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You are Carmina of the very VERY humble House Faeris - you are a Mediator - and you are currently stuck with your team in Warjilis, City of Trade, with no safe way out other than theft or suicide. Why? Because the Fifty Years War just ended. Because the nobles decided they ain't even gonna spit a coin to your face
because Ivalice lost.
Things are happening. Big stuff. The Corpse Brigade, led by Wiegraf, the living embodiment of 'eat the rich', has plagued half the continent and reclaimed the pension the nobles had denied them by kidnapping little kids in rich silk and gowns- and raiding castles.
Despite fighting the war yourself, you stood out of that mambo, well the fuck away of any pretense of change or justice. Why, if the coin was good? Because you are a deserter. Because you weren't the good guy. Because you decided that if you could save only - one - person from all that barbaric shit they had you witness, maybe your soul wouldn't be devoured by the same deep hell that awaited your comrades.
That one life, right now, which is Katarina the Black Mage, is washing the dishes. Yet only washing the bottom side of the dishes because she grew up in a cult and all she knows is black magic... as her cloak is catching fire by the toy horse you stole and turned into a bonfire because winter came.
You let it happen as you sigh slowly, breathing the bad vibes out, breathing the dense smoke in- and then coughing in rage. To your absolute dismay, she's not even the misfit of the party. Besides your dark, useless buddy, there's Altaria the dual-morningstar-wielding Priest, Johan the depressed Lancer, Coco the oversized cock, and Marlboro the Marlboro- the best behaved of all. Johan, who, like a quiet, shy kid, as you walk towards him with yet another plate of rice, fixes his beady eyes on you with sincere hatred, leaking bulky tears because today marks the third month he's been eating only rice every day. You take his hate in stride, eyes sore as you watch him ravage the dish regardless. He mumbles of good times.
This time, you don't even have to abstain from reminding him that Marlboro became the breadwinner of the house thanks to that traveling circus. In part, because you don't want him to consider what will happen once the circus leaves; in part, because you don't want to consider what will happen once the circus leaves. Altaria, growing roots by the window, is staring outside, and you calculate a 99% chance that she's looking for a reason to beat someone up, and a 99% chance that she'll find it. Because that is your second job; the very rare Calculator. You can calculate, down to the last copper coin, just how much all five of you will starve until Marlboro's next paycheck.
You sigh again, this time, in total and sincere defeat. This isn't the way. This won't work. You've been waiting for a mercenary job for three months already. As you watch your bleak team-mates wither, as Katarina finally screams and vaults, you wonder what could change.
>?
