Chapter Text
“And don’t come back!” The young Raen was thrown from the building, tumbling across the paved cobbles. A handful of onlookers gave her pitiful looks, though many more merely gave her glances of disdain. From her experience, girls being thrown to the street were not a terribly uncommon sight in Ul’dah, though thankfully she didn’t think she’d ever seen any as young as her.
In Vira’s case, she was being tossed from the Quicksand. At twelve summers of age with no practical skills nor the strength for physical labour, the only jobs she could effectively do were odd-jobs and novice adventuring work. She had tried to convince that wench Momodi to let her join the guild too many times to count, and it seems the Lalafellin woman had finally tired enough of her antics to ban her from the Quicksand entirely.
Maybe if she just lied here, things would get better. Somehow. What use was a combat healer when no one let her near combat? Would she just be destined to starve in some back alley, not a gil to her name?
Ugh.
A distant, errant thought creeped into her head: should she have just stayed home? Made do in Limsa Lominsa, living in a home with a father who couldn’t be bothered to care for her? At least she would’ve had a roof over her head…
The thought was quickly smothered. She couldn’t go back, not to Limsa, not to Vylbrand. Motes of flame, ever expanding, ever growing, closer and closer. The rumbles as Dalamud fragmented and rent the earth from itself, as the dreadwyrm rained hellfire down upon them. Upon her. Her breath grew short, her lungs disobeying their nature. Shallow breath after shallow breath. She tried to sit up, only for stars and spots to fill her vision. She couldn’t do this, she cou–
“Kid, you all right?” A hand touched her shoulder.
In a moment, Vira was shot back to reality, eyes narrowing in on the stranger as her hand whipped to her wand. No one offered help for free in Ul’dah. No one , especially not sleazy Lalafells with slicked back hair like the one holding onto her. She could tell the look in his eyes was disingenuous, filled with deceit.
Not bothering to wait, Vira ran. She was young, but she was no fool– far from it. Her lungs and heart found new meaning as they pumped oxygen to her suddenly strained muscles, running to the distant gates to the outside of the city. Her only reason for being here was gone for good, her hopes of joining the guild; dashed.
It was time to move on. To try again.