends of the stone blood-stained. Another turn. He strides over, letting his spear fall to the wayside grass- a capital sin for any Dragoon- and hoists them both into his arms. Squeezing tightly, earning a squeak of surprise from Alfasi and an energetic bite from Braemoira. That’ll hurt later. He has better things to think about right now, and he doesn’t much care what else is transpiring. “Marry me. Let me name you de Chatelain. Let us name her so.” He blurts out, squeezing a little more as he buries his face into both of his girls soot-black hair.

It takes a moment for Alfasi to answer, but she nods, and squeezes back. She’d been wondering when he would ask her for nearly two years now, but, what with patrols and the ever changing threat of Garlemald to the south and east, she figured it was never the right time. She hugs them both back, and though their kid doesn’t quite understand why, she seems more than happy to be held by both at once, and calms down her chewing on Vauquelin’s shoulder, earning a sigh of relief from him and a chuckle from Alfasi. The girl’s been doing her best ever since they first found Braemoira in the snow, thanking the gods every day she can hide when she’s listening in on someone better than he can hide his glances. She manages to speak, as she sets a single kiss against his cheek, the first she prays of many more to come.

“Let’s survive the next few months first, yes? I don’t think Lorilleux would take kindly to me stealing the good linens to make a wedding dress~”

[braemoira]

Sounds In The Snow

A Final Fantasy XIV Character’s Backstory’s Prologue’s Prologue’s Prologue. Because that makes sense.

CW: Barely Hidden Death, Orphaning, War, Some Mild Allusions to Gore

There are many sounds in Coerthas.

Snow buries most noises, sure. It blankets, its porous structure dampening and disguising all but the most steadfast of tunes. But rock reveals, bounces, directs that which snow would otherwise devour. The end result is a confusing cacophony to anyone not used to it, where a man might walk only a dozen yards away and be inaudible, yet a wyvern may roar five miles distant and its voice as clear as the ice surrounding. Of course, this means that for basically anyone who isn’t paying close attention, it can be nigh impossible to discern the nature of what noises they’re hearing outside of the immediate vicinity. Indeed, for many men, sound on the Coerthan Highlands is just that. A noise. A thing to drown out in the background.

Similarly, sight can be equally confusing. Thanks to the enormous quantities of snow glare and deepest shaded ravines to be found everywhere throughout the region will disguise anything and everything from a mouse to a house. Not to mention snow glare mirages, and still horizons near the coast, which have put out mountains from their view, vanishing them into thin air until you are nearly upon them. Coerthas is the bane of all airship pilots for this fact alone, and a well earned title at that.

Luckily, Alfasi is not most people. Nor is Vauquelin.

Alfasi’s ears twitch. She perks, a frown dawning on her as she glances this way and that, her enormous leoporine ears swiveling like sentries atop a battlement. Vauquelin’s brow rises. He’s heard nothing, but then, she was always the ears to his eyes, which join in surveying the valley below their camp as soon as he spots her moving. Alfasi is a rarity in this region, a Viera, but she’s well trusted and even better respected, with the scars on her arms from dragon bite and claw alike to prove her loyalty. Vauquelin tries not to let his eyes linger over-long. Instead, he whistles, summoning over another of the sentries.

“Something amiss, Alfa?” He questions, glancing up at the significantly taller woman as she stands, slowly walking towards the edge of the cliff. She doesn’t answer, her eyes a distant matter as her attention goes to her ears entirely. Far too used to this behavior, Vauquelin holds out his spear, using the flat of it to keep her back from the unstable snow limit at the cliff edge.

“..Someone is crying.” She murmurs, her ears twitching softly as she hunts for more than that simple truth.

There are many sounds in Coerthas. None of them are crying. Not this far north, where the eternal blizzard has only just slowed down from its relentless burial. Not where the Dravanians, monstrous brutes with wings tougher than skysteel, reign supreme. All the loyal men and women of Ishgard, two dragoons, eighteen knights, and five chirurgeons, are in this camp. Accounted for, and Vauquelin made certain of that. No Heretic would be caught dead bawling out here, not where the beasts of the snow better suited to life this far north than any man shall ever be would be drawn to the noise. And certainly none of them would be doing it deliberately, none know the patrol is here reestablishing a foothold in the northern wastes. The lack of fire attests to that, and its missed warmth has been cruel jest enough to the soldiers assembled behind. And yet.. Here his Alfa is, claiming someone is out there. Weeping.

He knows she wouldn’t mistake the sound.

He frowns a little deeper, whistling again, summoning Redolieux, the other of his pair. He hears a groan in answer from the adjacent group tent. Redolieux’s leg is still missing, he had forgotten that. His hand slides to the claw-curl scar on his cheek, and he frowns. “Halone take that damned snake.. You, you’re with me.” He murmurs, tapping Alfasi on the belly to draw her closer. This will be easier if he gets both arms around her, but, he dares not do such a thing. He would never survive the teasing from Redolieux or Guyiernne. Dismissing the redness to his cheeks as cold, he wraps an arm around Alfa’s waist, and she raises a hand instinctively to point by dead reckoning the sound. “Range?” He questions, and she answers a distance of several hundred yalms. This will be a rough one. His legs begin to tense…

And he leaps, hauling her skyward.

The leaping bound of a Dragoon is not bound by such logic as mortal men must bear. All Ishgardians can of course jump, and jump well. Ledges are frequent in the cities, snow stops almost ubiquitous keeping their homes raised aloft. But to a Dragoon? Gravity is a Suggestion. To be obliged, certainly, but… Something which can be delayed for quite some time, as needs be. This is a long one even by his standards, but he clears 400 yalms by the time he’s hit the apex of his leap, and the remaining 300 or so by landing. He put a bit overmuch power into the outward half of things, and so relies mostly on the snow to cushion the land. Much to Alfa’s chagrin, as they crash into soft snowdrifts at nearly quadruple the speed of even the greatest race Chocobo. She moves to say… Something, her eyes fiery, but a tap of the polearm and her words die on her lips.

He can hear crying too, now.

They begin to walk, and his frown deepens into a scowl. Something happened here, details he knows she cannot see. There are bodies buried in the snow, nearly a dozen of them, and he catches seldom few glints of steel through the glare. Not Heretics, then, their groups are always armed to a man. He shakes his head, willing Halone to blind the woman now striding towards a cave in a nearby hill, to keep her from seeing the way their odd hands clutch baskets before battle axes. The Chirurgeon was never good with tragedy, and he feels he is walking into one. More than that, though, he notices too many oddities. There’s not a single tent, not even a stray pole, emerging from the earth. Nor be there anything like a perimeter, not even a vague melt signature from campfires now doused. But even more than that for all its oddities..

There is a fire smoldering away in the cave.

Alfa is walking faster now. She always had a way about the snow, walking ontop of it, her paw-like feet barely sinking more than a ilm or two while he has to shove himself thigh deep through the frost. He grumbles, and shoves himself along faster. “Halone guide my feet because you sure aren’t! Sink in gods damn you, give me footprints to walk in if you’re going to do anything!” He exclaims, but she doesn’t hear him. Her ears are turned away, and though she is one of the finest sentries he knows, when she’s focused? She’s nigh deaf to the world. He shoves a little faster, praying she won’t have to witness whatever lies inside.

Unfortunately, she vanishes into the dark before he can reach her.

When he catches up, barely a few seconds later, it takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the light, or lack thereof. It is almost pitch dark within here, lit by only the glaring white outside which the black stone walls of the cave seems to devour, and a smoldering campfire next to the entrance. At least whoever built it knew where to put it, warm air in, most of the smoke out. They must’ve known the ice, then. But… The sight awaiting him is stranger still. Alfasi is holding a bundle of fabric and furs. A thick one at that, which is doing something bundles of miscellaneous padding absolutely should not be doing.

It’s whimpering.

Alfasi’s finger is buried inside the top of the bundle, and she’s wincing slightly, which immediately makes him squeeze his spear a little tighter. Nothing that makes her wince is a good thing. She notices, shaking her head. “It’s alright, Vauquelin. I’m alright. The little thing just has claws~” She explains. Another tightening of the grip, nothing that makes her wince and has claws is a good thing. He begins to stride forward. A hidden infant dragon? A monstrous voidsent tricking civilians into caring for it? A dozen different dooms waiting them in this near freezing cave, each worse than the last. None of them involved anything kind. None of them involved a future beyond this caverns lips, barely big enough for him to whirl his spear fully.

None of them involved an infant.

A tiny, snow and soot thing curled up in its swaddling. One of its hands, smaller than Alfa’s finger alone, has dug its tiny pointed claws into the digit now intruding down near its chest. Its eyes are shut, its ears curled over, and in an instant he knows nothing will be the same ever again. His frown falters away as he bends down to inspect the creature, his mind wracking to remember what little he knows of them. Hrothgar, a rarity in Eorzea- recently arrived from overseas. Here… Nigh unheard of. He doesn’t even know how to keep one fed, but, looking at the tiny daggers filling its mouth as it drags Alfa’s finger down and latches onto its padded tip.. He knows it won’t matter, this thing is far too young to eat food. Alfa is saying something. “..for its parents? Surely they just got lost hunting?” She asks. He shakes his head. Images of clawed hands just barely beneath the snowdrifts flit through his mind, just outside. He is glad she cannot disturb the snow. Cannot see the dead beneath it.

“They’re not coming. And we are too remote. At least until we are relieved of duty, this little one is ours.” He answers, and though he wishes dearly he could get this babe to the orphanages in Ishgard.. He knows it won’t happen for nearly a year yet. He stands, and helps her back to her feet, and a part of him flickers when she rises head and shoulders above him. Matters for later, for now… For now he has to tell the bad news. This is going to be a pain in every ass he’s had in this or any past life, Halone has apparently heard his prayers, and used them to spite him for a chuckle. He will have words with her when he eventually dies. He sighs, and begins to brace himself, as they make for the cave entrance. Glancing upwards at the nearly sheer mountain overhead, and over his shoulder at the malms distant beginning to the ledge that would let them hike back up to camp. This is going to suck.

“I can’t carry you both up. We have to hike.” He murmurs, and for the next four hours of hiking through the frost, she never lets him live that fact down.