#and i figured it would go faster easier and nicer without fluffing it with action

[furymint]

FFXIV Write 2024 | header | wc: 1,045

Elliot: Game time: Tell me who your favorite Bell is.

Nolanel: That guy.

Elliot: That was swift. Arym? Truly?

Nolanel: Weird name. Yeah. Had breakfast more than once with him, real early. I think he only knows about eighteen words in Eorzean.

Elliot: Please! Truthfully now?

Nolanel: Brave.

Elliot: Our bellwether? Not Norhi?

Nolanel: Not Norhi. Brave takes care of you folk. She's ready and straight so you can keep your finger paint straight, and ain't afraid to cut manners out of business with crows.

Elliot: Not to doubt your munificence, but I never suspected that you would forgive her for making you leave.

Nolanel: I never blamed her. She's fair. The only one of you that's fair.

Elliot: I'm pretty.

Nolanel: You're besides the point. And what answer's in your pretty head?

Elliot: I'll pretend to think about this. Norhi.

Nolanel: She babies you.

Elliot: Not more than she indulges you.

Nolanel: One day she'll need to tell you no.

Elliot: She has—but never when it matters. What's more, she despises everyone I despise with the exact amount of candor to prove it's real. Norhi never argues, either. The way she avoids confrontation could almost make one believe that bickering is unenjoyable.

Nolanel: Imagine that.

Elliot: But I like Brave too. She always lets me make a fool of myself while watching with that smile you have.

Nolanel: It's easy to wind you up and set you marching like a toy.

Elliot: Joy is always running—although often away.

Nolanel: Wyda I mostly like. Got some wrong ideas.

Elliot: About Xanadu.

Nolanel: And her bedmates.

Elliot: Oof. But she's the most intelligent person I know--even if she applies her gifts hazardously—and she's my most favorite to talk too.

Nolanel: Aye, I know you're in love with her.

Elliot: I think she'd hate that more than I, if it's possible. But if you were to fall in love with any of them, who would it be?

Nolanel: No. That's propaganda.

Elliot: I don't know what you mean. It's foolishness.

Nolanel: It's what you said about the Faithful. For naught but making oneself furious, especially when it don't make sense. Now you see—

Elliot: I think it's humorous!

Nolanel: Answer me yours, then.

Elliot: You'll loathe me.

Nolanel: Try.

Elliot: August.

Nolanel: You're the stupidest man in the world! Heavens! Fury!

Elliot: Haha!

Nolanel: Gods, lightning could strike you twice and you'd beg a third. 

Elliot: I can't help it!

Nolanel: Your no-good taste needs to be studied. Self-destruction. Self-denial. All those things you say—and you doe-eye some imperial who looks at you like he hopes your pansy tongue rots in your mouth.

Elliot: Well, if only I spoke poison!

Nolanel: What'll it take for you to love an artist? 

Elliot: I couldn't possibly love a mirror.

Nolanel: Ah—Only soldiers who want naught with knowing your happy little theories about war.

Elliot: His eyes are gorgeous.

Nolanel: Ugh! The only man with the right priority in this damned country. Let him be.

Elliot: But I have! I don't court the thought of dying here by angering him like you have.

Nolanel: It'd be one nice thought in my brain to think you'd have the sense to darling something decent when I'm killed.

Elliot: No no, there's no betterment or forgetting where I'm involved. Aren't we supposed to sigh and look wan for the rest of our lives, and pray in the monastery that love was taken too soon and shall not come again?

Nolanel: No.

Elliot: You mean if my heart gave in this moment, you'd grow past me while I spent eternity in my glowing youth? I'd be the perfect thing to worship since I wouldn't talk back—and you'd open your affection to a distraction? Who?

Nolanel: That's propaganda.

Elliot: Stop thinking and just gossip with me!

Nolanel: No!

Elliot: 'Tis August, too! Haha!

Nolanel: Oh, fuck no—I'm not so ridiculous.

Elliot: I'll go down the roster until you blush.

Nolanel: Do what you want.

Elliot: That's what life is for. Now. Hm. Not Laelia—she has that miasma about her. Max is evil. Vicky is...

Nolanel: The only among them with a decent mind. She's sturdy and patient. She listens. But get out of the Garleans.

Elliot: Wyda, then.

Nolanel: Just to sicken her more? No, she's too argumentative. Always thinks she's in mandate of the only truth.

Elliot: Norhi doesn't argue, then.

Nolanel: Norhi is married. I'm no salesman. Besides, she has ears.

Elliot: You also have ears.

Nolanel: Hm.

Elliot: What if you married Xanadu instead?

Nolanel: You'd pawn off your wife like that?

Elliot: I make a terrible husband; I'm destined for bachelorhood soon. You would be a much more admirable spouse.

Nolanel: 'Tis true I can make bread.

Elliot: Oh! Ser Basile then!

Nolanel: Don't let him hear that pun; he'll probably enjoy it and I'll never hear his name right again. He's the man people need, but not me.

Elliot: Cass?

Nolanel: You want an answer, not a conversation anymore.

Elliot: So? Cass? 

Nolanel: Closer.

Elliot: Ha!

Nolanel: But there's a dragon where anything else ought to be. A stupid dragon in looks and manner, but still one.

Elliot: I should've expected so. It treats well with the chocobos, somehow, at home in the Bell house. I also appreciate that her hair changes more often than the seasons.

Nolanel: Is it supper time yet?

Elliot: We have to consider more names! Eliane? Brave? I know Yumi and Haru are no choices for you; nor dear Sasamu. 

Nolanel: I don't know anyone else. I doubt Lady Dufresne would enjoy knowing that an industry-despising dandy and former employee was flirting with the idea of setting his dragoon paramour away to disrupt her marriage.

Elliot: That's why gossip is only shared with trusted companions who would never speak a word to anyone. Except the daily press, perhaps. However! This is for amusement! Not—

Nolanel: 'Ey! What's love in this place worth? Who should I love among the residents of Alvarium?

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