[ On the second night of port, Travis receives, without caption or commentary, a dozen or so pictures—mostly of airships, docked or in flight, but also a distant early-morning shot of the Marquis' mansion, the crystal flaring from it like enormous tongues of blue flame; a contented-looking chocobo, its eyes closed; and what might look like an ordinary patch of sky but is actually a glimpse over the edge of the city.
William's not a photographer and there's no self-conscious artistry here—some of the flying ships are little more than colorful blurs—but he's struck by details and patterns, the wings of a steeling fixed to a ship's bow, the needlelike procession of grates along a ship's side. ]
[On this second night, the buzz of his communicator snaps him out of idle thoughts. Travis wipes a hand off on his shorts and fumbles to find his communicator amidst his rumpled bedding, and squints at the whole-ass gallery incoming from William. The green-eyed monster in him says fuck this, I hate this F***l F**nt**y-type bullshit anyway. I don't care, who cares? Why would anyone care? But oh, fuck, he thumbs back and forth between these photos four times, indulging in the kind of FOMO he'd usually squash. How often do you miss out on a place like that? He could kick himself.
[ But it's not fair to tease when— ] They've got posters downstairs. In color too. Bounties on whatever's crawling around the mines. [ By now he's heard a few stories—days of work lost to bats preying on miners, a giant snake slithering ever closer to the entrance—and witnessed dread, irritation, and resignation on a variety of faces, but it all seems rote. A little too familiar. ]
I don't know. I was a bat, remember? Harder to kill one for their teeth after that.
I dunno, dude, you ever see a seagull eat chicken? You think mermaids just eat algae? If you can't kill a bat because you were a man-bat, you might as well become a vegan, cause everything else in the universe is just going for it.
[He thumbs back through the pictures again and again, and heaves a heavy sigh, sinking bonelessly into his mattress. Stupid fucking ATV...]
What kinda cash do they got on the bounties? It's gotta be good if people are willing to dungeon crawl for it.
Nobody's eating anybody. They sleep in big groups, you know. We had clans.
Thousands, for the splashy stuff. What the fuck am I gonna do with that, buy a really big gun? [ Rent an airship for a day. Acquire a library's worth of books. Give it to someone who needs it.
Thirty or so minutes later, a snapshot of the tavern's bulletin board. Most prominent are the more monstrous and fantastically rendered creatures—an iridescent snake lunging through the air, a mothlike creature with razor-sharp wings—but there are also notices requesting bone fragments and bat fangs. A weathered-looking flier solicits help with the paling, depicted as a frenzied swirl of blue. ]
Of course it’s real. It’s a shorthand for the same shit that applies to real life. Do something, do better at it.
[He is, of course, immediately flung into thinking about Waver. His last conversation with the guy had been during the fight, Waver on the ground, pleading with him. Travis gets a little chill just thinking about it.]
[ He's distantly surprised—but then he'd spoken to everyone but Travis about it. He recalls Waver as wispy and uncertain, prone to second-guessing himself.
Even so he hadn't asked for pity, had thought first of the inmates. ] This job demands a lot from you. It's hard to do well. He seemed like a perfectionist.
Killing’s in your whole body. An instinct. You still gotta train it though.
But nah, he didn’t. Not after, anyway. He started out with moxie but I saw it in his eyes when he realized it was for real. Guy like that wanted to be a teacher, not a prison guard.
[ There are a few stops and starts before he assembles a reply. ] Yeah, well. You treat someone a certain way, they tend to respond in kind. I think you know what I mean. [ He's seen him playing the jackass on the network enough. ]
I'm sorry I had to ban you. For your sake, I mean. Ports are the only chance you get to meet people not wrapped up in warden-inmate bullshit. You touch down somewhere and the world works differently. There's a new set of priorities. [ Or an old one: maybe Travis would have gleefully signed on with the first pack of bounty hunters to cross his path. ]
I want a pic of the coolest sword you can find. That's cultural exchange, right?
[An apology sits strange –– the guy's not wrong. Travis could just vanish into a place like this. He figures there isn't a genre he isn't prepared for; any place could have him on a bender. Ah well.]
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bhujerba 📸
William's not a photographer and there's no self-conscious artistry here—some of the flying ships are little more than colorful blurs—but he's struck by details and patterns, the wings of a steeling fixed to a ship's bow, the needlelike procession of grates along a ship's side. ]
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He taps out:]
You're killing me, bro.
[And half a moment later:]
Get to fight anything cool?
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[ But it's not fair to tease when— ] They've got posters downstairs. In color too. Bounties on whatever's crawling around the mines. [ By now he's heard a few stories—days of work lost to bats preying on miners, a giant snake slithering ever closer to the entrance—and witnessed dread, irritation, and resignation on a variety of faces, but it all seems rote. A little too familiar. ]
I don't know. I was a bat, remember? Harder to kill one for their teeth after that.
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[He thumbs back through the pictures again and again, and heaves a heavy sigh, sinking bonelessly into his mattress. Stupid fucking ATV...]
What kinda cash do they got on the bounties? It's gotta be good if people are willing to dungeon crawl for it.
hdu make me look up fantasy currencies
Thousands, for the splashy stuff. What the fuck am I gonna do with that, buy a really big gun? [ Rent an airship for a day. Acquire a library's worth of books. Give it to someone who needs it.
Thirty or so minutes later, a snapshot of the tavern's bulletin board. Most prominent are the more monstrous and fantastically rendered creatures—an iridescent snake lunging through the air, a mothlike creature with razor-sharp wings—but there are also notices requesting bone fragments and bat fangs. A weathered-looking flier solicits help with the paling, depicted as a frenzied swirl of blue. ]
😎
[He studies the bounties for a good ten minutes. He’d do all of them, one after the other.]
You should work your way up from the bottom. Lowest reward first. You get more experience that way, less likely to get your shit wrecked early.
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Do you think about Waver?
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[He is, of course, immediately flung into thinking about Waver. His last conversation with the guy had been during the fight, Waver on the ground, pleading with him. Travis gets a little chill just thinking about it.]
Sometimes. I think I scared him off this place.
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[ He's distantly surprised—but then he'd spoken to everyone but Travis about it. He recalls Waver as wispy and uncertain, prone to second-guessing himself.
Even so he hadn't asked for pity, had thought first of the inmates. ] This job demands a lot from you. It's hard to do well. He seemed like a perfectionist.
Did he say something?
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But nah, he didn’t. Not after, anyway. He started out with moxie but I saw it in his eyes when he realized it was for real. Guy like that wanted to be a teacher, not a prison guard.
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He should've talked to you. I'm not defending what you did. It's indefensible. But he failed you.
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No, I don’t.
It’s fine, though. He didn’t owe me anything. You get beaten like that, you don’t have to give two shits about the guy who did it.
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But a teacher would've talked to you.
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[That’s par for the course, though, and lots of people love to feel smart. He doesn’t much care.]
Teacher, therapist, doctor, whatever, he’s gone anyway. I’ll take it up with the wardens who stick around but look the other way when I walk by.
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Got any requests for pictures?
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[An apology sits strange –– the guy's not wrong. Travis could just vanish into a place like this. He figures there isn't a genre he isn't prepared for; any place could have him on a bender. Ah well.]
Thanks, bud.