#eorzean lettering is cool but difficult

[selryna-ffxiv]

[haila-wetyios]

#10 Secret

If there is one thing that life with twin babies has taught Haila, it is that making both of them sleep at the same time is a miracle on it’s own. Granted, there’s a few ways to adapt to their own schedules and playtimes in order to get the window as close as possible. 

Tonight is no different, however the task of getting Howl to stop crying enough that Helia can easily slip into awkward positions before she’s out took longer than usual. Life with children is hectic, and making sure that every one of them share equal time together with their mother is also an onerous task. She’s already half a bell over the time she was supposed to use to teach Rohmio some more eorzean letters, and she can feel bags under her eyes begging for early sleep already. 

She sighed some, finally tucking in both of her babies into their shared crib as she turned around to look at the other side of the room. Her son was quiet, sitting by his new desk as he doodled idly while waiting for his mother. He could be rambunctious often, but the responsibility of being the big brother had mellowed him out quite a bit. 

“I’m sorry I took so long..” Haila told her son in hushed whispers. Despite their newfound space, Rohmio still shared a room with his baby siblings, something that he didn’t seem to mind. If they got too rowdy, he could easily go hide in their parent’s room through a secret door after all. 

The boy shook his head, still keeping his eyes focused on his drawing as his mother patted his back and moved closer to have a look. He was merely drawing rocks, an attempt at making a compendium of the cool knicknacks he’d collected during his time exploring backyards. But he was missing the names of all of them. Eorzean characters still being difficult for a mind that got distracted rather easily (not to mention a reluctance to learn). 

“Howl is very hard to get to sleep.” he admitted with a slight shrug as he continued, this time with a black crayon in hand. 

Haila nodded slowly, humming before pulling back a larger chair for her to sit beside him. 

“Are you ready to practice some more letters? Or are you going to try to write them on your own for your rock encyclopedia?” she asked him, chin resting on the back of her hand as she observed him carefully. 

The little Raen nodded quietly. Starting a hushed lesson of which letter should go on each named rock. It had taken some time for him to at least get to recognize the basics, but he’d been improving ever since Haila had started to spend more time at home after the twin’s birth. Quite ironic, given how Rohmio had been so reluctant in the past that they’d send him off to Kugane when possible to get him to talk to other children in small schools. 

Perhaps thinking back in retrospect, that was probably the reason he held his pencils and crayons so weirdly. He’d been exposed to brushes, and adopted them far better than their counterparts. 

By the time Rohmio was already fuming at his head from the letter overload, he’d barely finished two pages of his rock compendium. With six names having been spelled out in total, progress, but there’s only so much that Haila and Luma can do until they find him a proper place to learn more. Rohmio is still young yes, but he’s also a slow developer. Something that seems to be a common trait among all of Haila’s children. 

“Are you ready for bed?” Haila asked, smiling softly at her son as she set down her pen and started this time brushing his hair. However, Rohmio remained quiet for a time, cooling off from lesson overload and seemingly spinning something in his mind. 

“Mama…” he finally started, breaking the silence as he set his crayon down to look up at the Viera that was his mother. 

“Am I going to grow beeg ears someday?” he asked her, the question causing Haila’s own leporine ears to twitch slightly in response. 

She smiled slightly defeated, eyes trailing off to her child’s drawings as she remained quiet for a time. She’d contemplated being asked a similar question before. Rohmio was by all means, the outcast when it came to their family on the outside after all. There was no stopping him asking why he was different someday, and that’s something that she knew had tormented her for a time. 

“No, I’m afraid you won’t… You’ll get to keep one shape unless you accidentally drink something wrong.” she told him with all sincerity, a tone perhaps a bit grimm, but Haila had always thought to tell him outright if he ever asked, he deserved that much. 

Rohmio frowned slightly. To him, it was a given that his family was just that special, and most of all, his mom could ‘fly’ and do everything he could think of. But with age, despite still being extremely young, he’d become more perceptive. His mother couldn't fly, Baby was the one doing the work. His father changing shape that slightly matched his siblings being one of the few facts that he could still not explain for himself. 

They were all shape shifters, that had been his answer, which meant he too would shift someday. But what now? Knowing he wouldn’t change just brought several more questions to the table. 

Haila though, seemed busy thinking further about her son while he rummaged through his own ideas. 

“Do you ever grow bored Rohmio? Of being just with Mama and Papa and now Howl and Helia?” she asked him gently. A question that had been gnawing at her for some time now. 

Rohmio this time shook his head some. He had gotten to play with other children yes, so perhaps the answer was that his home wasn’t as lively as a Keeper clan. But there was no denying that his parents had done their best at trying to have at least one of them by his side at all times. And despite him being unaware of it, perhaps this was all that he’d like. 

“Mama, why won’t I grow ears later?” he asked her innocently. 

Haila hummed lowly, eyeing the pencils they’d been using for letters as she carefully shifted through papers to find a blank unused one. 

“Well… Mama has many secrets. And not all of them are happy ones. I’ll-” she trailed off, an idea coming to her mind. 

“How about this? I’ll write a letter for you to read each cycle. I’ll tell you a secret for each birthday we share together until you’re old enough to understand.”

The offer clearly brought sparks to Rohmio’s eyes. Another treasure hunt, a game to decipher something this time. Except for one caveat, he was still not good with words. Haila smirked slightly at him, seeing the realization flash through her son’s eyes. 

Well.. The first secret she’d write for him clearly needed to be a sentence long.

[ofdragonsdeep]

Librarian

Ar'telan learns that it is not shameful to ask for help.

By the time Ar’telan made his way back to the Waking Sands, exhaustion had begun to threaten every muscle in his body. The heat was enough on its own, pervasive dryness that sent him to the shade in consternation, but he had done quite some walking around the markets of Ul’dah, then taken the chocobo all the way to Vesper Bay. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering how anyone could bear to live in the choking desert.

Still, the Waking Sands was comforting, the lower floors cooled by the shade and proximity to the sea. Tataru waved at him as he walked past, a nod of his head the only reply he could manage with his hands full, and he opened the door to the main rooms with an awkward elbow against the handle.

It was quiet in the Waking Sands now, with so many of the Scions involved in the move to their new headquarters in the Rising Stones. Every so often, Ar’telan would pass a Scion with a heavy box in their hands, or a checklist and a frown upon their face. Now that the main hustle and bustle of the move was mostly over, Ar’telan found that he enjoyed the quiet.

The tables which had once held groups of Scions reviewing information or planning forays now lay all but empty. Ar’telan took his books to one, carefully setting them down upon the wood and pulling out a chair. He found it easier to concentrate with fewer people around, and the Rising Stones was always bustling. Not so the Waking Sands.

He had found a few books in the Ruby Bazaar, all of which would, he hoped, be useful eventually. His main acquisition was a slightly out of date copy of the Enchiridion - the most recent, pristine copies were never allowed out of Ishgard, of course, but occasionally your jobbing outsider heretic could find older volumes here and there. It had been the most expensive of his purchases by a significant amount, though that was was not saying much. He had opened it in Ul’dah, in fact, and found that one passage of Eorzean text looked much the same as any other, so he had no way to know if he had been duped for the present.

Hence his other purchases. One book was, at his best guess, a simple children’s story, one a folding poster of Eorzean letters, and the last a book on the Twelve, far less thick and intimidating than the Enchiridion and - importantly - one which had pictures.

Meracydia knew of the Twelve. Their worship was as uncertain as any kind of reverence was in a place so scarred by Eikons, persisting only because in all their history, no clan or tribe could find record of an Eikonic manifestation of one of the Twelve. When he had first come to Eorzea, hearing the story of the Calamity had concerned him - an invocation of the Twelve accompanied by fervent prayer and expended aether had all the hallmarks of disaster - but the spell had failed. Though he still wondered at what had truly happened, what had stopped the Dawn Wyrm’s crazed image from laying all Eorzea to waste, that it was not the Twelve was clear enough.

Ishgard, then, revered the Fury. He recognised the sound when Haurchefant said the word, a quick, sharp word as pointed as her spears. It was not Meracydia’s word for Halone, though the name was the same, a fact which fascinated him beyond measure. He had tried to translate it, a difficult task when one could only “hear” translated words and speak with intent and feeling, and got little for his trouble. Haurchefant had been surprised at the revelation that he did not, in fact, understand Eorzean in and of itself, and even more surprised that on Meracydia, the Fury did not sanction the blind culling of dragons.

It was the latter which drove his research now. On Meracydia, dragons were the closest thing to sacred that a living creature could be. Elder wyrms of Tiamat’s brood, songless now in the Dusk Mother’s absence, were the cornerstone of every tribe, every clan, every city. Whether settlement or roaming unit, every Meracydian lived with dragons. Through their song, they remembered, each new generation of Meracydians keeping the story safe within their hearts. The truth of the aether-twisted wastes. The reason for the Tempered thralls that crawled out of them. Why they burned their dead. Every crime that Allag had visited upon Meracydia was painted in lifelike certainty by the wyrmbrood’s song, that none would ever forget it, that none would ever repeat it. Veneration of the Twelve, such that it was, did not preclude such a thing. Halone punished evildoers - it was the tip of her spear that sent them to the Hell of Ice. Halone’s name had been invoked against Allag many times in Ar’telan’s life, in fact. So why in Ishgard did She fight? Why, in Ishgard, did the dragons not even deign to speak, roaming the ice-blasted countryside like no more than rabid beasts?

When he had first arrived in Coerthas, careless words had almost landed him in the cells of the Inquisition. Had it not been for his status as an outsider, he knew he likely would have been executed on the spot. It had been an embarrassing faux pas then, but one that meant little in the grand scheme of things, with a heretic plot ready to poison the chalice regardless. Now, with the Scions working with House Fortemps and the Temple Knights to get to the root of their current heretic issues, Ar’telan was becoming keenly aware that he could not afford any more idle missteps.

He did not want to ask, precisely. He had spoken with Haurchefant about it, very quietly, but for him to be seen entertaining anything even vaguely heretical would be disastrous for him. Francel, only recently recovered from one accusation of heresy, was not in a good place to add more. So he would have to find his answers elsewhere, in the dragonless stretches of Eorzea, where the Fury was yet synonymous with the blood of scalekin.

Unfortunately, without wanting to bother others with his questions, Ar’telan was left with the unfortunate reality that he was entirely unable to read Eorzean letters.

He had thought that he might be able to teach himself. He knew the names of the Twelve, their Eorzean pronunciations and their epithets. He was not illiterate - he knew his Meracydian letters just fine, not that he often had much cause to use them - but it had been quite some time since he had last had to learn a language, especially one that he did not actually hear unless he concentrated on the words around what the Echo told him. He could put the letters to sounds, and he did recognise some clusters of words - ‘aetheryte’, ‘Inn’, ‘malm’ - from the signs he had seen about the realm on his travels. But the words meant nothing devoid of context or structure, and so he was left staring at what was, in essence, meaningless scribbles.

“Thy face seems’t akin to crumpled fabric in its consternation, Ar’telan,” Urianger remarked, his voice startling Ar’telan out of staring at the book in front of him in frustration. “What troubles thee?”

“Nothing,” he signed, hurried motions that betrayed his lies. Urianger seemed unmoved, his face a near-expressionless mystery beneath the hood and goggles.

“Thy notes and tomes bespeak research, and thy countenance a trouble with it. If work doth trouble thee, perhaps I may assist?” Ar’telan chewed on his lip uncertainly.

“It’s… Do you promise not to tell the others?” he asked. Urianger paused, and Ar’telan could almost make out the frown among his concealments.

“Of course, if it concerns you so gravely,” he said, and Ar’telan nodded uncertainly.

“It’s- you know I am from Meracydia?” he asked, and Urianger inclined his head. “The language you speak and write in Eorzea is not my own. I do not… really know many words of it, in truth. The Echo translates for me.”  Urianger nodded.

“Full many Eorzeans cannot read,” he said. “‘Tis no surprise that thou art among them, given thy heritage. I can teach thee, if it concerns thee.” Ar’telan relaxed a little, heartened by the revelation. He wondered how they got much done, when so much of their society seemed to revolve around books, especially in Coerthas, but he supposed it was another cultural quirk he di dnot fully understand.

“I would appreciate it,” he agreed. “I am… trying to learn of the Fury.” Urianger nodded, duly taking in the books that Ar’telan had amassed in his travels.

“I can tell thee all I know on the Twelve,” he offered. “Though research hath shown me that their forms are much the same in all corners of the realm. ‘Tis a curiosity that I would be full glad to add Meracydia’s recollections to.” 

“I shall consider my stories payment for your time, then,” Ar’telan offered. “I only wished to understand Ishgard. I have been spending much time there of late, and the more that I do, the more I realise that our customs are vastly different. I don’t… I don’t want to make things difficult for the Scions, or for those in Coerthas who are helping us. That’s all.”  Urianger smiled at that.

“A most noble effort. All of those touched by thy light would be most gladdened by thy fervous,” he said, a statement that Ar’telan thought meant to reassure. “We shall start with tales, then, that thy work may continue unimpeded, and take lessons on thy letters whensoever the time doth allow.” 

“I appreciate it,” Ar’telan said, relief swelling in his chest. “I wish I did not have to ask, with all manner of primals threatening the realm and your time so sorely pressed, but…”

“Thou art a friend, Ar’telan. ‘Tis no trouble for me to assist thee,” Urianger disagreed. “Indeed, full glad am I that my talents might be so useful. Fret not. We shall start at the beginning, and no matter the speed of thy understanding, shall press forward until thy work is done.” Ar’telan smiled, casting another glance back down at the book. It was still a meaningless smear of ink, but it felt less intimidating to know that, one day, it might not be. And it was good to know that Urianger was not phased by the idea of an Arcanist - a Scholar even, if he was taking the Nymian term for their strategists - might not even be able to manage simple letters. 

Thou art a friend.

He hoped the memorry would stay.

[xiakha]

FFXIVWrite2021 Prompt #8 - Adroit

The Warrior of Light, Savior of Eorzea, Azure Dragoon, Van Baelsar's Downfall could not read Eorzean letters.

Though it was a thought that made the Literati of Aldenard tremble, should it not be expected? After all, it was naught six moons after she set foot in Limsa Lominsa that she laid waste to the Praetorium within Castrum Meridianum and destroyed the Ultima Weapon. There was hardly a moment for the Warrior of Light to sit down with phonics.

...Not that she could read other languages. She grew up with one of the Southern Seas Moonkeeper tongues that lacked an alphabet entirely.

...Not that she spoke Eorzean. Though one would never realize it through simple interaction with her, the Echo's ability to translate all languages for her meant that, unless she was consciously attempting to listen to the rolling babble that made up the Eorzean syllabary, she had spent the last six months, and year and a half before that whist privateering, understanding everything in the roil that made up her Moonkeeper dialect. Most people would describe her simply as stoic, the strong silent type. Actions speak louder than words, after all.

However, her chosen entourage were the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, which had a core of Sharlayan graduates and post-grads. And Minfilia and Yda.

Mayhap that was the key to why Xiao seemed to prefer their company by default. It was difficult to participate in the conversations and arguments about arcane marginalia when your only responses were an emphatic nod, a shrug, and an expression of careful consideration to mask cluelessness. But the Sharlayan scholars were not all indifferent to her struggles.

Y'sthola and Alphinaud had made it their mission to slowly have Xiao learn Eorzean. Y'shtola did it for the sake of wishing to have actual conversation and also wanting to hear Xiao express herself (What little she remembered of her own Miqo'te tongue was a tattered mess from childhood), and Alphinaud did it for the principle of the matter (But of course he did). Thus it was that Y'shtola had frustratingly plodding immersive conversations with Xiao, and Alphinaud lectured fruitlessly through a Sharlayan children's primer on phonetics.

But all of that came to an abrupt close when the Warrior of Light was accused of assassinating the Sultana. Beset on all sides with hardly the words to explain herself, what was she to do? No amount of nodding was going to help her there. Perhaps that was what Teledji Adeledji was banking for. Perhaps a cynic would say that, after so many moons of people assuming and showing good will, it was inevitable that someone would use the Warrior of Light's mute nature to their own advantage.

* * *

The three processed grief in very different ways.

Alphinaud sulked and brooded before landing himself in the library. Maybe if he read the right book for the situation he could take advantage of it all, or at least ease his sense of guilt.

Tataru had perhaps the healthiest coping mechanism. She threw herself into work, yes, but it was sociable work. It was surrounded by those that learned to care for her as they cared for the other inhabitants of Camp Dragonhead. It was acts of creation and crying on the willing shoulders of her growing network of friends and acquaintances.

Xiao Longbao destroyed.

Murder would have spoken some sort of intent to harm, a vendetta or motivation. Nay, she destroyed for the sake of destruction. Camp Dragonhead went through more training dummies in the first fortnight after the banquet than it had since the Umbral Calamity. They were all expertly dismantled with strength that rivaled Ralghr's despite the fact that she never used anything but the practice weapons one was supposed to use within the confines of the fortress. They were also running out of those as well.

As for the Dravanian incursions, House Fortemps soldiers would rally and charge the enemy to only find blood and limbs littering the mountainside, and if they were fortunate, a tired looking Miqo'te, her hair matted with blood, leaning on a spear, looking out towards Mor Dhona.

If they were unlucky, they'd find an axe wielding beast hacking apart an already dead ogre or Vodoriga.

Then, once the destruction was through, the Warrior of Light would imbibe enough to kill a horse. Perhaps it was normal for a former privateer, but it still gathered rumors and whispers when the supposed Savior was found slumped over in the mess hall deep in the cups almost every night. She would rise from this state in the morrow and repeat. Outward destruction by day, inward destruction by night. Alas, who would confront her? Camp Dragonhead enjoyed the first fortnight without an injury or casualty among her garrison for the first time in memory. It wasn't that they were ungrateful just, just... who had the words?

So the concern reached all the way to the top, and Lord Haurchefant, Commander of Camp Dragonhead, decided finally that it would no longer be improprietous for intervention. Oh, he had flirted and expressed his interest once upon a time, but as the debt his small dominion began to accrue in the Warrior of Light's ledger, never mind that she would never come around to collect, he distanced himself for he knew his place. He was not one to risk scandal for House Fortemps. But surely, surely now that Ishgard proper was indebted to the Warrior of Light, now that, begrudgingly, she was recognized as another Azure Dragoon by Estinien and even by Ishgard's vaunted Dragoon Corps, surely there could be no fuss to be made.

It was why he immediately received the trio, shivering and alone in the cold, without question and gave them rooms and the intercessory. But the embers he felt, he dared still not fan. Let them stay cooling coals, both he and the Warrior of Light had other fires to attend to. But now, but now, he would risk fanning the flame. After all, did they not work well together? Did they not admire one another?

So it was that, upon her return one bloody afternoon, Haurchefant greeted Xiao with a still steaming bucket of water.

"I had thought your hair ever a dashing violet. When did it become so faded and browned?" he said, wrinkling his nose, "Moreover, when was the last time you bathed?"

Xiao barely had the time to hiss at him when the water hit her. But whatever rage she felt was utterly wiped out by the shock of water, and the feeling of comfort it brought to her stiffening body, following by shivering as the warmth quickly passed.

Haurchefant looked down at the pooled gore that the first bucket knocked off her. With impunity he tossed at her a second bucket's worth, then a third.

"There is a bath of this very same water prepared for you," he said, "But I had been forewarned that you mayhap require a pre-emptive soaking. 'Tis unfitting of a lady to smell as if she has crawled into something that had died and wear it as a dress."

Xiao opened her mouth, her voice a hoarse growl from disuse, "Not lady, a weapon."

"Very well, but a weapon without maintenance and cleaning is liable to break, and the fortress ill needs a broken blade on the battlefield."

So it was that Haurchefant lead Xiao by the hand into the Manor, to his own private quarters, where a bath was drawn and waiting. Xiao did little to resist the careful hands with which he removed the plate amor that she had slept in and the caring and precise manner with which he undid the bindings of the leather she wore underneath. She sat as in a stupor on the stool as Haurchefant scrubbed her back and limbs with warmed rags, delicately dabbing at bruises and areas where her skin had chafed away without her realizing. She merely grunted at the stinging, her eyes still staring off thousands of yalms away. The bathroom floor was soon a muck of brown with the filth that was wiped off her, and the bathwater didn't quite change colors nearly as dramatically when Haurchefant finally settled her in.

She hadn't realized how weary she was. She hadn't realized how hard she pushed herself. She hadn't realized how disgusting her tail fur was. It was as if she were waking up again after a long, troubled dream.

But the pain returned. The anguish, the failure. Y'shtola...

Lost and adrift with thoughts that she had been avoiding, she didn't notice Haurchefant leave and return with a clean shirt and a book.

He began reading from it, and the lyrical timber of his voice was enough for Xiao to push away the Echo and ask, "What is this?"

"A book of poems, written in old Ishgardian tongue. They would bring me comfort in my youth as my mother read from them."

The rise and fall of his voice entrained her thoughts on it, despite not quite understanding the words, the skillful play of tones and syllables, the steady dah-dih-dah-dih-dah-dah of the verses.

Immersed in warmth and the beauty of Haurchefant's voice, Xiao drifted off peacefully for the first time in days.

[haillenarte]

white day 2018;

Here is a full translation of the (thus far) Japanese-exclusive White Day 2018 Developer’s Blog post.

First, the dry translator’s disclaimers: this post is intended as a polished translation on par with official content. As such, I have taken certain liberties with the text: though it was originally in more or less a script format, I embellished it to make it a prose post consistent with other English developer’s blog posts. Most of the moogle’s narration was invented by me in order to preserve humor and narrative flow. This is nothing that the localization team itself does not do. I can assure you that the core details remain essentially intact and untouched.

Also, I have heard that a few people did rough translations of this post already, but I did not cross-reference anybody’s translations when writing this post. I probably should have. It would have gone a lot quicker.

Happy White Day, Kupo!

March 14, 2018

Well met, kupo!

‘Tis I, the ever-industrious deputy postmoogle... or rather, his aspiring apprentice!

I worked ever so hard to deliver the realm’s confessions of love this Valentione’s Day, kupo — the only time of year we postmoogles fly about in the open without concealing ourselves!

Rest assured, your passion-packed gifts of chocolate made their way safely into the hands of your friends and foes alike! Why, we postmoogles were so busy that my wings cramped up!

Let me tell you how it went, kupo.

First, I flew over to the Rising Stones in Mor Dhona.

When Mistress Y’shtola saw me at the door, she said, “My, what a prodigious number of packages. More tokens of affection from your many lady loves, Thancred?”

Master Thancred got all embarrassed, kupo. “There’s no need to glare at me so,” he protested. “This is all a misunderstanding, I assure you!”

And he was right — not all of it was for him! Mistress Y’shtola and Master Alphinaud got plenty of presents, too!

But you know who got the most chocolate, kupo? Why, it was Mistress Alisaie!

Alphinaud didn’t seem too surprised, kupo. “Impressive as always, dear sister,” he said. “Now that I think on it, you had quite a number of admirers when we were yet students in Sharlayan, did you not?”

“Yes, dear brother,” Mistress Alisaie snapped, “I was always being stopped in the halls by admirers... your admirers! I was being mistaken for you!”

After that, I flew over to Fortemps Manor, in Ishgard.

Count Edmont was very kind, kupo! I was struggling to fly under a giant pile of perfectly-wrapped presents, but he said he’d take them off my hands. “My son will be much pleased,” he said.

I was a little concerned about Lord Emmanellain, but Honoroit told me not to worry about it, kupo. “My lord is simply upset that he has received nothing,” he said, “as is the case each and every year.”

Then I went around the neighborhood, kupo!

I had lots of gifts for Ser Aymeric, but some of them were gifts for the people of Ishgard in general. So I asked him if I could leave those in his care, and he said yes!

“I suppose we should be proud that Valentione’s Day was born from Ishgardian customs,” Ser Aymeric said. And I absolutely agree, kupo! I have fun delivering everyone’s letters of love, too!

I had a few more packages for Ser Estinien, and I didn’t know where to put them, kupopo...

But when I asked where I could find him, Aymeric laughed. “That... is a difficult question,” he said. “Well, if his name is writ large on the package, and you leave it by the window, I imagine he might come by and pick it up.”

I guess that’s not the strangest mailbox I’ve ever had to use, kupo...

From Coerthas, I went through the Black Shroud and found my way to Buscarron’s Druthers.

“Gifts for Laurentius?” Buscarron asked me. “That brainless fool... Fine, I’ll keep ‘em with the stuff that was addressed to Yuyuhase.”

That was a load off my pom, kupo! But when I asked him if he’d help me make my delivery to, erm, L-Lord Ramuh, Buscarron said his hands were tied. “Wait, even primals get presents?” he grumbled. “’Fraid you’ll have to ask the Sylphs to help you with that...”

The weather in the Shroud is nice and cool, kupo, but then I had to fly all the way to hot, hot Ul’dah to deliver more mail... blech.

I think Lord Lolorito quirked an eyebrow at me, but I really couldn’t tell because of his mask, kupo. “Am I being bribed in broad daylight, now?” he asked.

I got kind of scared, so I blurted out that they weren’t bribes — they were declarations of love!

He was probably smirking behind his moustache, but all he said was, “I suppose hearts are worth more than their weights in gil every now and then. Leave them at the door.”

Phew! Another successful delivery made, kupo!

Of course, I also made my way to lively Ala Mhigo — you know, the not-so-little one, kupo. Big Ala Mhigo?

General Aldynn said it’s nice every now and then to celebrate the holidays! “All this excitement reminds me of Ul’dah’s bustling markets,” he said. “Is that one for Lyse?”

It sure was, kupo! I had lots of other packages to give out, but Lyse said she’d hold on to them. “All of these presents are so beautiful!” she said. “Let’s hand them out together later!”

And then, and then! Your humble apprentice postmoogle finally got to board a ship and sail across the great ocean, kupo!

I felt like I was developing what they call the professional spirit, kupo... Maybe I’m even more professional than the deputy postmoogle?

Just kidding, kupo. He’d confiscate my bag and cap if he heard that...

But I made my way to Doma, and it was amazing!

Valentione’s Day seemed like a new concept to Isse, but he was sure surprised about it, kupo. He was all — “S-So this one’s for me? Really?”

He was so flustered, he was fluttering about even more than I was, kupo! It made Lord Hien laugh. “What pleasant customs our Eorzean friends have!” Hien said. “Come now, Isse, hold your head high and accept your admirers’ gifts with pride.”

Even Lady Yugiri told Isse he’d earned it, kupo! Though if I’m being honest, the majority of those packages were addressed to Lord Hien.

From there, I made my way to the Azim Steppe...

I-It was dead silent, kupo...

Magnai just stared at me the whole time... e-even when I said that I’d brought him presents... or, um, offerings?

“So what you are telling me, pig,” he finally said, “is that even people of other nations have acknowledged the supremacy of the Sun?”

I was so nervous I didn’t know how to answer, but luckily, the other Oronir had my pom, kupo! “Most radiant brother!” someone called out. “Perhaps this is that kind of thing!”

“Yes,” another chimed in, “perhaps some bashful yet beautiful maiden has entrusted her feelings to the delivery services of this pig!”

“Let us show these admirers of your radiance the glory and generosity of Father Azim by inviting them here to dine with us!” someone else added.

And then I heard a couple of them muttering, “And with any luck, you will find your Nhaama at long last...”

But I’m not a pig, kupo... I’m not...

I was dead tired after that, kupo... I felt fried to a crisp by the Sun...

That’s why I took a break at a famous hot spring! And after I recharged myself, I had one final stop to make in Kugane!

I had to find Asahi, the Ambassador Plenipom-whatsit, at the Garlean consulate. I thought it might be like delivering to Magnai again, but he was surprisingly easy to talk to. He even smiled and thanked me for bringing him his Valentione’s Day chocolates, kupo.

I felt like I could trust him, so I told him that I had a huuuuge pile of presents for someone named Zenos! But I was a little intimidated by all the imperial soldiers, kupo... and I didn’t want to get too close...

“No need to worry,” Asahi said. “You may leave them with me — they will be quite safe in my hands. Rest assured, I will most certainly see them delivered for you.”

His... friend, kupo? That Maxima man? Well, he stepped in to take everything out of my mailbag! “Lord Asahi,” he said, “please, leave such menial tasks to me. You needn’t concern yourself with this.”

“...Of course,” Asahi replied after a lengthy pause. “My thanks, Maxima.”

...Kupopo? Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe that was a bad idea...?

Well, whatever! That was my super busy Valentione’s Day, kupo!

There’s so much more I could tell you about, but rest assured, we postmoogles delivered love to every corner of the realm!

Valentione’s Day is so full of love every year!

But you know what, kupo?

Even if it’s not a special day, and there aren’t any presents to give or receive, love is always flowing between people.

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? That’s why I’m always happy, kupo! Just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye!

Oh, but guess what, kupo? I’ve got a letter addressed to you, too!

I’ll read it to you, okay? Ready? Here goes!

“From the bottom of my heart, thank you.” — Somebody who loves you

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