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The lanky, dark-skinned Hyur snorts and leans forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees and looking in your direction.
I’m lucky I even know my name day… And I know for a fact that its added almost all the color to my life as I know it. And I’m only sort of talking about astrology. It’s a bit of a long story, but since you asked, you’re stuck hearing it.
He smiles and winks at you before exhaling sharply and breaking eye contact to look down at the floor.
Well, I was born on the 16th sun of 5th astral moon, and quite a few religious types say that particular moon is under the protection of Azeyma the Warden.
Nobody loves Azeyma more than Seekers of the Sun, and among the Seekers, no one loves Her more the N tribe of Wellwick Wood, and that was the tribe that my mother hailed from. She came to the Cieldalaes after failing her rite of passage, too ashamed to set foot on her tribe’s sacred lands, lest she offend Azeyma. Gods only knew she was the superstitious type. Still is, no doubt. She’d been by herself in a strange land for barely a single summer when the choreography of coincidence brought us together, and got me my first scar and my first real family member.
He brushes his hair behind his ears and strokes the right side of his jaw. As his index finger parts the hairs of his sideburns, you notice a thin white ribbon of scar tissue concealed beneath.
It used to be much bigger… Thankfully the rest of my face grew around it. Getting this wound was actually my earliest memory, and its also the first time I can remember Ruby being around.
He clenches his hand into a loose fist in front of his face and slowly opens his hand again, revealing the aforementioned Ruby; an aetherial creature about as long as his hand in the shape of a honeybee. As she begins to spread her translucent wings, it becomes easy to see how she got her name. Softly, she takes flight, landing on his shoulder without a sound. He looks back at you.
Turns out when a self-exiled N tribe huntress sees a giant red bee on toddler’s face, her first instinct is to try and pick it off with an arrow. Uh, the bee, I mean… Thankfully Ruby’s learned to hide a lot better since then, and the average Eorzean adventurer doesn’t bat an eyelash at random aether-creatures… so long as you carry a gaudy, impractical-looking book with you. Annnnd that doesn’t have too much to do with my nameday, but I’m getting to it. Its just hard to say anything about it without telling the whole story.
My adoptive mother had never planned on having children that weren’t of her blood, but when she found out that I was not only a foundling, but born smack in the middle of her tribe’s most sacred month, she felt like it was her destiny to protect me…
A warm smile crosses his face again.
I heard her tell that story to everyone who remarked - however politely or rudely - that we looked nothing alike, and weren’t even the same race. And every time she explained, she put her hand over her heart and looked up to the heavens, like she knew Azeyma could hear her. She was 17, didn’t have a home and hadn‘t even found steady work, but she took me with her that very day and thought of me as her own son. And she did… At least until Azeyma told her otherwise, I guess.
She said she didn’t even remember what day it was when she actually adopted me, but she never forgot my nameday. I suspect she never will.
Though his face still wears a smile and his voice has not shifted in tone, he himself now seems curiously absent, having retreated somewhere behind dark blue eyes.