Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

G'raha Tia has a problem, and it’s shaped like an adventurer.

It had started like this:

He’d just finished refining his hard-won prize from Urth’s Gift into water-aspected aethersand, and was on the hunt for its wind-aspected cousin. After chasing down many fruitless leads, he’d finally determined it could be found in the Ixali logging grounds. He had infiltrated the area and was scouting the location from the cover of a carefully-climbed — and rather precarious — logpile when a thundering noise and an ominous quaking rang out from the grounds’ entrance, nearly unseating him and toppling his perch.

He made a hasty, emergency dismount — visually similar to falling, but not the same at all. While sprawled on the ground, he caught the barest flicker of movement from the corner of his eye.

Far above, dancing quickly atop tall rocks that lined the logging grounds, a figure leapt gracefully from peak to peak. G'raha noted with begrudging envy their tactical height advantage, so far up they were unlikely to be seen by anyone on the ground who was not — like G'raha — looking directly upwards. Unlike every Ixal on the premises had been, they were moving in the opposite direction of the now-towering pillar of smoke at the entrance. Moving, in fact, directly towards G'raha's own target — the storage crates near the war balloons.

A challenger? he’d thought, and — with only a respectable minimum of coughing — had scrambled to his feet to follow.

Unlike his competitor, G'raha’s own passage did not go unnoticed by the Ixal. What few remained after the explosive distraction could not miss the crimson flash of him dashing through their midst, and he’d soon found himself tailed by two windtalons and one of their watchwolves. When they drew too close for comfort, G'raha drew his bow and hamstrung one of them with a well-placed shot.

Before he could notch a second arrow, he was startled by a new crack like thunder, this time just behind him. A percussive blast of air buffeted G'raha’s shoulder before smashing into his pursuers, launching the remaining Ixal and his pet clear into the river below.

G'raha whirled to find his challenger — an uncommonly tall Miqo’te man — grinning down at him from atop a tethered war balloon, snapping an arcanist’s grimoire shut with a sly flourish.

“You!” G'raha called out, glaring. “What are you doing here?”

The stranger cocked his head at G'raha, a curious glint in his eye — and then ducked, as a spray of stones buffeted the balloon’s chassis. Another contingent of Ixal stone-throwers had arrived, no doubt summoned by the roar of magic. Serves you right, G'raha had thought bitterly, diving behind cover himself — but not without a twinge of worry.

When the man next appeared, peering above the spiked wall of the chassis, he had both seemed unharmed and had had the audacity to look impatient. He brandished a knife at the balloon’s mooring rope and raised an eyebrow in G'raha’s direction, his expression clearly reading well, are you coming or not?

Cursing under his breath and dodging more stones, G'raha made a mad dash for the nearest open crate. There were several small pouches inside, and he snatched one up, hoping it was the aethersand he needed. He leapt for the balloon with nary a second to spare as the other Miqo’te slashed their tether, and Ixal stone-throwers leaped from their vantage points to give chase. The stranger helped haul G'raha into the basket proper and whipped his book open, sending their craft careening into the skies above with one last surge of aether — and G'raha careening onto the deck.

He groaned, ears ringing as he tried to get up. His head was spinning — or perhaps the balloon was spinning, he couldn’t tell — but the stranger was leaning with graceful ease against the rail behind. G'raha had no choice but to take his measure from the basket floor.

He certainly didn’t look like an arcanist. Trousers tied off at the knee were the closest thing he wore to clothing — the rest of his garments appeared nothing more than artfully-wrapped strips of fabric, one covering an arm up to his bicep and another tied around his elbow. A wide band covered just a sliver of his upper chest, tied off above one shoulder, and it did absolutely nothing to conceal a torso riddled with both lean muscles and Miqo’te trial marks.

His slit pupils suggested he might be a fellow Seeker, and the piercing shade of violet surrounding them made G'raha’s blood boil with irrational envy. His skin was a rich umber, his hair a cascade of dark curls. Looking closer, G'raha noticed a lighter layer of fur dusting his shoulders. His raised eyebrow — oh, he’d caught G'raha staring at him for longer than was strictly proper, hadn’t he? And the quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth.... G'raha’d had no idea what that one meant.

“Who — who are you?” he’d sputtered out. The man offered him a steadying hand, but he refused it to stubbornly stand on his own accord with perhaps only a bit of support from the chassis.

The stranger huffed and tilted his head, left ear flicking forward. “I can’t hear you,” he said, and left G'raha blinking in bewilderment. He wasn’t speaking aloud; rather, he was communicating with his hands and expressions in some sort of sign language. That on its own wasn’t incredibly peculiar, but what baffled G'raha was that he understood every word, despite that he couldn’t even identify the language. While G'raha stared, the stranger’s hands continued moving, and the meaning flowed unbidden into G'raha’s consciousness. He was… asking if G'raha could sign.

G'raha had been too distracted in the moment by the mechanism of communication to consider its substance. The gift to communicate across the boundaries of language… it was an exceedingly rare trait, and he could think of but one probable explanation. “Do you have the Echo?” he asked, his ears perking in interest despite himself. Some of his colleagues at the Students of Baldesion were researching the limits of that very ability — surely they would be fascinated to study its effect on signed languages?

The man bit his lip, staring back at G'raha with something that looked suspiciously like amusement. “I suppose that’s a ‘no’, then,” he signed, a touch slower. G'raha’s tail bristled in chagrin, and the man’s eyes crinkled. “Such a pity that I’ll miss your lecture. I’m sure it would have been fascinating.” He certainly didn’t look disappointed, G'raha thought. He looked incredibly smug.

Fuming, G'raha had reached into his belt pouch — and no, he did not stumble when he let go of the wall, he was adjusting — and whipped out his field journal. If this man was casting out of a grimoire, surely he must be able to read.

A lecture is the least you deserve, he scribbled furiously against the balloon’s center console. Were you responsible for those explosions?

The man crept closer, peering over his shoulder while he wrote. If G'raha had been bristled before, at this, he positively puffed up. The other Miqo’te smelled like sweat and levin, and the crackle of it across G'raha’s nose sent shivers down his spine.

The stranger, apparently oblivious to the effect he was having on G'raha, leaned against the column. He was still so close, his hip less than an ilm from G'raha’s hand. “Just a little explosion,” he signed cheerfully, fingers pinched as if to demonstrate how little he thought it. “I needed a distraction. And didn’t you need one as well?”

G'raha’s tail lashed. He put graphite to parchment once more, adding furious underlines as his temper rose. I was sneaking. Your distraction nearly turned me into wood chips.

“Oh, dear. Did I do that?” the man asked, and — audaciously, shamelessly — leaned even closer. G'raha felt the barest brush of fingertips against his cheek, against the tender shell of his ear, as the man reached back — and plucked a shard of bark from G'raha’s hair.

Graha felt his face heat from — from — from the utter nerve of this fiend. “My sincerest apologies,” the man continued, blissfully immune to G'raha’s fiery glare. “Any slight on your honor was entirely unintentional, I assure you.”

G'raha's fingers ached, desperately, to push him out of the balloon.

The man had seemed unaware — or perhaps just unbothered — by G'raha’s homicidal urges. He was smiling, actually, as if all of this was terribly amusing. “Did you at least get our aethersand,” he signed, “despite all the trouble I put you through?”

G'raha’s eyebrows shot into his bangs. “Our aethersand?” he blurted. The man twitched an ear, the amused glint back in his eye — or maybe it was permanent. Perhaps he always looked so incredibly insufferable. G'raha blushed furiously, and then repeated a sign he’d seen a moment before — a sweeping gesture encompassing the two of them.

The man bit his lip, flashing a hint of fang. He was clearly struggling not to laugh, which did nothing to ease G'raha’s fury. “You’re G'raha Tia, aren’t you?” he asked, the name spelled out in a rapid flurry of symbols. “Student of Baldesion, recently assigned to the Sons of Saint Coinach?”

G'raha’s jaw didn’t drop, but it was a near thing. He fumbled with his journal, turned the page, and scrawled on the back. Who are you?

“My name is Khovu,” the man replied, with a cocky flick of his fingers. “Rammbroes sent me to collect you.”

And so G'raha found himself returned to Mor Dhona — not by the Ixal balloon, which they thankfully left in the care of the Wood Wailers, but by aetheryte, escorted through the jump by Khovu. G'raha was grudgingly impressed — the man must have vast natural stores of anima, if he was able to pull partners with him with such ease. This Khovu character didn’t even have the good grace to look tired from the exertion, though he was more than happy to support a — very slightly — green-gilled G'raha when he wavered after the jump.

Khovu was apparently well-known to a good number of the expedition’s members. The legendary Cid Garlond certainly held him in high esteem — to the extent that he wouldn’t allow anyone to enter the freshly-opened tower until Khovu had surveyed the area.

Visions of irreplaceable Allagan relics blown to pieces by aetherial explosions danced in G'raha’s mind’s eye, and he’d insisted immediately on coming along. Khovu gave him one sidelong look and a flatly signed, “No.”

“Allagan history is my life’s work!” G'raha protested, finding himself as easily incensed here as he was back in the balloon. “My expertise would be invaluable, and I’d like to use it on intact artifacts.” Next to him, a Hyuran woman’s hands were flying — an interpreter, apparently brought in by the Ironworks to translate for Khovu.

Khovu raised an eyebrow at him, thoroughly unimpressed. G'raha didn’t know why that made his blood boil even hotter. “I’m not going in there looking for a fight,” Khovu signed, and even without a tone of voice G'raha certainly felt patronized. “I’m just scouting the area. If I think I can handle the defenses alone, maybe you can come back with me. But if we need a party, you’ll just have to wait.”

G'raha narrowed his eyes, feeling his fur puff up in indignation. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but I can certainly handle myself in a fight.” His ears pinned back, a gesture that Khovu quickly mirrored. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t accompany you.”

“I’ll give you two,” Khovu responded immediately, lips pulled back to bare a hint of teeth — and yes, now he looked quite cross. “They’re the only two things I know about you. One, you’re prone to running off on your own with no warning, and two, you’re incapable of communicating with me without shouting.”

“I am not —” G'raha started to protest; then, catching sight of Rammbroes’ strained expression, he hesitated. Was he shouting?

Oh, seven hells. He was.

That had stung G'raha’s pride, he had to admit. True, he didn’t yet understand the extent of Khovu’s deafness, but even G'raha was socialized enough to realize that he was being unconscionably rude.

As he stood down, mouth sealed shut and tail, quite literally, between his legs, he had glanced back at Khovu, expecting — he wasn’t sure what. That earlier smugness, maybe, or well-deserved disdain. But Khovu wasn’t even looking at him, and that somehow stung more. Instead, the other Miqo’te was conferring with Cid, apparently resolving some last particular before he turned — with nary a glance in G'raha’s direction — and disappeared into the base of the tower.

And there is G'raha’s adventurer-shaped problem. Back in the present and at camp, he wallows in self-inflicted misery, waiting for Khovu’s return. One way or another, a gaggle of adventurers were fighting their way through the Labyrinth before any of the research crew were admitted inside. G'raha simply must accompany them, but he’s gone and botched things with their leader.

Not that he can say he’s surprised. If there’s one thing G'raha Tia excels at, it’s losing friends before he’s ever made them.

But wallowing will only get him so far. He has to believe there is still some path to redemption here, some way to win enough of Khovu’s good grace — or at least, grudging respect — to allow him a place in the vanguard. To find a way out of this hole he’s dug, G'raha will just have to do what he does best — research.

He decides it’s best to start with the camp’s newcomers, the Roegadyn and Lalafell who appeared at some point while G'raha was away. They seemed familiar enough with Khovu back at the tower’s entrance, and also, importantly, have not known G'raha long enough to have soured on him. Hopefully, his boorish display earlier has not already rectified that.

He wanders over to the pair, distinctive in matching blue jumpsuits that mark them as employees of Garlond’s Ironworks company. They are picking over the ruins of the gatekeepers, one of them scanning fragments with some sort of handheld device, both chatting animatedly. As G'raha approaches, he picks up enough of their conversation to understand they’re discussing the statues. One of them wonders aloud why the tower’s defense mechanisms were shaped in such a way, and G'raha seizes the opportunity.

“If I may?” he asks, and feels his tail curl meekly around his ankle when the pair look his way. “The statues are — were — dressed in the traditional armor of the royal guard — and from a very particular era, as well, that of Emperor Xande. Based on similar statues found at other historical sites of record, it is likely that this tower served as one of the Emperor’s courts. Such ceremonially decorated defenses are a common feature of late Allagan architecture.”

“Oh!” The Lalafell visibly jumped at the interruption. G'raha is getting the impression he is easily startled. “You’re one of those Sharlayan researchers, aren’t you? Rammbroes’ friend?”

“Another Sharlayan!” the Roegadyn adds. “Of course you’d be a scholar. Actually, it’s brilliant that you’re here — could we bend your ear about these engineering techniques?”

G'raha’s ears perk up at the request. “Of course! G'raha Tia, of the Students of Baldesion, and I am at your service.”

In short order, he is introduced to Biggs and Wedge, who both seem a friendly sort. They are clearly passionate about the project, despite their very short time as members, and also appear to be genuinely interested in G'raha’s historical insight. G'raha is more mindful than usual about taking up too much air in the conversation — he’s aware that he can talk overly long about his area of interest, and it’s not one of his more endearing qualities — but when they ply him for more information, he can’t help but indulge.

When Wedge makes a passing comment about Khovu’s return, G'raha sees his opening. “It seemed to me that you are already well-acquainted with him,” he says, hoping his lashing tail doesn’t betray his nerves. He was never adept at sly turns of conversation. “How did you meet?”

Luckily, Biggs seems unperturbed by the question. “Oh, Khovu? He rescued us from a right mess of a situation. We were testing a new model of airship, you see — the Tiny Bronco — and a troop of imperials came along and blasted it right out of the sky!”

“And that’s when Khovu appeared!” Wedge adds energetically. “Swooped right in, and blasted them right back — the troop and their magitek armor, all the way back to Baelsar’s Wall!”

G'raha’s eyes widen at this account. “He defeated a whole troop of Garlean infantry and a magitek construct? He must be a formidable warrior.”

“You mean — you don’t know?” Wedge asks, and his expression is difficult to read behind his goggles. “He’s —”

“— pretty respected around these parts, no doubt!” Biggs interrupts, louder than strictly necessary, and G'raha’s ear twitches in confusion. “Ahaha, you should ask him about it himself some time, eh Wedge?”

“Ah, yes, well,” G'raha hedges. His confusion at this strange turn of conversation melts away into chagrin, ears drooping as his gaze drops to the shattered guardians below. “I seem to have made what you’d call a ‘right mess’ of that. I’m afraid that I offended him earlier, you see, and he has every right to be cross with me — but I would like to turn over a new leaf, if it is possible.”

“Oh? Chin up!” Wedge assures him, with a friendly pat at his knee. “He’s really easy to talk to, you know? Well — the actual ‘talking’ part can be a little difficult, but don’t let it stop you!”

“Yes, actually,” G'raha says, perking a little, “I saw the three of you earlier, and you seemed to be having quite a productive conversation. And I noticed, neither of you seemed to be signing…”

“Right!” Wedge replies immediately. “We were using this!”

He pulls a device off of his hip, and G'raha recognizes the form of it immediately. It’s a small display, clearly built around a salvaged Allagan tomestone-reader. There are mechanical inputs grafted onto the back, and Wedge’s hand flies across them, causing letters to appear on the screen. It looks like a painstaking process, but one the Lalafell has quite a lot of practice in.

“A little slow,” Wedge explains, “but it only has to go one way, since we can all understand him. And back at camp we have a larger input device, one we use for company reports, that makes it much faster!”

“An ingenious solution, truly,” G'raha remarks, genuinely impressed. Reverse-engineering Allagan technology is no small feat. He can only guess at the affection this pair have for the man, that they have custom-built such a device to communicate with him more easily. “I can imagine that it would be impractical for combat, however.”

“Oh, we’d never be seen on the front lines with Khovu!” Biggs laughs. “Not unless we’d been kidnapped again.” G'raha raises an eyebrow at the ‘again’ — but he is not meant to hear that story tonight, it seems, as Biggs plows ahead. “His adventuring friends all sign. They’re the ones charging into danger with him, when he needs the help.”

A soft hum from the portal distracts all three of them from their conversation. As they swivel around to look, the magic field ripples, then yields up their wayward adventurer with a soft chime. Despite the portal spitting him out a few fulms above the ground, Khovu lands with a terrible, easy grace, and G'raha feels that irrational anger welling up in him all over again.

Hours from now, he will be lying awake in the deep hours of the night, sleepless and torturing himself by replaying the day’s events over and over. At that point, alone with his thoughts and regrets, he might be ready to admit that he was feeling something closer to envy.

But in this moment, without the gift of space and hindsight, he pins back his ears and charges ahead. He studies Khovu’s form from head to toe, anxious to discover a whiff of smoke, a singed sleeve, any sign that he’s already exploded something important — but he finds not a hair out of place, and gets nothing for his troubles but a very strange look from the other Miqo’te.

“— massive structure,” he sees Khovu explaining in response to some question, “with a lot of branching paths. I think we’ll need multiple full parties. At least three, to be safe.”

“How long will it take?” Rammbroes asks, joining the other expedition members in a loose throng.

“A fortnight, maybe,” Khovu says. “Less, if you aren’t picky about who I bring — but I get the feeling you want adventurers who can keep this close to the vest.”

“That would certainly be wiser,” Cid agrees. “I know it will be no small task to assemble such a sizeable force, but I have the utmost faith in you, my friend.” He claps an arm across Khovu’s back and draws him back towards the campground, already discussing the logistics of arming the raid party with communication devices.

G'raha watches them go, turning Khovu’s words over in his head. At least three parties of adventurers — all circumspect enough to keep the mission a secret, and trustworthy enough not to take advantage of their access to the tower. He knows that Eorzea is lousy with adventurers, but how many can Khovu possibly know that fit these specific criteria? A dozen? Two?

How many adventurers make up one of these parties, anyway?

No — he has to hold out hope that there will be room for him, if he can just convince that damnable Khovu to let him come. Which will be quite a bit easier, he thinks, if they can manage to have a civil conversation.

So, step one — figure out what language Khovu is speaking. Step two — learn as much of it as possible in a single fortnight.

A monumental task, even for one as proficient in learning as he. But G'raha will rise to the challenge. He doesn’t have another choice.

Chapter Text

It takes some wheedling, but G'raha eventually pries the information he needs from the Ironworks’ interpreter. Her name is Svana, and the language she’s translating for Khovu is Ala Mhigan Sign. The country apparently has — or had, before the Garlean occupation — a quite sizeable population of deaf citizens, including Svana’s parents.

Svana also informs him — quite bluntly — that he will not be learning the language out of a book, “Unless your scholars have figured out how to make the pictures move.” Not, he muses, that it would have been an excellent option anyway — there is just not enough time for him to learn a new language the traditional way before Khovu assembles his parties for the Labyrinth, no matter how large said parties need to be.

So his best option — truly, his only option — is to take a shortcut. The Students have in their archives a number of language crystals, a necessary resource for their travels. If he is very lucky, they will have one for Ala Mhigan Sign, and it will not already be checked out to some other member of his order. Only, he has to convince someone who is still on the isle to send it to him.

“So, you’re doing this for a boy?”

Krile Baldesion always asks the most infuriating questions.

“What?” G'raha sputters. He doesn’t know how she always manages to catch him off-guard. “I — I am not — doing this for a boy. What does that even mean? I am concerned about the research opportunities —”

“Mhmm,” Krile hums, sounding entirely unconvinced. “What does he look like?”

G'raha makes an indignant squawk, which only prompts Krile to hum louder. “I hardly see how that is relevant.”

“Well, seeing as you are at my mercy,” Krile says, and he can hear her coy smile, “I believe I get to decide what is relevant. So, what does he look like?”

Fuming, G'raha plops himself onto the nearest stool-height rock, on the cliff where he’s retreated for this call. His tail has fluffed up to about three times its normal size, so he grabs it and starts finger-brushing it smooth as he talks. “He’s a Miqo’te, and tall,” he says. “I believe he might have an ilm or more over Cid Garlond. And he has fur down the scruff of his neck and his shoulders, which isn’t unheard of in male Seekers, but given his age makes me wonder — if I knew the texture of it...”

He’s interrupted by a noise on the end of the line that sounds suspiciously like giggling. Ears planing into a straight line, he glares at a crystal in front of him and imagines it to be a Lalafell. “Krile, are you laughing at me?”

“Raha, I would never,” she says, which is just provably false. “Please continue. I believe you were mentioning how much you wanted to touch his hair.”

G'raha glares again at the crystal; his warped reflection pouts back. “It’s a mane,” he grumbles through grit teeth, “which is made of fur. His hair is dark, densely curled, and long — he’s worn it tied back every time I’ve seen it. His complexion is a lighter, warmer brown.” He stalls for a moment, wondering how long Krile expects him to continue. Her expectant hum over the linkpearl eggs him on. “Ah… He has rather sharp eyes, violet, with a distinctive scar over the left — his right. He carries an arcanist’s grimoire, but he is quite, er… fit, compared to the average student of the arcane arts. And he is absolutely covered in trial marks, nose to hip,” he recalls. “I don’t believe I’ve seen all of them yet, and that’s despite his tendency to parade around without a proper shirt.”

“The nerve!” Krile is feigning scandalized indignation, and not convincingly. She mostly sounds amused. “And have you caught his name yet, or were you too busy staring at his… trial marks?”

G'raha suppresses a hiss of annoyance. He is now quite sure he’s being teased. “Khovu. His name is Khovu.”

Krile makes a thoughtful noise that, for the first time in this conversation, doesn’t seem to be at G'raha’s expense. “Didn’t you say he was a Seeker?” she asks, after a moment. “Would he not generally be called K’hovu Tia?”

“It’s Khovu, not K’hovu,” G'raha explains, and wonders if the distinction will be intelligible over linkpearl. “I made the same mistake two days past, but the area’s levemete, K’leytai, corrected me.” He frowns, remembering the interaction. K’leytai hadn’t elaborated further, and her tone hadn’t been terribly kind. “I, ah… I am not quite sure, myself, of his clan. I thought he was a Seeker by his eyes, but he does also seem to have a Keeper’s fangs. And, well, it may be a sensitive subject to ask about, and I am already on poor terms with the man. Hence my request to you.”

“Aha! So it is about the boy.”

“Only in that the boy holds the key to the Labyrinth,” G'raha grumbles. He is certain the application for a language crystal does not normally require these sorts of questions.

He can hear her smirk. “So I should expect the crystal back as soon as the raid is completed?”

“Well —” G'raha hedges immediately, then blushes at the self-satisfied noise he hears on the other end. “This is just the first phase of the expedition! I can’t very well just stop speaking with him the moment we’re done clearing the Labyrinth, can I?” Then, realizing something, he bolts up from his defeated slump. “Wait — does that mean you’re sending a crystal?”

“I will see what I can do,” Krile replies, her tone all soft reassurance. “Our archives are extensive, but I can’t imagine that this language is well known outside of Eorzea. If we have a crystal at all, it is most likely from before the empire’s invasion, and the subsequent evacuation of the colony.”

“Then no one else in the order could possibly have need of it,” G'raha insists. “Please, Krile. I will beg if I must. This is important.”

“If I can find it, it is yours,” she promises. “I may tease, Raha, but truly this is not an absurd request.” He frowns at that — she certainly didn’t seem to feel that way when she was interrogating him before. But it would be foolish to argue that point now. “We assigned you to observe this expedition, after all. No one would begrudge you the resources needed to communicate with one of its principal members. And, also...”

“Yes?” G'raha asks. In his riled up state, he’s paced a trail of dust into the ground, and his tail thunks into a stubble of brush.

“No, do not mind,” Krile sighs, sounding wistful. “I’ve tormented you enough for one day. You may never call me again if I continue.”

Krile does come through — the language crystal arrives, via chocobo courier. To G'raha’s mixed frustration and relief, Cid announces that same day that the initial incursion into the Labyrinth is to be delayed.

Apparently there is some urgent business in La Noscea that requires not only Khovu’s attention, but a good number of the adventurers he has recruited for the raid. Cid is tight-lipped on the details — and G'raha suspects he does not know all of them — but some persistent members of the Sons are able to glean that it is a matter of life and death. As much as G'raha itches for the whole ordeal to be over and done with, he cannot deny that this is a stroke of good luck for him — it gives him longer to convince Khovu to allow him along.

Over the next sennight, G'raha runs Svana ragged with his signing practice. Attunement with the crystal seems to grant him instant understanding of a wide breadth of the language, though he is left to figure the meaning of some more modern slang and most technical terms through context clues. Whatever linguist originally synthesized this crystal was obviously not a magitek engineer, which puts G'raha at a disadvantage in his present company.

The bigger hurdle, however, is his own two hands. The crystal gives him the knowledge of what signs and expressions he should make to communicate his thoughts, but it has not given him the dexterity and muscle memory of a long-term signer. He is slow, terribly so, and his pronunciation is apparently equally awful. At Svana’s suggestion, he starts by drilling the language’s alphabet — and he spends multiple bells a day doing so. Supposedly, when his signs fall short, he should be able to fingerspell to shore up the gap. But he watches how Svana flies lightning-quick through the letters when she works, remembers Khovu doing the same, and knows that even they would struggle to fingerspell their way through a harrowing fight. Even without seeing them in action, he has the feeling that Khovu’s comrades are not stopping to spell out their thoughts in the middle of combat.

When another fortnight passes without word on the problem in La Noscea, G'raha starts asking for a way to contact Khovu.

Cid is happy to supply him with a linkpearl. Supposedly, it is a direct link to the man from some previous adventure of theirs. G'raha smuggles it out of camp and back up to his cliff; after double, then triple checking that he is alone, he sends out the hail.

After quite a long delay, he hears the snap of aether that indicates a connection. Much to his surprise, the voice on the other end of the line is a woman’s — cheerful, musical, and certainly not Khovu’s.

“This is Khovu’s linkpearl,” she says, “Altani Tani speaking. How may I direct your query?”

“I— er.” G'raha blinks at his own feet. “Did you say — Altani Tani?”

“Yes,” he hears her laugh, and in the background, the sound of waves crashing against something. Perhaps the hull of a ship? “You certainly don’t sound like Cid. Who is this?”

“This is G'raha Tia, of the Students of Baldesion,” G'raha replies. “If I may ask — why do you have Khovu’s linkpearl?” He feels an anxious twist in his stomach, remembers the hushed whispers around the camp about Khovu’s mysterious — and dangerous — mission. “Did something happen?”

He hears a distracted “one moment,” then a pause on the other end. He begins pacing.

After a ponderous silence, Altani speaks again. “Sorry, G'raha. Khovu is here, and he’s fine. He’s just not feeling up to talking at the moment.”

The realization suddenly washes over him in a cold wave. “Oh, Twelve,” he groans, “I’ve been an absolute fool. He cannot hear the other end of the linkpearl, can he?”

“No,” Altani confirms, laughing again. G'raha feels his cheeks color, but he cannot possibly blame her for mocking him over this. He has no one to blame but himself. “I hope whatever you have to say, you don’t mind me overhearing.”

G'raha feels mortified enough to sink into the earth. Here he’s supposed to be making a gesture of reconciliation, and he’s bungled it before the first ‘hello’. But he can’t hope to turn it around by insulting one of Khovu’s friends, so he gathers the tattered shreds of his dignity and soldiers on.

“I — well, many of us were starting to worry after his well-being. Are you aware of his recent work in Mor Dhona?”

“Yes, and in fact we hope to see all of you soon,” Altani replies, all but confirming G'raha’s suspicions that this is one of Khovu’s adventuring companions. “We’ll have him back to you in one piece, I promise. We’ve just wrapped up our business here.”

G'raha releases a sigh of relief that he didn’t realize he was holding. “That is good to hear! I’ll be sure to tell the others.” There’s another pause, though the sound of gulls cawing over the linkpearl tells him she’s still on the line. He imagines her signing both halves of this conversation to Khovu, and sits on his own simmering nerves to buy some patience.

He hears scattered laughter from two — no, at least three unfamiliar voices, then a somewhat concerning crack. Altani, however, remains nonplussed. “It will probably be a few more days before he can return to Mor Dhona,” she says. “Do you need anything else before then, or is the good news enough?”

“Actually —“ G'raha bites his lip, suddenly unsure of how to proceed, and whether he should if there is something that might need her attention on the other side. “I — would it be possible to talk to him before then? Not over the linkpearl, obviously. Face-to-face? There’s something I need to discuss with him.”

Another pause. G'raha can feel his heartbeat in his ears. Then, Altani’s voice, crackling over their unsteady connection: “We’ll be staying in Limsa tonight. Could you get there by tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes! Yes, I can!” G'raha winces at how loud it rings in his ears, and wills his voice down an octave and several phons. “I’m attuned to that aetheryte. Where should I meet you?”

“The Drowning Wench. Do you know it?” G'raha indicates that he does, at a much less embarrassing volume. “Great! If you don’t see us — well, Khovu — at a table, just ask after us with Baderon. I’ll let him know to expect you.”

“Understood, Thank you, Altani Tani. Could — could you pass my gratitude to Khovu as well?”

“I will.” He hears a shout from her side of the connection, though he can’t make out the words, followed by a rousing chorus of cheers. “You’re welcome, G'raha Tia,” she adds, with more warmth than he deserves, and he knows his blush is still raging. “I’m looking forward to meeting you in person.”

They exchange short goodbyes — incredibly awkward ones on G'raha’s end — and then cut off the connection. G'raha is left staring at the linkpearl for many minutes, willing his traitorous face to cool its blush so he could return to camp.

This was supposed to be the easy part. Tomorrow, he’ll be in the same room as Khovu, and neither the linkpearl nor Altani will be able to save him if he sticks his foot in his mouth like this again.

Chapter Text

It’s still morning when G'raha departs for Limsa Lominsa, but it can’t be helped. He wakes up early and can’t fall back asleep, and Rammbroes starts giving him strange looks after his fifth lap pacing around the camp. Figuring there’s no harm in being early, he treks up to the Mor Dhona aetheryte and makes the jump.

He whiles away his spare time at the Arcanist Guild’s library, then climbs to the aftcastle at the first afternoon bell. As he rounds the corner, he notices a rowdy tune echoing down the long stone corridor to the Drowning Wench. Curious, he thinks, as it seems far too early — even in Limsa Lominsa — for such a large tavern crowd.

The pirates clearly have something to celebrate. The seats at every table are full, save for those that have been pushed to the center of the room; these serve as a makeshift stage for some bawdy, dancing sailors. G'raha nimbly dodges a tavern maid who rushes by with a sloshing tray of grog, only to back straight into a burly Hyur who shoves him — quite rudely — into the wall.

He can’t find mane or tail of Khovu in the crowd, but he does spot someone behind the bar that he hopes is Baderon. It takes a moment for G'raha to fight his way over, and another to get his attention. But as soon as he asks after Khovu, shouting to be heard, the Au Ra woman next to him perks up. “Oh, are you G'raha?” she asks, and he recognizes her voice immediately.

“Altani Tani?” he replies, glancing her up and down in disbelief. “Forgive me, I — I assumed you’d be —”

“A Lalafell?” she finishes for him, laughter sparkling in her eyes. “No, but my parents are. You can thank them for the confusion.” She returns the appraising look with a smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes. “Khovu is upstairs! I was about to wake him for breakfast, and you’re welcome to join me.”

“Breakfast?” At this hour? G'raha is sure he must have misheard, but Altani just winks at him. The bartender delivers a tray laden with food, and G'raha insists on carrying it for her. He’s already botched his first impression; he’ll do whatever he possibly can to salvage his second.

Altani weaves through the crowd with grace befitting the dancer’s chakrams on her hip, and G'raha takes care to follow without tipping his cargo. Past the innkeep’s counter their path is smoother, and they can finally speak to each other without shouting.

“What is going on out there?” he asks, as another rousing shanty shakes the walls.

“A group of adventurers felled Leviathan,” she replies with a curious little smile. She leads him up a set of stairs. “Saved the city, so they say.”

“Leviathan — the primal of the Sahagin?” Altani nods, but before G’raha can ask anything else, they stop in front of an inn room door.

“Give me a moment to make sure he’s decent?” she asks, and he nods. He hopes the color on his cheeks isn’t too obvious, but he can’t tell by the mysterious wink she gives him as she disappears through the door.

His fingers drum against the bottom of the tray with anxious energy as he waits. This — meeting Khovu in his bedroom, after he apparently had just woken up, is not what G'raha expected, and he’s no longer sure what he intends to say to him. He must ask for a place in the raid party, certainly, but he can’t just start with that demand, and none of the small talk he rehearsed before seems appropriate now.

He doesn’t have long to stew. What feels like seconds later, Altani invites him in.

Khovu sits at the room’s table, dressed suspiciously like a proper arcanist. A silk robe, black and gold, drapes over his shoulders, with a red sash belting his waist above a white sarouel. G'raha recognizes the runes etched into the hem of the tunic from his time in Sharlayan: recovery glyphs, often worn by mages after particularly exerting rituals. There’s the telltale sign of a fresh, magically healed wound on Khovu’s arm as well — a swath of newly regenerated skin that hasn’t quite filled in all its color.

He’s tying his hair into a loose bun as G'raha enters. His curls look different from when G'raha last saw him — shinier, better defined, and somehow softer. Khovu tilts his head — and once again, G’raha is caught staring. Ducking his head to hide his traitorous flush and willing his tail to behave, he returns Khovu’s nod and busies himself placing the tray to delay having to speak for as long as possible.

“You’re here early,” Khovu signs through a yawn, apparently uninterested in helping G'raha stall for time. “Did you teleport in at first light?”

G'raha sets a pitcher between them and bites his lip to steel his nerves. “It is past first bell,” he signs back, and stills his face against a wince as Khovu straightens up. “So you are up late. You must have had a rough night.”

G’raha wants to avert his gaze, but he reminds himself that sign is a visual language and forces his eyes up. Altani has a hand over her mouth, eyes dancing above an unreadable expression, and Khovu has yet to pick his jaw out of his plate of eggs. Desperate for anything to fill the silence — and stillness — G'raha lifts his hands again. “Are you feeling alright?”

“You’re signing,” Khovu says, staring back in what G’raha hopes is confusion and not anger. “Have you — did you know how this whole time?”

“No, no,” G'raha replies immediately, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “I — while you were away, I requisitioned a language crystal from the Students’ archives. It has given me a running start — quite a massive one, to be sure — but I’m still very much a novice.” His tail is going wild behind him, and he backs into a chair to trap it between his legs. “Is it terrible?”

“Oh, yes,” Khovu answers immediately, setting G'raha’s face aflame. He thinks he hears Altani groan from the corner of the room, but it’s hard to tell from the blood rushing in his ears. “But you said you’ve been practicing for — it couldn’t be more than a fortnight?” G'raha nods, and the expression on Khovu’s face finally resolves — into a beaming grin. Something flutters in G'raha’s chest. “Don’t stop,” Khovu says. “You’ll be better before you know it.”

G'raha nods, speechless, and when Khovu insists that he sit, he follows without a thought. He remembers how to breathe just as the other Miqo’te pushes a plate in front of him.

“You’ll eat with us, won’t you?” Khovu asks, head tilted again, and G'raha is helpless to refuse him.

Khovu is ravenous, devouring over half of the first tray and most of the second that Baderon had the foresight to send up. G'raha knows that mages require sustenance to replenish their aether and wonders if Khovu needs such replenishing — or if he simply always eats like a man half-starved. But Khovu’s hands are full, so G'raha doesn’t ask.

Altani politely inquires about G'raha’s trip in Ala Mhigan Sign. She struggles more than Khovu at understanding G'raha’s responses, and the scholar in G'raha wonders if the difference has to do with their relative comfort with the language or perhaps Khovu’s Echo. But she is incredibly patient with his fumbles, and G'raha is relieved to find he has no trouble understanding her. It seems that outside the realm of engineering and spellcraft, his language crystal is more than adequate for interpretation.

Khovu is fascinated by the crystal, and he asks a great number of questions about it. G'raha tossed and turned over many anxious nights in the past moon, worrying that Khovu would be offended that G'raha took such a callous shortcut to learning his language. But he senses no such animosity in the interrogation, just a genuine — and burning — curiosity about the magic involved.

“If only you had a half-dozen more of them,” Altani muses, as Khovu inspects the crystal once more. G'raha can’t remove it without a lengthy re-attunement process, so Khovu is cradling G'raha’s wrist in his hands. He seems almost as interested in the setting, a fitted brass cuff, as he is in the crystal itself, and G'raha feels warmth radiating up his arm as Khovu traces the filigree with his fingertips.

“I — I’m afraid this is the only one Krile could find,” G'raha replies, stumbling embarrassingly when Khovu glances up at him. “I was incredibly lucky the Students had one at all, given Ala Mhigo’s... contentious relationship with the rest of Eorzea before the colony’s withdrawal.” With one hand trapped in Khovu’s grip, he has to spell a number of these words.

His tail twitches nervously, hidden behind his chair. He assumes that Khovu is Ala Mhigan, but has no idea if the city-state’s history is a sensitive subject for him. 

Khovu sighs, and G'raha’s breath hitches when the puff of air hits his palm. He withdraws his hand as soon as Khovu releases it, and moves it to his tankard for a long drink to disguise his shiver. “It’s just as well,” Khovu says, apparently — blessedly — oblivious to G'raha’s nerves. “I doubt your order would be willing to lend them out.”

“Ah,” G'raha says, “would you have any use for one? Biggs told me that all of your friends sign, so I assumed…”

Khovu makes an odd face: a bit sour, a bit strained. “Not for my friends,” he says, and Altani suppresses a smile. “I suppose you could call them… colleagues. Though I can think of only one or two who might be willing to use one of these, anyway.”

G'raha frowns. “The attunement process is not difficult,” he offers, “even for those who are ill-equipped for other magicks. I, for instance, have never been a gifted magician, and I was able to complete it quite quickly.”

Khovu’s ears flick as he gazes back at G'raha, a smile tugging at the weary line of his mouth. “And how many bells have you poured into practice, to get this good at signing?” he asks.

The question pierces through G'raha’s chest like an arrow. He feels the gravity of Khovu’s attention on him, the uncomfortable and unfamiliar sensation of being seen. “I, ah,” he stammers, tail flicking again. He does not particularly want to answer, given the opinion Khovu has already expressed on his skill.

Khovu saves him the embarrassment of a proper response. “I think you have more gifts than you realize,” he says, small and soft, close to his chest. It’s not the reproach G'raha is expecting, and he’s left blinking in bewilderment. It looks as if Khovu is on the cusp of saying more, his fingers lingering, heavy, in the air between them — but then he huffs, and shakes his head, and changes the subject.

The conversation turns to Mor Dhona, with Khovu asking after the expedition and its members. Altani hums at the exchange. “I don’t remember any of these names from the last time I was in Revenant’s Toll,” she says, while G'raha is refilling their cups. “Except for the Ironworks team, of course.”

“The rest are new to Eorzea,” Khovu says, and looks at G'raha. “Are you all from Sharlayan?”

“Ah — yes, for the most part,” G'raha replies. “The Sons of Saint Coinach are a Sharlayan institution, though I can’t say for certain that every member hails from there.”

“But you’re a…” Khovu’s fingers rap against the table, nose scrunched in thought. “Student of Baldesion? Is that a different group?”

G'raha nods. He’s pleasantly surprised that Khovu remembered. “You’ll find that Sharlayan is full to bursting with scholarly orders,” he explains with a wry smile. “The Students are devoted to the study of arcane mysteries the world over, while the Sons of Saint Coinach are principally interested in the Allagan Empire.”

Khovu tilts his head in confusion. “I thought you said that the Allagan Empire was your life’s work,” he says, and G'raha flushes deeply, remembering the circumstances of that conversation. Khovu, thankfully, doesn’t seem interested in reliving their argument. “So I suppose that explains why the Students sent you here, but… is there a reason why you’re one of them, rather than the Sons?”

“I, ah…” G'raha glances down at his hands. “I’ve been with the Students for most of my life. Their founder, Galuf Baldesion, took me in when I was very young.”

It’s not a very good answer to the question, but when G'raha reaches for a more honest one, he finds himself balking at its intimacy. In truth, he’s had offers before — from the Sons and from other organizations. But none of them have ever tempted him. The Students are the closest thing to a family he has left.

A gentle touch on his arm pulls him from his thoughts, and his ears perk up as he realizes it’s Khovu, who’s watching him with that same soft, captivating expression he wore when he invited G'raha to breakfast. “What are they like?” he asks. His thumb brushes over the bone of G'raha’s wrist before he pulls away.

G'raha swallows around a curious knot in his throat and tells them about the Isle of Val. Somehow, that leads to a story about Galuf, then another about Krile. Soon enough, he’s sharing tales of preparing his archon thesis, and the schemes Ojika used to tear him away so he would eat and rest. He’s used to feeling self-conscious about this sort of thing, realizing that he speaks too much, but…

Khovu and Altani are so easy to talk to. They laugh freely and smile often, even at their own expense. Every time G'raha catches himself thinking that he’s dominating more than his fair share of the conversation, one of them prompts him with another question. And it doesn’t seem perfunctory, either — they both seem genuinely curious about the Students, Sharlayan, even G'raha himself.

They also seem…. quite familiar with each other. They touch each other frequently — light brushes over arm or elbow, mostly — but Khovu does once fix a stray lock of Altani’s hair, with a casual intimacy that makes G'raha avert his gaze.

Despite his weeks in Eorzea, he realizes that he hasn’t spent much time with many Eorzeans. The expedition members are of course largely Sharlayan, with his own Sharlayan sensibilities, while Cid, Biggs, and Wedge hail from Garlemald. Svana and K’leytai are the only two native Eorzeans he can name around the camp, and both of them keep their mannerisms strictly professional around the crew.

All of which means, G'raha finds himself unsure if this sort of physical intimacy is an Eorzean cultural norm, or perhaps signifies that Altani and Khovu are in some sort of romantic relationship. The idea makes something curdle uncomfortably in G'raha’s gut — that he might be intruding on a couple’s time together, even though he was explicitly invited by the both of them.

He longs to ask, but he is not sure that he should. He remembers, from one of the interminable briefings required of all expedition members, a lecture about Eorzean laws and customs. The cultural expert stressed that interracial relationships — such as between a Miqo’te and Au Ra — are not well-tolerated in Eorzea. It seemed like a frivolous detail to him then, but now he finds himself wishing he’d paid better attention.

As they finish eating, they stack their dishes by the door and linger over drinks — coffee for Khovu, and a refreshing lemon beverage for G'raha and Altani.

“I, ah…” G'raha signs nervously, when the conversation hits a lull. “I wanted to apologize for the, ah… linkpearl incident.” It’s a harsh segue, but he doesn’t know if he’ll get another chance. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize. I feel so foolish about it.”

He hears a short huff, and glances up to find Khovu smiling in amusement. “I can hardly blame you for that,” he says. “Let me guess how it happened: Cid handed it over with his usual hapless confidence, and you trusted that he knew what he was doing?”

G'raha bites his lip, hands wringing under the table, then reluctantly nods. “But I know how linkpearls work,” he insists. “I should have realized —”

Khovu touches G'raha’s arm again, giving him a look that seems almost… fond. G'raha’s hands freeze, and his breath catches in his throat. “I’ve known Cid for over a year,” Khovu says, “and he still forgets that I’m deaf at least once every moon. I’ve known you for a fortnight, and you’re already signing.” He’s smiling again, those piercing violet eyes locked on G'raha’s, and G'raha feels himself flushing from the heavy weight of his regard. “I think you can forgive yourself, just this one time. I already have.”

G'raha is relieved that he isn’t expected to respond verbally; he’s sure it would come out as a squeak. Khovu’s fingers are so warm on his skin, and there’s something about his smile that causes G'raha’s breath to stutter. It’s soft, reassuring — malms away from the cocksure smirk he wore at their first meeting.

Across the table, Altani sets her goblet down with a tangible thump. Khovu glances towards her, but he doesn’t move his hand from G'raha’s arm. There’s a tuft of fur that G'raha never noticed before, on the back of Khovu’s hand, extending in a fine, downy layer to the first knuckle on each finger. It looks so soft. G'raha suppresses a sudden urge to touch it.

“G'raha?” he hears, and his gaze snaps up to Altani’s face.

She smiles at him, and he shivers at the knowing glint in her eyes. She reminds him so much of Krile. “I need to check in with the Adders, so I’m going to head out. It was lovely meeting you in person.”

“Oh — oh!” G'raha stammers through his blush. “It was my pleasure.” He wonders if he should stand when she does, and starts to do just that. But Khovu’s hand curls around his forearm, a gentle grip, and he awkwardly aborts the movement. Khovu’s eyes are on Altani, wishing her safe travels with his free hand. They all exchange farewells, and Altani smiles in his direction before the door closes behind her.

G'raha’s heart hammers in his ears, filling the silence.

“Ah,” he says, glancing nervously at Khovu. “I suppose I should take my leave as well…”

Khovu tilts his head. He’s still touching G'raha’s arm. “You can’t have come all this way,” he says slowly, gaze flicking over G'raha’s face, “to tell me I overslept. Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk about?”

Ah, right — he was here for something more important than breakfast. It was, in fact, the mission that had consumed him for close to a moon. How had he forgotten?

“Take me with you,” G’raha’s hand blurts, and Khovu blinks, oh, Azeyma, this is not how he rehearsed it at all — he can feel his blush burning up his face. “Into the Labyrinth,” he hurries to clarify, and finally, blessedly, Khovu releases his arm to let him sign more fluently. “I may not be one of your Eorzean adventurers, but I can fight just as well, and I know more about Allagan ruins than anyone on the whole continent, I swear. You have to take me with you.”

Khovu’s eyes sparkle, rich with emotion G'raha can’t decipher. “Of course you can come,” he says, and G'raha — who has been priming himself to fight much harder than this — is left gaping.

“I — what do you mean, of course I can come?” he asks. Without a thought, he rises to his feet. “What happened to — to — to ‘you’re the loudest person I ever met’, and ‘you’re too irresponsible to be trusted’, and — and —”

Khovu stares up at him, bemused. “I’m not sure I said either of those things,” he replies, with a little tilt of his head. “Goodness, do you think my opinion of you so poor?” He stands as well, once again towering over a bristling G'raha. The movement brings him close enough for his scent to catch in G'raha’s nose. It’s missing the notes of sweat and spent aether that marked their first meeting, but the sense memory still brings him back to the balloon.

“I know you can handle yourself in a fight,” Khovu is saying to him, his expression soft around the edges. “I saw you fight in the Shroud, after I so rudely interrupted your plans. You were stunning, G'raha Tia.”

G'raha has absolutely no idea how he should respond to that. His temper and his hands, unfortunately, have no such problem, and move without his consent. “I still haven’t forgiven you,” he says, “for trying to blow me up.” He kicks himself, internally, as soon as the words come out. Why the hells did he say that?

But Khovu is, for some reason, grinning at him, as if he finds G'raha amusing and not intolerably rude. “Then allow me to make it up to you,” he replies. “My party is meeting in Ul’dah tomorrow. Come out with us. Let me show you around the city. You’ve never seen it before, have you?”

“But —” G'raha stares at him, wide-eyed and bewildered. “But, why?”

Khovu’s eyes crinkle around the edges. It seems to take him a moment to come up with his answer, and G'raha wonders what he’s thinking about. “Because I was rude to you,” Khovu signs eventually, “for no good reason, and you deserve better.” G'raha swallows around a thick lump that catches in his throat; he doesn’t know what he can possibly say to that. Khovu seems to realize and take mercy on him, adding wryly, “And if you’re in my party, I’m much less likely to blow you up a second time.”

The spell is broken. G'raha scowls, shoves Khovu away — when did he get so close? — and ducks his head to hide his heated face. He hears Khovu’s chuckle, and the padding of bare feet retreating to the back of the room.

“I’m supposed to be resting,” Khovu tells him, when he glances back up. The taller Miqo’te is sprawled cross-legged on the bed, grinning at him with that infuriating, insolent face. “If you do want to see Ul’dah, meet me at the airship dock tomorrow, say — tenth bell? And if you don’t, I’ll see you back in Mor Dhona.” His expression softens. If G'raha didn’t know any better, he’d call it… wistful. “It’s up to you,” he adds. “No matter what you choose, I’m not going to stop you from joining the raid.”

G'raha nods. “I — I’ll think about it,” he promises, because he has no idea what he wants. “And thank you. For offering.”

They trade farewells, and G'raha takes his leave. As soon as he steps outside the room, the raucous din of the tavern below slams back into his ears.

He flattens his back to the door, eyes closed, ears pinned against the noise, trying not to panic.

Did Khovu just ask to spend — spend an entire day with him? Of his own free will? Are he and Khovu… friends? Somehow?

He hurries from the inn, fumbles for his linkpearl, and calls Krile.

Chapter Text

“I think he likes you,” Krile says, and G'raha turns red as a rolanberry.

He’s retreated to the most private corner of Limsa Lominsa he could find: a lonely platform in the southern stretches of the lower decks. “You can’t know that,” he protests immediately, ignoring her long-suffering sigh. “You’ve never met him —”

“Okay,” Krile cuts him off, “but you have, and I am basing my hypothesis on that secondhand data. What is your hypothesis?”

G'raha says the first thing that comes to mind. “That — that this is all some terrible mistake.” Krile sighs again, her Raha-you’re-being-an-idiot sigh.

“Raha,” she says, “try to be a little more objective here. Consider the facts. He asked you to breakfast, chatted with you for two bells, then invited you to spend a whole day more together. Now, which is more likely — that Khovu, a man who by your account is at least somewhat socially adept, did all of this by mistake? Or that, just maybe, he likes you even a little bit, and genuinely wants to get to know you better?”

G'raha is sure, somewhere, there are very important variables both of them are missing. And he is sure that those variables support his hypothesis. But… until he is able to discover them, he must reluctantly admit the reason in her argument.

“Okay,” he says, certainly not panicking, “but is it wise to become friends with someone who tried to blow you up the first time you met?”

“Ah, yes,” Krile hums. “Friends.”

His tail lashes anxiously behind him. “What are you implying?”

Krile hesitates for so long that G'raha worries their connection has dropped. “Do you remember,” she asks eventually, hesitantly, “a few years ago, when you and that gleaner boy spent all that time together? Working on that project of his?”

“Kazek?” G'raha blinks. “Of course I do. He uncovered some of the most pristine examples of early Allagan levitation cores I’ve ever seen. What about him?”

“He had a crush on you,” Krile says, and G'raha’s ears shoot straight up.

“He — what? Are you — are you sure?”

Krile’s voice reply is bone dry. “One hundred percent sure.”

Ah, right. Her Echo.

“Oh,” G'raha says, and feels a warm tingle down his back. “But — but he was a boy. A man. He’s a man.”

“Yes,” Krile says, slowly and delicately. “Does that bother you?”

It should. G'raha should take offense at it — it’s the proper, Sharlayan thing to do.

But, well. The Students have never been model Sharlayan citizens, and G'raha — he has not always been Sharlayan.

Instead of answering her question, he asks another. “And you —” His cheeks are on fire. “You think that — that Khovu..?”

“I don’t know!” she replies. “Like you said, I’ve never met him! And from what I’ve read, it wouldn’t be something he’d advertise, in Eorzea. Especially since he —” She cuts off with a cough, then continues, “I just think — I think he could, and it’s, ah — it’s worth considering, isn’t it, when you’re reviewing the data?”

So at tenth bell the next day, G'raha waits at the airship landing.

He’s actually there at ninth bell, because he’s so anxious about being late. And then he leaves, because he’s anxious about being too early, only to realize as he’s exiting into in the Drowning Wench that Khovu is staying at the inn there, and will therefore see G'raha loitering as soon as he exits his room. So G'raha turns back towards the lift, and the Roegadyn attendant tells him that if he asks her to call it again, she’s going to chuck him straight down the shaft.

So he retreats through the city’s aethernet, tail between his legs, and spends an anxious half-bell in the Arcanists’ library, the only place in the city where he knows of a wall chronometer. Then he returns to the airship landing, this time through Bullwark Hall, because he’s not sure if there was an expiration date on the Roegadyn woman’s offer.

Khovu arrives at five-chimes-till. He’s wearing the same runed tunic from yesterday, with his curls tied up in a practical tail; his grimoire, however, is missing, and in its place on his hip hangs some manner of sword. As soon as he spots G'raha, his ears perk up into eager points, and his face splits open into a beaming grin.

“You came,” he says, and claps G'raha on the shoulder. G'raha feels the warmth from it radiating halfway down his arm. “Did you come through the Wench? Did Skaenrael seem unusually short-tempered today?”

“I didn’t notice,” G'raha lies, smiling through his shaking nerves. “Should I buy a ticket, or..?”

Khovu somehow gets them on board without paying — the dock staff clearly recognize him and wave the pair through, straight past the queue, with a lot of gracious bowing. G'raha asks about it, and watches in dismay as Khovu’s cheerful expression collapses.

“You don’t have to explain!” he says in a hurry, his own tail twitching in anxious sympathy as Khovu’s droops nearly to the deck. “Not if you don’t want to!”

“I have to,” Khovu replies, settling against the railing of the ship. His ears pin back, and he looks… nervous? Which can’t be right — G'raha hasn’t the faintest idea what he should be nervous about. “There’s no chance you don’t hear about it sooner or later, and… it doesn’t feel right, letting you find out from somewhere else.” He squares his shoulders and fixes G'raha with a wary look. “Have you heard about the Warriors of Light?”

G'raha returns his gaze, blinking blankly. The moniker prickles faintly in the back of his mind. He wishes, once again, that he’d paid more attention in that cultural seminar. “Ah…. no?” he answers, a little sheepish. “Is it — are they some sort of Eorzean fable? Should I know about them?”

Khovu’s stare turns owlish. He huffs, then snorts, then — breaks into a choked, painful-looking bout of laughter. He tries to smother the sound of it with his hand, but that only prolongs the fit. G'raha, even more alarmed than before, pats him awkwardly on the back while he clutches at the rail.

“No,” he answers, emphatic, and he wipes tears from the corners of his eyes. “No, there’s absolutely no reason you should know about them. Not up in Sharlayan. I don’t know why I assumed you would.” That grin from before is back, the one that makes G'raha feel like he could melt into a puddle from its warmth. “Only, if you ever do hear about it, from someone else — they might be talking about me. Or one of my friends.”

“Oh,” G'raha says, and he tilts his head in confusion. This has, in fact, explained very little, except that these Warriors of Light are recognizable and well-loved enough to earn free airship fare. “Are you on some sort of sporting team?” he asks, after a moment’s consideration, remembering chatter he heard in a tavern about chocobo races. “I’m afraid I’ve never been the athletic type.”

That sends Khovu into another muffled bout of laughter. G'raha smiles hopelessly back at him, and wonders privately when Khovu laughing at him became endearing, instead of infuriating.

It’s G'raha’s first time in a proper airship (he refuses to count the war balloon), and the view is breathtaking. The rocky cliffs of La Noscea melt away beneath them, giving way to a vista of glinting sea. Over the larboard rail, an occasional isle pierces blue waters like stray eggshell in a pan; on their starboard side, the ocean sprawls, boundless, from horizon to horizon. Khovu explains that their route hugs the Vylbrand coast for several malms before crossing the Rhotano Sea, to avoid the disputed territory of the Carteneau Flats.

G'raha notices that Khovu seems to be watching him just as much as the view, and wonders where that should fit into his data. It is not passingly strange, he reasons, that an adventurer might have made this flight so often as to be bored of the sights, and prefer to turn their interest towards their companions. But he makes a mental note of it nonetheless. He is nothing if not a thorough researcher.

“Have you eaten?” Khovu asks, as they queue for the lift at Ul’dah’s airship landing.

G'raha was far too nervous this morning to stomach breakfast. “I’m starving,” he admits, ears planed. Khovu looks delighted, and leads them to the Ruby Road.

The sights, sounds, and smells are almost overwhelming. The stone walls of Ul’dah tower around them, carved full of rich scrollwork that G'raha yearns to study in more detail. Richly woven fabrics drape in a loose canopy above their heads, offering patches of shade from the scorching desert sun. On the ground, the way is packed full of vendors, stalls bursting with a dizzying array of goods: gleaming metal urns, sacks overflowing with fragrant spices, gems glinting in the bright sun.

Tucked between are food carts aplenty, flooding the streets with the tantalizing aromas of roasting meats, fresh-baked breads, and the sweet fruits of summer. The walkways between are prowled by roaming vendors, skewers and other treats stacked on wooden staffs they foist high above the thronging crowd. And in every corner, merchants bark their wares, their voices piling in a roaring cacophony above all the other sounds of a swarming market.

G'raha recalls the spell Khovu wove over his ears just moments ago, while they were still inside the lift. “Is it too loud?” he asks, immensely grateful that he does not need to shout to be understood. He can only imagine how hoarse he might be by the end of the day.

Khovu nods, a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth. He’s tucked them into a scrap of space near the edge of the throng, apparently predicting G'raha would need a moment to take it all in. “This much noise, it can hurt,” he says, gesturing at his ears. “It’s easier to silence it all.” He tilts his head as he regards G'raha. “Is it too loud for you?” he asks, and waves towards G'raha’s head, a pantomime of his earlier arcanima.

G'raha shakes his head. “Maybe later. I’m fine for now.”

“Then let’s eat,” Khovu says, grinning. He takes G'raha’s hand in his own and tugs him gently into the crowd.

G'raha hopes any redness on his face can be blamed on the hot clime. Of course, he reasons, the market is incredibly crowded; the easiest way for Khovu to ensure they don’t get separated is to keep a physical hold on him. He’s starting to notice, observing the people around them, that personal space is not highly valued in Ul’dah. Some utilitarian hand holding, then, might be a perfectly normal gesture between acquaintances. Even friends.

He makes a mental note, for later analysis.

“Smell anything you like?” Khovu asks him, and G'raha doesn’t know where he should begin. Everything smells delicious, and most of it unfamiliar. But Khovu is happy to tell G'raha about anything he points to, or to ask the vendor on the rare occasion he doesn’t already recognize the dish. G'raha’s head spins as he takes it all in: spiced Miq’abobs; sweet, honeyed bread stuffed with simmered fruits; spherical fritters of ground legumes and green herbs; a whole fish, salted and smoked and re-warmed on the grill.

Soon the pair are laden down with a bevy of items, all piled atop a flatbread truncheon. Khovu orders small portions of most dishes, apparently intending to introduce G'raha to as much of the market as his stomach can handle. But he also buys a whole sack of mixed fruits, topped with hearty, fist-sized loaves of bread, a collection of hand pies, two dozen boiled eggs, and a paper bag of wrapped sweets — more food in one hand than the pair of them could possibly eat in one sitting, even without their other, messier fare.

His intentions become clear as he steers them towards a pile of crates in a lonely corner. The surrounding buildings drape the area in shade, of which a small gaggle of youths seem to be taking full advantage. The pack of them lounge across stone pavers and boxes in an unruly sprawl and stare hungrily at the passing crowd.

One of them straightens up when he spots Khovu approaching. He waves brightly at the Miqo’te, eyes fixing on the sack tucked in the crook of Khovu’s elbow.

“Hello, sprout,” Khovu says with that charming smile. “Care to trade for your seat?”

“I didn’t know you were back,” the boy signs in reply. G'raha stamps down on his irrational jealousy that a child is a more proficient signer than him — in all likelihood, the boy is a native speaker.

“Just for a couple days.” Khovu says. “How is Orella?”

“She found work! Over in the dispatch yard. She’s out so late most nights.”

Khovu’s ears perk up at that, his smile a little brighter. “But you’re staying out of trouble, aren’t you?”

The boy nods eagerly, and looks again at Khovu’s elbow. “And I'm still plenty hungry.”

“I’m sure,” Khovu laughs, and holds up the bag. The boy picks out an armful of food, and that brings the other youths swarming down from the crates.

His offerings are picked clean in moments, and the children depart together, already chattering about returning to one of their homes to eat. “Say hello to your mother for me,” Khovu tells the boy as he leaves, and he nods before chasing after his friends.

“You know his family?” G'raha asks. They settle cross-legged on the crates, spreading the food between them.

Khovu nods. “Orella is around our age,” he explains with a wistful smile. “She was always kind to me when I was in town. Forced the other kids to let me play with them.”

That takes G'raha by surprise — that Khovu would have any trouble making friends, when he seems so well-liked by everyone G'raha has met so far. He gives Khovu a curious look.

Khovu smiles wryly back. “Come now,” he huffs, “you can’t tell me that kids always got along when you were young.”

G'raha shrugs. “Well… children are children no matter where you go, I suppose. Some will always find a reason to bully others.” He hesitates, self-conscious, then adds, “For instance, other children were perfectly happy to mock me over the color of my eyes. But I suppose I just assumed — everyone seems to like you.”

Khovu tilts his head, his violet gaze soft on G'raha’s face. “I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says, gentle and sincere. Then — delicately, tenderly, he reaches up, and brushes G'raha’s fringe away with the back of two fingers. The gesture reveals the crimson eye G'raha keeps hidden beneath his hair, and Khovu traces the clan mark beneath it with his thumb, feather-light. G'raha’s breath seizes in his chest. “For what it’s worth, I think your eyes are gorgeous. I have since we first met.”

G'raha stares back, frozen like an ahriman’s prey under the warm weight of Khovu’s regard. He couldn’t move if he wanted, and he has no idea what he should say. No one has ever touched him like this before; nobody has — nobody has ever called him gorgeous before — is his crystal translating it correctly? It can’t possibly be. It must be some sort of modern slang.

Khovu smiles at him and withdraws the hand, but not without one last brush of thumb against the tip of G'raha’s nose. “Forgive me,” he says. “Eorzeans are much more forward than Sharlayans.”

The understatement of the era, G'raha thinks, but his hands are quivering too much to say it. He scowls and scrubs at his face with his wrist, as if that might erase the lingering flush Khovu’s thumb etched into his cheeks. He tries to summon some of that fire he felt the last time Khovu was so forward — back in the Shroud, with the bark in his hair — but his gut does a strange little flip instead.

As if nothing at all were amiss, Khovu rips off a corner of the flatbread and shows G'raha how to scoop up their rich, viscous stew. G'raha’s hunger defeats his pride, and he follows suit, careful not to further embarrass himself by spilling on his clothing. Both of them chew for a few moments. Khovu seems to be mulling something over.

“It didn’t matter whether or not they liked me,” he says. The signs are small, close to his chest, little more than a mumble. “Orella’s friends. I wasn’t… I wasn’t one of them. And that was never going to change.” G'raha’s surprise must show on his face, because Khovu gives him another wry smile, one that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Hrodrich, those other kids — they’re all the children of Ala Mhigans. Their parents, those friends, they taught their kids not to take charity from outsiders. But they’re allowed to trade, or take small jobs for coin."

“Jobs… like saving you a seat in the shade?” G'raha asks.

Khovu laughs. “I wish I could say I planned that far ahead. No, I just know they tend to mill about here, this time of day. Looking for real work — running messages, or carrying things for the shoppers. They’ll be back in a bell or so, I’m sure.”

G'raha had been operating under the assumption that Khovu was Ala Mhigan, from his seemingly native proficiency with their language. But now he isn’t so sure, and he doesn’t know whether or not he is allowed to ask. Are they friends? How close do you have to be with someone to ask something like that?

Then Khovu hands him a skewer, and G'raha decides the moment has definitely passed. But he laughs, when G'raha takes a bite and immediately breaks into a sweat, eyes watering from the spice; he smiles again, watching G'raha’s ears twitch with delight from the delicious meal, and this time his eyes light up in a riot of purple hues. His tail brushes against G'raha’s, where they both lie curled on the wood below, and neither of them finches away.

G'raha notes it all, for later analysis.

After lunch, G'raha asks if they might tour some of the city’s interiors. Khovu is happy to oblige, and he leads them to a beautiful indoor plaza that he introduces as the Gold Court. It’s a majestic space, ringed by an upper terrace and crowned by a beautiful, verdant fountain that hangs from the great dome above.

“What’s up there?” G'raha asks, gesturing to the upper walkway.

“The Hustings Strip,” Khovu says. “A lot of the nobility’s business goes on up there. The level we’re on is called the Merchant Strip.”

“Oh! Are there more shops down here?” He quite likes the idea of window shopping, as he’s heard high praise for the city’s talented goldsmiths and weavers.

“Yes, and much quieter, too,” Khovu says. G'raha finds himself thinking — with a faint disappointment he will examine later in the evening — that perhaps Khovu might not need to hold onto him without the thick crowds. “But I thought you might like to see the Royal Promenade upstairs, and the Scholar’s Walk.”

“Oh,” G'raha says, and he knows his ears must be perked straight up. “It all sounds so exciting. Is there time for both?”

Khovu’s smile has that soft edge to it again. “Yes,” he says, “I think so. Let’s start downstairs.”

He leads them further down the cool stone halls towards the weaver’s guild. G'raha admires most of the fashions from outside the shops, but one storefront that they pass — a textile vendor, by the looks of it — catches his eye. Or rather, the person inside, a Highlander woman, catches it when she waves at Khovu.

“Adalind,” Khovu tells him, and gives her a cheerful wave back. “An old family friend. She’s not usually in the front of house.” He lingers on the precipice of the shop for just a moment. “Do you mind..?”

“Please,” G'raha insists, “go, catch up. I’ll be perfectly happy browsing their wares.” He also cannot deny a burning curiosity at the first mention Khovu’s ever made of his family. But he tries not to eavesdrop… too noticeably.

Adalind is a friendly-looking woman with smile lines and crow’s feet alike well-creased into the edges of her face. Based on how fluently she signs with Khovu, G'raha suspects she might be Ala Mhigan. Their banter seems friendly enough — Adalind mourns how little she sees of Khovu and asks after several people whom G'raha doesn’t know. She uses their name signs rather than spelling Eorzean names, and G'raha notes them all with eager eyes, wondering who they could be and how they all know Khovu.

He isn’t sure when Khovu became a mystery that he felt such a need to unravel. But he’s starting to realize that, though the tall Miqo’te talks quite a bit and has effortlessly pried several personal stories out of G'raha, he manages to avoid revealing much about himself.

“— your necklace,” he catches Khovu signing. The sight of his thumb caressing his throat does something to G'raha that he will also need to analyze that evening. “I’ve never seen you without it.”

Adalind pulls something from her breast pocket. G'raha can see the glint of gold and dark gemstone between her fingers as she lays it on the counter. “My youngest granddaughter’s doing,” she says, and smiles fondly at the piece. “She decided it would make a good toy — I’m afraid the poor clasp finally gave out.”

Khovu reaches for the necklace, and G'raha is enraptured by his expression. There’s a bittersweet melancholy in his eyes, in the twist of his mouth. G'raha would think he was looking at his own treasured heirloom by the reverence with which he picks it up, cradles it in both hands to examine the ends of the chain.

“Let me repair it for you,” he says, finally, after setting it so gently back on the counter.

“Oh, love,” Adalind says, reaching up to brush his errant curls back into place. “You’re on a date. I couldn’t possibly put you out.”

Khovu glances at G'raha. G'raha is blushing furiously at — at the implication, or rather, the outright assumption —

“This isn’t a date,” he should say. “We’re just friends — colleagues, acquaintances —”

“No, please,” he finds himself signing instead, willing his tail to please drop from its rod-stiff flag above his waist. He approaches the counter and hopes he doesn’t look as awkward as he feels. “It clearly means a great deal to you. How long have you had it?”

“Forty years,” Adalind replies, and the anxious lines on her face soften with the memory. “My dear husband commissioned it from [—],” she explains, with a name sign that G'raha doesn't recognize. Spotting his confusion, she then fingerspells, “Ah, from Estmar, Khovu’s mentor? A wedding gift.” She lifts it to show G'raha with well-worn pride. “This kind of tourmaline can only be found in the lochs near Ala Mhigo,” she says, and there’s an aged grief in her eyes.

It really is a beautiful piece. From a distance, G'raha thought it was a simple gold chain, but he can see now an elaborate braid — distinct shades of gold, or perhaps other metals G'raha could not hope to identify, pulled into fine threads that wind through and around tiny rings, in a fashion faintly reminiscent of chainmail. Gleaming black, pearl-like gems are embedded in the weave, cradled in a gold embrace. There are perhaps a dozen of them, drops of perfect symmetry gradually swelling in size towards the middle, where the largest, oval-shaped and dotted with flecks of white like stars, would rest at the center of Adalind’s neck.

Even in disrepair, the metal gleams and sparkles; the gemstones glint in the lamplight. Other than the clasp, which has been bent and shorn out of shape, it is in remarkable condition, especially for an item that has seen daily wear for nearly half a century. It is clear that Adalind has taken very tender care of it.

“Please,” G'raha says, as his tail coils tamely around his calf. “I insist. It would be no trouble at all.”

Khovu brushes his hand over her arm, drawing her gaze. “Estmar would want me to take care of you,” he says, and finally, she relents.

“Oh, the guilt,” she sighs. “You learned that from him, didn’t you?” She smooths Khovu’s hair again, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “He would be so proud of you.”

G'raha doesn’t miss how Khovu swallows, nor the subtle droop of his ears. Adalind procures a soft velvet pouch to hold the necklace, and the two Miqo’te take their leave.

“It’s not a date,” he catches Khovu signing to her, almost an afterthought, after G'raha is already out the door. “He’s a friend.”

“Of course, dear,” Adalind replies breezily.

Friends, G'raha thinks in solemn triumph, thrilled to have his answer — but a moment later, behind Khovu’s back, Adalind passes him a conspiratorial wink.

After that conversation, Khovu is quite clearly distracted. They walk a ways down the hall, all the way to an open courtyard, before he seems to realize that he’s walking at all.

“I,” he says, and then stops still. “I don’t know where I’m taking us.”

G'raha isn’t used to Khovu stammering at him. It’s a startling reversal of roles. “I think,” he says, “it would be lovely to sit for a spell.” He nods at the nearby fountain, where there’s a small upper terrace, out of the way of even the sparse traffic that might pass through the area.

Khovu nods, but doesn’t move. G'raha, seized by a fit of boldness, takes him by the wrist. It seems to snap Khovu out of his fugue, setting his ears twitching as he glances G'raha’s way, and he lets himself be led to the edge of the cool, pooling water.

“I didn’t know you were a goldsmith,” G'raha says, as they settle down on the stone pavers.

Khovu nods, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Before I was an adventurer, I apprenticed under Estmar for many years. I suppose you could call it that, anyway. He was terribly good to me, and I was a terrible student.”

G'raha frowns at him. “I don’t believe that,” he says, and it pulls a soft huff of laughter out of Khovu. “You seem pretty confident in repairing his work, at least.”

“Aye,” Khovu admits. “It wasn’t my skills that were wanting. I just…” He sighs, staring down at the water. “I was never there. I couldn’t stay put, was always running off.” He swallows again, ears pinned back, tail lying limp at his side. G'raha suspects there is quite a bit he isn’t saying. “He died in the Calamity.”

“Oh,” G'raha says, reaching again, almost unconsciously, for Khovu’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”

Khovu’s mouth twists, a complicated fragment of emotion. He brushes his fingers against G'raha’s where they hover over his forearm. The intimacy of the gesture has G'raha’s hackles up, but Khovu doesn’t seem to notice.

“He was — he —” Again, Khovu chokes and abandons the thought. He reaches instead for the velvet pouch, pouring gold and schorl into a pool in his hand. “He adored this piece,” he says, his gaze lingering on the chain. And then — to G'raha’s shock — he takes the smaller Miqo’te’s hand and drapes the necklace carefully across his palm. G'raha stares at it in disbelief, stunned at how the silken slide of the chain belies its weight; he does not believe he has ever held something so valuable before. He is astonished that Khovu trusts him to touch it at all.

“The chain — did you notice the threads are different colors?” Khovu asks, and G'raha gives a shaky nod. Apparently oblivious, Khovu turns his gaze back to the necklace. “He alloyed the gold with different metals. Copper from the mines near Adalind’s hometown. Silver, from her husband’s. And this strand, a mix of both, and a touch of zinc from the city where they met.” He traces the braid across G'raha’s fingers, feather-light, and the chain quakes from G'raha’s shiver. “And up here, at the clasp — the threads loop around, then back into the necklace. Unbroken.” Khovu’s smile is so soft, his eyes glinting mournfully. “Each thread alone is weak, but cleaving together, they’re strong. Woven together and impossible to unbind.”

“It’s beautiful,” G'raha says, and it doesn’t feel like enough. Of course the piece is breathtaking, but it’s not jewelry that’s drawing G'raha’s gaze — it’s Khovu’s face, how his whole expression takes flight when he talks about Estmar’s work.

“It is,” Khovu agrees, and his smile is just a touch sweeter. “Adalind’s husband loved her terribly. He’s the one who mined the materials — all the metals and the schorl.” He runs a thumb over the black gems, reverent. “These traditions were nearly lost when Garlemald invaded Ala Mhigo. Estmar didn’t want them to be forgotten.”

G'raha doesn’t know what to say. If he were someone else — Adalind, maybe, someone who had any right to say it — he might point out that Estmar would be proud that Khovu remembered in his stead. But G'raha didn’t know the man — will never get the chance to know him. And he doesn’t feel it’s his place to presume.

Khovu takes the necklace from him, a warm brush of hands. He secures it safely in its pouch, then looks towards the gilded archway beyond the fountain. “I realized where I was going,” he says. “I’ll need a particular ore to craft a new clasp — one that’s hard to find on this side of Baelsar’s wall. The mining guild is just down that hall.”

G'raha offers up his best encouraging smile. “Shall we, then?”

Khovu nods, looking a bit more like his old self. “And then, back to your tour.”

Khovu is conversing with a Hyuran woman — no, Linette, the guild’s receptionist, because he seems to know everyone in Ul’dah by name, and is determined to introduce G'raha to them all — Khovu is conversing with Linette over the particulars of his order when a Lalafell tugs on G'raha’s sleeve.

“’Scuse me,” the man says, in gruff Eorzean, one hand stroking his thin mustache. “You’re one of them adventurers?” He was loitering outside the guild when the pair walked in, and G'raha has no clue why he decided to follow them inside.

“Oh,” G'raha responds, because he doesn’t know how else to answer. His tongue feels clumsy after so many bells communicating almost entirely in sign.

The man seems unimpressed. “You’ve got a bow on your back,” he points out, pointing at G'raha’s quiver, as if the Miqo'te might not have noticed. “And your friend’s got that sword. Mighty strange to be wandering ‘round the city armed to the teeth, unless you’re one of them adventurers.”

G'raha feels a nudge against his arm and looks up. Khovu has wandered over, bumping shoulders to get his attention. “Making a new friend?” he asks, and G'raha is relieved to see a bit of that sparkle back in his eyes. “Or auditioning a new tour guide? Are my services so lackluster?”

“He wants to know if we’re adventurers,” G'raha signs to him —

— as the man says, aloud, “I ain’t askin’ to be nosy, mind. I’ve got work.”

G'raha grimaces and starts fumbling to translate, but Khovu stays his hand with a wry smile. He nods towards the Lalafell, who's holding up a small, jingling coinpurse, and says, “Some things need no translation.” Then he looks back to G'raha, still smiling, head tilted just slightly. “Well? Are you going to answer him?”

“I — me?” G'raha asks, wide-eyed.

“Yes, you,” Khovu chuckles. There’s a bit of fang peeking through where he bites his lip, that curious expression of his where he seems to be holding back… something. A laugh, a grin? G'raha can never tell. “He asked if we were adventurers, you said?” When G'raha nods, he quirks another sly smile. “Well — are you up for an adventure?”

“An adventure? Me?” G'raha asks again, feeling rather like a skipping orchestrion roll. “I’m — but, I’m —”

“— more than capable of handling the monsters outside the gate, for sure,” Khovu answers. “It might be a bit insulting to an archer of your skill, honestly.” G'raha feels himself straighten, a warm bolt like levin shooting down his spine at the offhanded praise. “But there’s some money in it, if you’re interested. Enough to buy a souvenir.”

“Oh. Oh, yes, I suppose,” G'raha signs back, wondering if Khovu can see the heat rising in his face. It’s just — it was one matter for Khovu to allow him into the Labyrinth’s raiding party, after G'raha insisted, and another matter entirely for Khovu to offer —

He turns back to the Lalafell, quickly, before any of them can change their minds. “What sort of work did you have in mind?”

It’s startling, after that, how quickly the tasks pile up. The Lalafell wants them to collect some hornet bile, a mission that Khovu accepts with nary a blink of surprise. G'raha hopes he knows how to harvest such a thing, because G'raha certainly hasn’t a clue. And then Linette overhears that they’re heading to the city gates and asks if they could carry a message to Averitt, up on Sapphire Avenue, because it isn’t out of their way in the slightest.

As it turns out, Averitt is an arms mender, and he’s fresh out of skins for his leather repairs. The star marmots are right next to the hornets, he says, and would it be too much trouble for them to fetch a few pelts while they’re out? Not at all, G'raha assures him, but that sends a young Roegadyn girl nearby straight into bawling hysterics.

Her name is Summer (which Khovu has to ask, proving that he does not know everyone in the city), and her pet marmot escaped the house just last night. She begs and pleads with them not to kill Dumpling (the marmot) for his pelt. Both of them assure her that no, they certainly won’t, and then G'raha in his panic makes the terribly ill-advised offer to help her look for the wayward creature. Khovu, the fiend, does not raise a hand to stop him.

A bell later, they’re fighting a truly massive spriggan out in Black Brush, and G'raha has entirely lost track of how (and why) they got there. In fact, he only knows they’re in Black Brush because Khovu told him so a few chimes prior.

A well-timed thrust from Khovu’s blade knocks the spriggan to one spindle-thin knee, and G'raha turns it to dust with an expertly placed arrow. He’s pleased with himself for the shot, especially after Khovu’s whoop of congratulations. He feels his ears slick back and tries to brush it off casually — as if he fells giant monsters every other day.

As the smaller spriggans around them scatter into the hills, Khovu kneels in the pile of coal dust left behind. He starts sifting through it, elbow-deep in soot; G'raha hasn’t a clue what he’s looking for.

G'raha has been wondering about Khovu quite a bit on this adventure, if he’s honest. The other Miqo’te has done any number of strange or impressive things while they’ve been out: he performed an expert dissection of a hornet’s abdomen to extract its bile gland; he processed the marmots’ pelts and meat with quick and practiced ease; he, somehow, picked a set of tracks out of pure dust and announced that these scratchy pawprints must belong to Dumpling. None of these are particularly peculiar skills for a huntsman, G'raha supposes, but they are certainly strange behaviors from a goldsmith or an arcanist.

“Here we go,” Khovu signs, pulling G'raha from his reverie. He’s holding up a chunk of rock. It looks, to G'raha’s eyes, exactly like every other chunk of rock that litters the ground of the massive spriggan’s den.

“Ah. What… is it?” G'raha asks, and Khovu tilts his head.

“It’s some of the ore that Spitfire stole,” he says, and when G'raha blinks blankly at him, elaborates: “Spitfire, that giant spriggan? He’s been pilfering and hoarding all of the ore mined by the locals?”

G'raha knows they must have discussed this, obviously, back at the Coffer & Coffin, where they found the man who’d trapped Dumpling. It’s just... Khovu had offered to bring the bloke some fresh eft meat, to keep him from turning Dumpling into marmot stew. And then down by the creek, he’d taken his tunic off to wrestle with those efts, bare-chested, in the mud, so that G'raha could fight from the safety of the shore. And he’d been soaked through by the time they were done, slops clinging to his thighs, back glinting with sweat and creek water, the inked stripes of his trial marks rippling on his skin as his muscles flexed beneath…

G'raha, well — he hadn’t been paying perfect attention to the conversation. He can see a curious glint in Khovu’s eye, now, as the taller Miqo’te realizes this, but he can’t tell if Khovu knows why. And G'raha is certainly not going to ask.

He’s also not going to ask if Khovu could remove his shirt again, though he would very much like to. (He files that unreasonable urge away for later examination.)

“My apologies,” he says, ears pinnedd like a chastised schoolboy. “I'm grateful that you’ve kept better track of our goals than I. I hope you also know where we need to go next..?”

“Back to Coffer,” Khovu replies, with an easy smile. It seems he’s not upset with G'raha in the slightest. “Now that we’ve taken care of their spriggan problem, the miners can recover the coin they need to buy the barkeep’s ale. And he’s agreed to give Dumpling back, hale and whole, as a token of his thanks.”

“And the ore?” G'raha asks, as the two of them start their trek up the ravine's steep slope. “Is it proof of our work dealing with Spitfire?”

“Oh, no,” Khovu says, and pockets the chunk of rock. “This is the evergleam that I need for that clasp. It seems that Spitfire is the reason the guild stores were emptied out — all of that ore was commissioned by goldsmiths.”

G'raha’s eyes go wide. “You’re pulling my tail,” he says. “You offer to help a girl find her missing marmot, and it leads you right to the rare metal you needed?”

“As I remember, it was you who offered to help her,” Khovu reminds him with an infuriating smirk. “I’m just here to gut the hornets.” G'raha glares at him, and he huffs out a small chuckle. “But yes, it does seem to have worked out quite nicely for me.”

“You don’t seem surprised,” G'raha says. They’ve finally breached the mouth of the ravine, ending their grueling climb, but there’s no reprieve from the harsh desert sun. He can see the barest hint of Black Brush’s aetheryte in the distance — not even half a malm away, but it might as well be a league in this climate. G'raha finds himself glancing longingly back towards the creek below.

Khovu considers G'raha’s statement as they walk. The taller Miqo’te seems entirely unaffected by the heat, and G'raha burns with envy. “People’s problems are often connected,” he says. “We help the miners, it helps the bar that depends on their custom, the bartender helps us reunite Summer with her marmot.”

“And then you help Adalind repair her necklace,” G'raha prompts, and Khovu nods.

G'raha itches to ask him more. Where did he learn how to hunt so proficiently? How did he turn from a goldsmith’s apprentice into an adventurer? Why does he keep on adventuring, rather than settling down with a safer profession? But those questions are fraught with thorns. Asking about Estmar feels to G'raha like prodding at a raw wound. Asking about his family is similarly prickly — that is, for a Miqo’te who has a Seeker’s eyes and no tribe, a Keeper’s fangs without his mother’s name.

As G'raha casts about for a safer subject, his eyes land on Khovu’s sword. “I don’t think,” he says, “that I’ve ever encountered such a powerful mage who was also such a proficient swordsman.” He’s read about obscure disciplines that combine the two, but as far as he can tell Khovu doesn’t mix the practices.

Khovu preens. G'raha finds it terribly distracting — a self-satisfied smile with a touch of sheepish charm. It makes something flutter in G'raha’s chest, and that goes straight into his data set.

“I had a stern teacher,” Khovu says. “But surely there are plenty more talented mages in Sharlayan?”

G'raha can’t help but laugh, prompting a curious head tilt from Khovu. “Oh, Sharlayan boasts plenty of well-read practitioners,” he admits, “but you’d be surprised how few of them are very… practical, about it. And the practical sort of scholar rarely has a gift for magic. I cannot imagine a trained Sharlayan mage who would bother learning a hand-washing spell, much less how to wield a blade.”

This seems to surprise Khovu, and he asks about what sort of magic is common Sharlayan; that discussion occupies them all the way to the Coffer. It’s not until they’re relaxing in the soothing shade, Khovu conversing with the bartender, that G'raha realizes that he’s fallen for it again — Khovu offers the barest sliver of information about himself, and then effortlessly redirects the conversation towards G'raha, or their surroundings, or some other distraction. It’s an incredibly effective ploy, G'raha muses. Somehow, he knows more about Adalind’s necklace than he does about Khovu.

He tries a more direct approach, though it takes him a while to decide how to phrase it. He launches his offensive when they’re seated at a table, enjoying complimentary drinks before the last leg of their quest. “You told Hrodrich that you were only in town for a couple days,” he says, “and Adalind was complaining how little she sees of you. I assumed that you made your home in Ul’dah. Is that not the case?”

“No,” Khovu replies, giving him a strange look. He’s crouched on the wide stool like a great, furry toad, because of course he’s incapable of sitting properly.

G'raha pounces on the pause — he can't allow Khovu the opportunity to deflect again. “Where do you call home, then?”

“Nowhere,” Khovu says, and huffs in amusement at G'raha’s baffled expression. He turns his hand palm-up and shakes back his sleeve, then runs his thumb over his wrist. Like foam floating to the surface of the sea, a splash of magical ink appears — Oschon’s sigil, shimmering faintly in the sunlight.

“Oh,” G'raha breathes, and pushes away their mugs to get a better look. “Is that — the Wanderer’s mantle?” He catches himself reaching for Khovu’s arm and freezes, ears pinning in embarrassment, but Khovu chuckles and waves at him to go ahead. “I just,” G'raha says, “I’ve read about it, but never seen it in person.”

He cradles Khovu’s wrist in both of his hands, tracing the edge of the symbol tenderly with one thumb. He can feel the aether in the ink pulsing against Khovu’s skin; beneath his fingers, he senses where the spell anchors itself to Khovu’s life force, as any permanent magic must.

“Did it hurt?” he finds himself asking, though he suspects he knows the answer. The magic should not be so terribly different from his own Archon marks.

Khovu smiles and shakes his head. “No. It felt just like getting any of my trial marks, only… sharper.” He leaves his arm in G'raha’s loose grip, even though it forces him to sign slower, spell more words. G'raha feels his cheeks heat — they’re in public — and he lets go.

“I’ve, ah — I’ve heard much the same, or read as much, from other Miqo’te who claimed trial marks and Archon marks both,” he says, biting his lip self-consciously. Khovu tilts his head in an unspoken question, and G'raha gestures to the tattoos on his own neck. “They theorized that the magic from the trial stones is a gentler effect — something about their centuries-old enchantments, versus the spellcraft wielded by a living mage — one of Oschon’s monks, or the Sharlayan marks-keepers.”

G'raha can see a spark of fascination in Khovu’s eyes, warring with the surprise in his brows. “Wait,” he signs, and reaches out to — to touch G'raha’s neck. In the middle of the bar! “These are magical? How did you get them?”

G'raha’s tail shoots straight up behind him, bristled like a startled cactuar. Khovu’s fingertips are so warm. Little levin-sharp prickles tingle in the wake of their touch, Khovu’s aether searching beneath his skin. “I, ah — yes, they — they are marks of scholarship in Sharlayan,” he stammers, “bestowed upon those who demonstrate exceptional contributions in their fields.”

This is normal, he tells himself. Eorzeans are much more forward than Sharlayans. Khovu allowed G'raha to touch his magical tattoo, and now he’s touching G'raha’s magical tattoo, and this is a very normal thing to do between acquaintances.

Friends. Khovu called them friends.

Khovu snorts. His fingertip traces the line of aether-ink down G'raha’s neck. G'raha wonders if he can feel the pulse pounding there. “And here I thought,” Khovu says, “that they were a membership badge, and all of the Scions forgot to give me one. I didn’t know I had to write a paper.”

G'raha bristles now for entirely different reasons. “What part of exceptional,” he huffs, “did you not understand? It was certainly more work than writing a paper.” Khovu laughs, pulling his hand away, and G'raha's ears slick back in anger. “I worked for years for these, I’ll have you know. It is certainly more discipline than you —”

He stops, mid-screed, as the rest of Khovu’s words catch up with him. “One moment. Did you say ‘Scions’? As in…”

“The Scions of the Seventh Dawn? Eorzea’s worst-kept secret order?” Khovu bites his lip; he wears that mysterious expression again. “You’ve heard of them, but not the Warriors of Light?”

Indignation flares sharp in G'raha’s craw, and he scoffs — and once again, lets himself be baited. “The Scions of the Seventh Dawn are at the forefront of research into modern-day eikons,” he says, “and are therefore, in many ways, our era’s counterparts to Allag’s most gifted scientists. Your — your chocobo racing team, or whatever they are —”

And here Khovu does laugh — it bursts out of him like a storm surge in an overfull dam, nearly knocking him off his stool, and just like on the airship he claps a hand over his mouth in a poor attempt to contain it. G'raha must look furious, because Khovu puts his other hand up, pleading for mercy. He signs yes, yes on shaking fingers until he can pull himself together, wheezing quite unbecomingly for air. “Yes,” he repeats, finally, though his shoulders still quake with barely contained amusement, “you’re right, of course. Our chocobos couldn’t possibly compare.”

G'raha scowls at him and crosses his arms over his chest. He refuses to engage in any more conversation with such an impertinent lout — can't believe he agreed to this diversion in the first place, never mind the beautiful desert vistas, the thrill of the hunt, the red glint off Khovu's hair in the sun…

He nurses his grudge all the way back to Black Brush Station and, in his fit of pique, entirely forgets to keep questioning Khovu about his supposed relationship to the Scions.

But then they report to the miners, and Khovu praises him — tells everyone in sight how his arrow felled Spitfire. The miners cheer — cheer for them, cheer for G'raha — another startling first. And he's surrounded — just a dozen people, but every one of them wants to pat his back, shake his hand, thank him personally for saving their livelihoods.

In the midst of this, he catches sight of Khovu — ducking notice at the edge of the crowd, babysitting their squirming sack of marmot, measuring out a handful of gil as he regards his chunk of ore. He glances up, their gazes meet, and G'raha finds his breath catching at the warm, raw affection brimming in those violet eyes. Khovu smiles at him, soft and easy and secret, just for G'raha. For just a moment, it's like they're the only two people in the world.

His heart flutters again. He notes it, for later analysis. And he admits, begrudgingly, that it was a lovely adventure.