Kajin’s heels bounced off the seat of the carriage as he finished his last crumpet. Getting into the wheeled box was a blur, his focus singularly on the horned child. A ruckus of books hitting the ground had pulled his attention away long enough to send a glare the girl’s way. Books didn’t just grow on trees! It took hours upon hours upon hours of painstaking penmanship to produce them and someone had the audacity to toss them around like gil on the blood sands! He had half a mind to stomp over to her but he decided against it. If they were going to be working in close proximity for the foreseeable future, it wouldn’t do to start anything so quickly. So he held his tongue and followed the rest of the group as they were ushered into the carriage, making sure to seat himself as close to the Padjal as he could.
He needed to be respectful and polite, ask questions approperitaley and respect boundaries but at the same time he wanted to know. He licked the remaining butter off his fingers, practically vibrating with the need to bombard the child with questions, but he had some semblance of self con--"It's the horns, isn't it? Are those the secret to the timeless deal?" The question burst out, definitely meant to be a thought but the Lalafell and his curiosity had never been one to respect the situation. "Thall’s balls, that was meant to stay private. Kajin Najin, aetheric evaluator for Azyma's Eyes. I've just never seen a Padjal outside of the twelveswood, or at all for that matter, and I'm dying to know what stories are true!"“Hmmm?”
the Padjal mused aloud. He turned his head, instinctively looking up for the source of the voice that had spoken, as though expecting to find a Hyur or Elezen there. Instead, he found that he had to look down -- which was a strange experience for him -- and discovered a Lalafell who seemed quite taken with him.
Placing a hand over his heart, the boy gave a slight bow toward the diminutive figure. “E-Siri-Rai of the timeless horn,”
the child supplied in introduction, making light jest.
Then he paused a moment, reaching up both hands to gentle touch the horns on either side of his head as though checking that they were still there. “Though, to be honest, I’m not sure these are good for much more than destroying many a good pillow,”
the youth commented wryly, before looking down and adding, “Also, making it rather hard to get comfortable. It’s not easy to just flip over when you spear the bed every time you turn your head.”
Kajin couldn’t help the laughter that burst out, folding in half in the seat as he giggled. He hadn’t contemplated the difficulty the horns presented. He just assumed they adapted to them somehow but it made sense that laying down would be a struggle. However, he was more surprised at the joke. The Pagjals, despite their child-like stature, always seemed aloof in the stories he heard and yet here was one, cracking jokes with a stranger. Admitly, here was one presenting the perfect counter argument to the Lalfell’s assuptions. “Delightful!” Kajin wiped the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes as he caught his breath. His heels resumed their steady thunking against the carraige’s seating. “I hadn’t considered the challenges unwieldy additions presented but I guess that would be a frustration. Simple blessing for me and I’m not below taking it. So E-Siri-Rai, two questions. One, is there a short version cause that’s a mouthful. Two, are you truly unaffected by time?” Kajin counted his questions on his fingers as he asked, leaning forward with curious eyes.
The young Padjal gave a slight smile, seeing that the jest seemed to have landed its mark and somewhat satisfied by that fact. “E-Siri’s my name, if that’s what your asking,”
the boy remarked in answer. “Rai is the family that I was born into. Padjal don’t often come from our lot though, so we’re not as well known in Gridania as the Senna or Yan.”
The second part of that gave the boy pause to consider just how to answer. “No one’s unaffected by time. It’s passage denotes a loss, a change, a passage to each of us. Some just don’t manifest it the same as others,”
the Seedseer offered, somewhat musing to himself as he contemplated that. But, it seemed about as good an answer as any. “Will I grow up as you did? No. But, I am capable of learning and that’s a change of a sort, isn’t it?”
"E-Siri, okay. Nice to meet you." Kajin beamed but cocked his head at the answer to his second question. While the answer was correct, it wasn't the response he was looking for but that was entirely his own fault. "It is a change, for better or for worse, but will you pass away of old age like me? If some bumbling, wine-sodden brute doesn't crush me first that is." The last part was a grumble as he recalled the tavern incident but he shook it off as quickly as it came, a contemplative look taking the scowl's place."I couldn't even imagine the responsibility that comes with life longer than what the twelve gave me." Kajin spoke slowly, looking at the ceiling. "The knowledge you would gain, the things you could advance."The boy just blinked as he looked down at the Lalafell fellow. Then the boy gave a warm laugh. “Everything that has a beginning, has an end,”
the boy offered, by way of a somewhat cryptic explanation. “Death is what gives life meaning. Some of us just live longer than others, be they wine-sodden brutes or Padjali. In this way, what we hope to advance is a better of understanding of how man and nature co-exist.”
“I think I disagree with that point but I don’t think I have enough of an understanding to say why.” Kajin frowned at the statement. It just seemed weird, that for something to have meaning that it must be finite. A rope, regardless of length, was a useful tool and likely doubly so if it never ended but he’d never had an endless amount of rope so maybe it wasn’t useful and was only useful if you cut it into segments and… Kajin clicked his tongue to break that chain of thought before he stuck himself in it and developed a nasty head pain. “I’ll leave the philosophizing in better hands.” The Lalafell chuckled. “So E-Siri, what brought you to this little group? It’s a far way from the Black Shroud.” Kajin watched the blazing blue Thanalan sky beat down in sandy roads, cactars playing in what flora managed to find purchase in the thin soil. “Curiosity about the world in which the Shroud exists,”
the boy answered simply. There was far more to it, but the easy answer seemed the better option, particularly for the the sake of making conversation. “And yourself?”
The boy paused there a moment, before continuing, “I’ll admit that I’m not well acquainted with Lalafell. Your name is Kajin Najin. Do I say the whole thing, or just Kajin?”
"Kajin works just fine. It's the short version, makes it easier for non-dunesfolk to say it." The Lalafell shrugged, offering a half smile with the information. "I joined Ayzema's Eyes to help settle the world and my brother stuck me on desk duty even though I have the skills to be an assessor. I got bored after three years, saw the flyer, and went behind his back to get transferred out of scribe work. So now I'm here, free to travel. So long as I do my job along the way."As the Lalafell spoke, a noise from another part of the carriage caught the Padjal’s attention. Turning his head away just a moment, the horned child looked over where two Miqo’te had been speaking quietly. Which, appeared to have moved on to one beating a tambourine. And, from there, the singing started.
Turning back toward his similarly diminutive new friend, the Padjal had to raise his voice just a bit to be heard over the Limsan revelry that was happening in the carriage. “It sounds like we may be in similar circumstances,”
the Padjal noted aloud. “Though, I admit that I’m not very familiar with Ayzema’s Eyes. It is the name of the guild that you represent?”
Kajin looked on with confusion as one of the Miqo’te started a beat and grinned as they started singing. His heels bounced against the seat in time with the music, turning his attention back to E-Siri. “Although I’m not 100% sure how its handled in the other city states, Ayzema’s Eyes’ Thanalan branch is under the supervision of the Thaumaturge’s Guild in Ul’dah. We record and monitor the aetheric condition of Eorzea. As we see stable trends among the regions, we’ll push forward to develop possible counters to severe aetheric imbalance. It relies heavily on aetheric sensitive individuals, although I think the higher ups are developing possible alternatives. We have monitoring stations across Eorzea and use members like me to wander and confirm the station’s observations.”“Fascinating,”
the boy remarked. It seemed that in Thanalan he had found an organization whose appreciation for the scope and depth of the elemental reach ran parallel to his own. “I’d be curious to look at your data for Gridania to see if your observations don’t match my own,”
the child offered candidly. “Of late, we’ve observed a recurring elemental disturbance in the South Shroud. I’d be curious if there wasn’t some kind of mild imbalance somewhere in Eastern Thanalan that didn’t correspond.”
"A disturbance out of the South Shroud?” Kajin frowned at the comment. He didn’t personally know what the Padjal was talking about but if the Eyes observed a similar phenomena, there were a few stations that came to mind. “I’ll requisition a copy of the Golden Baazar’s records and cross reference them with your observations. Hopefully, that’ll give us a clearer indicator of the stressor. However, I think you’ll find your knowledge far suprasses our own. With the Calamity making a right mess of the aether, our early data only reflects the correction process so it may take some work to extrapolate the imbalance but I’m sure if we put our heads together, we’ll figure it out!”
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Andreyich
Izurich
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