Koi's Attempts at FFXIV Write 2023

Hanako held the airship pass in her hands as she rode the Wellhead lift up to the Airship Landing. Her hands skirted the edge of the pressed card and she pondered the meaning of it, the words Raubahn himself had put emphasis on, and put into the thin slip. It was trust, acceptance, meaning. Not only the meaning of the message he wished to send to the other city states, but the meaning of belief. To feel someone believing in her, for once, and not limiting her.

It was a strange inverted circumstance to her normal. To the feeling of being left out and shunned for her lack of money and status. Someone actually believed in her and her actions, trusted her even to call her similar to a Warrior of Light, and trusted her to travel to places unknown to her to deliver that message.

Hanako didn't fully understand the full extent of the calamity, or the Battle of Cartenau, she wasn't born in Eorzea nor did she really have any proper idea of it's history. She knew tragedy though, she knew loss, she knew pain and she knew terror. She could see that pain in him, it was set deep into his eyes and the scars that scissored his face. She knew what it meant to come out the other side a survivor of a pain like that. It wasn't even a question that she'd accept his request - that she'd embark on this quest, this envoy, to deliver his voice to the other nations. It was a missive of pride, words of recovery, and a message of healing. Of survival. That's all she needed to know at the base of it, the details did not fully matter to her, no matter what would befall her on this journey she would see this request to it's completion.

Hanako's determination burned inside her as she proudly strutted up to the clerk, placing down the documents with a swift 'twhomp' onto the wooden desk between them. Hanako proudly announced to him,

"I've been sent to board the next flight to Limsa Lominsa!"

The clerks eyes bounced along her appearance as she stood straight, grinning forward at him like a child awaiting praise. He seemed to be trying to verify her claim, it was an examining of her appearance Hanako was very familiar with given her Raen race, and her small, unassuming stature, she paid it no mind and before a second had even passed the clerk nonchalantly replied,

"Next ship docks at 12:24, and leaves at half-past. Anything left on the airship will be sold. It says here your ticket for this flight and the flight to Gridania has been compensated for, but further tickets will have to be compensated for in gil. Please sign the departures here,"

Hanako took in his words as she looked down to where the clerk was pointing. Admittedly, she was caught a little off-guard by his flat tone of voice - she had expected more fan-fare in the reaction to her declaration - but her mind quickly forgot about it and moved onto the task at hand. She scribbled her name down onto the leather-bound book provided to her, her handwriting was barely legible as she had no formal training in writing, just scribbles into her adventuring diary and not good ones at that, but given the over entries she could see around where she was instructed to write she wasn't all too worried about hers being a stand-out case. Once done, the clerk stamped something with a rather official looking symbol of the Ul'dahn scales, then he swiftly pulled out a piece of parchment from a drawer underneath the desk that separated the two, he began to copy across writing from the book to the parchment. Hanako watched his head bob from side to side in small 5 second intervals, curiously Hanako tried to crane herself to view what he was writing, but alas, her Eorzean was still too terrible to read upside-down so she fidgeted with rubbing the scales on her arm.

A few minutes passed before the clerk spoke again, he spun around the form he had just completed, presenting it to her,

"And here,"

Hanako quickly looked up towards him before back down to the paper, her eyes guided back to the form. The clerk seemed to be resting the quill at the entry point, but also tilting it towards her as to indicate for her to take. Hanako obliged and repeated her chicken-scratch handwriting onto the piece of parchment. She looked back up to him expectantly once done, he moved swiftly like a machine as he stamped the bottom of it and signed it with a special golden ink. Hanako's eyes wandered again, looking across the bronze-glad stone enclave they seemed to be situated in. Sunlight seemed to stream out from the opening where Hanako assumed Airships would dock at, from her angle she could only get a glimpse out but she recognized that this place seemed to be quite high up. She was knocked out of her thoughts by the clerk again,

"This one is for you,"

He explained, passing Hanako the loose parchment that he had just signed. She eagerly took it, slotting it into the middle of her journal along with the airship pass. She hoped that by placing it into a book it would keep it fresh and from crumbling, although this method seemed to have mixed results in the past. The clerk gave his parting remark, a warning as well as a standard courtesy,

"Do not lose your ticket, or you will have to pay for your return fare."

Hanako nodded stoutly, giving a small grunt of affirmation. The clerk pulled a small lever from the side of the desk, and the iron gate beside her creaked open. With nothing more to say, the clerk gestured towards the opening for her to go.

"Thank you!"

Hanako squeaked in parting and with excitement happily sprung through the gates before scanning the area to get a good grasp on where she was and possibly scout out a place for her to sit and wait for her flight. She noticed earlier the Airship Landing was perched in a small enclave rather high up in the domes of Ul'dah's main tower but now that she was the other side of the gates she could get a better view at the skyline outside. Walking closer to the opening cautiously, she found herself very scared at the somewhat unlikely possibility she may fall down and tumble into the endless abyss below. Reassuring herself that there must be things down there seemed to help but without a clear enough view of it, the fear lingered in the back of her mind. Not helping matters was the occasional whistle of the wind into the space, giving a wailing cry that echoed across the walls of the area before settling back down into white noise.

As she stepped back from the edge she checked the clock, 12:28. The airship should be here soon...