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Louisa was worried sick. Rumours had reached her, some time ago, that a large crab had taken up residence just outside of a lighthouse- specifically, the one that sat square between Swiftperch and Aleport. More specifically, the area that her sister had ventured out to today, along with her best friend V'kebbe, to complete some tasks for the guildmasters of Limsa Lominsa. She'd been nervous enough letting her go but, Y'shtola had assured her over their weekly catchups over tea (when she wasn't busy with her own mysterious business), twas better to allow Veronyka go than for the kit to sneak out on her own and get into all sorts of trouble. At least this way, at the very least, she would know where her sister was and what she was doing.
And, for a while at least, that had been enough- to know where her sister was and what she was doing, and more importantly, to know that she was doing so under the watchful gaze of the levemetes. But that was before. Before the news had come of the crab, and the even more worrying news that the levemetes didn't actually keep an eye on their charges whilst they were out in the field. That was guildhests, apparently, which Louisa vowed to sign her sister up for the very instant she got her back home. If she got her back home. No, when she got her back home, because she would get her back home. Somehow. She just had to find the courage to leave her apartment, to arm herself, to go and see just what was happening-
The door crashed open before Louisa could so much as notice footsteps, drawing a shriek from her that startled a yip from her younger sister.
"Oops, sorry, forgot to unhide," said Veronyka, and her next step did make noise. Those rogues. But Louisa couldn't be angry, not really, not when her precious little sister was right there in the doorway, covered in crab guts and bits of crab shell but otherwise none the worse for wear.
"M'nyka, you're okay!" Louisa cried, gathering her sister into her arms and hugging her tightly, her nose wrinkling at the stench of crab. She managed to hold her for a few seconds before the smell became too much, letting her sister go and wiping the tears from her eyes (which watered all the more from now being smeared with crab).
"Yeah!" said Veronyka. "It was just a stupid routine mission gathering lightning cores from sprites and then! Then a massive crab crawled up the cliff out of the water and scared a lot of people and the townspeople were worried and told us to stay back for the adventurers to arrive but then Kebbe said no we should go and fight and be heroes and I said yeah let's do it and we did and then and then we managed to fight it and it kept blowing stupid bubbles at us and trying to get us but me and Kebbe were too quick oh but I think it got her tail and it nearly got my ear but I'm fine see some adventurers showed up and helped us and healed our injuries and and and I got to deal the killing blow! And they said we did so well and we'd make good adventurers someday so you've gotta let me join, sis, you've gotta!"
Rather than responding at all, though, Louisa staggered back into a chair and dropped into a dead faint. Veronyka blinked at her. Was it something she'd said? Or was it the- oh, she did smell quite bad, didn't she?
"Sorry," said Veronyka, and hurried to the bathroom, uncaring of the mess that she dripped all the way there. She did find it after her lovely, sudsy bath, though, wrinkling her nose at the mess and thanking the Navigator that most Lominsan apartments had wooden floors. Carpets, she had heard, were a right nightmare to clean. Wood, by contrast, was much easier, a sprinkle of sweet-smelling salts completing the task. That done, Veronyka made her way to the kitchen, needing to fill her belly after such an epic fight.
Louisa awakened to the scent of burnt food. Her nose wrinkled and she sat up, looking around for the cause of said smell. Sure enough, there was Veronyka, sitting in the armchair with her legs folded neatly beneath her while she tucked into her (very) toasted sandwich.
"Oh, you're not dead!" said Veronyka, crumbs spraying everywhere. Louisa frowned, then remembered. Right. The crab. The kill. The- oh, Matron preserve, she'd never expected to have to deal with this.
"Veronyka," said Louisa weakly. "Did you really deal the killing blow on the crab- swallow your food first."
"Yep!" Veronyka chirped, more crumbs falling as she heeded her sister not at all. Louisa groaned, head dropping into her hands. She massaged her temples.
"Okay," said Louisa, looking back up at her. At least the mess from earlier was gone, and she'd bathed using those expensive soaps that she was at least able to afford herself now. "Okay. You sit there and eat that, I have to get... something."
"Get what?" Veronyka asked. Louisa's tail lashed.
"Just... eat," said Louisa. Veronyka blinked after her. It must have been serious, if her sister was letting her eat on the lounge. She hadn't even complained too much about talking with her mouth full!
"What, did someone die or something?" Veronyka called after her. Louisa ignored her, reaching instead for the single chest of miqo'te necessities that she'd gathered together while her sister had been growing up. Things to help with heats, with fertility, and- there, the pigments that would make up the marks that had yet to adorn her sister's face. An odd sense of pride mixed with the sorrow as she mixed the pigments, adding just enough water to make it a smooth mix. Her mother had, mercifully, taught her the spell to make the marks permanent when her own marks had been received on that terrible, terrible day when Louisa had vowed to never hunt again.
"You will," her mother had assured her with a knowing smile. And, years later, Louisa would, joining her tribe on hunts at the prompting of her mother to help provide for her baby sister. Weapons had never felt right in her hands, but she thanked Azeyma for each kill that would go to feed her family and tribe. She still did that now, on the odd occasion that she needed to hunt for food for the two of them. Those days were long behind them now, though, thanks to her sister's strong desire to go adventuring. She'd just never actually killed anything before, someone else always getting to it first. Until now, anyway. And maybe it wasn't traditional, what with no tribe to take her on her very first hunting trip, but what tradition was there when the Imperials had destroyed her homeland and scattered her tribe? Or so she believed. So much had happened that night, and it wasn't as though she had any way of finding out anything beyond that awful wall that had gone up in the Shroud some years ago.
"What's that?" Veronyka asked now as Louisa returned to the living room with bowl of paint and tiny brush in hand.
There were words, rituals, things that Louisa could have said. Their mother was supposed to have done this. She swallowed her tears at the sting, though, instead beckoning her sister into the kitchen. She grabbed a cloth on her way to the kitchen table, along with a towel, wetting the cloth with some water and then wringing out the excess into the sink.
"Sit," said Louisa, setting down the bowl, which Veronyka immediately looked into, her long hair very nearly becoming stained with the paint. Sighing, Louisa fetched a hairtie, moving behind her sister to tie her hair back, exposing her cheeks which still held the softness of youth. She hoped that it would never really fade, that her sister would keep some of that youthfulness forever. Though a little more sense would be nice. Just a little.
"What is that?" Veronyka asked, and Louisa was just in time to grab her wandering hand before it could stray into the paint. All of ten and two summers, and still acting like the kit that had accompanied Louisa over the border nearly ten years ago now.
"When a miqo'te makes her first kill," Louisa explained, recalling the words that had been spoken to her so very long ago as she took her sister's face in her hands and began wiping it clean with the damp cloth, "she is a kit no longer but now a hunter." Veronyka, who had been squirming under her sister's attentions, now stilled, eyes widening.
"Really?" Veronyka asked, and her eyes were so bright that Louisa found herself smiling.
"Yes, really," said Louisa, now drying Veronyka's face. That done, she picked up the paintbrush, dipping it into the paint. "Now, hold very, very still, lest you end up with markings that make you look like you lost a fight with a dodo." By a miracle, Veronyka stilled, almost seeming to hold her breath. Her lips did twitch as a giggle rose up at the first touch of paint to her cheek, but that was all the movement she made. It was an old trick, a lie told by parents the world over to stop their kit from squirming while the markings were applied. A lie as old as time, and yet, it always worked. The markings, of course, were not permanent until the spell was spoken, binding it to the miqo'te's appearance for life.
Veronyka seemed to relax as the markings were applied, her eyes falling closed as the brush made gentle motions over her cheeks, thicker towards the edge of her jaw but thinner towards her nose. Three of them on each side, Louisa decided. None on the chin, nor on the forehead, simply stripes on the cheeks like a tabby kitten.
Satisfied with her work, Louisa sat back, casting one more eye over the new markings adorning her sister's cheeks.
"With these markings, I mark you as a hunter and a full member of the Marmot tribe," said Louisa. "A tribe that may be just us, though, Azeyma willing, there are others out there somewhere."
"A marmot?" Veronyka repeated, her nose wrinkling. "That's..."
"A noble beast," said Louisa, a spark in her eyes. "Now, sh, else the marks will smear and we don't want that." Veronyka, to her credit, shut up, stilling once more. "May Azeyma watch over you in your hunts, may they ever be fruitful. All that She asks in return is that you thank Her for each kill."
"I did," Veronyka mumbled, to which Louisa smiled.
"Good girl," said Louisa, watching as the spell settled over the marks. She swore that she felt the heat of the sun, a warm breeze carrying with it the tune of bardsong. The marks flared bright orange for a moment before fading, now looking as though they had always been on Veronyka's face.
"Can I move now?" Veronyka mumbled, ear flicking. Louisa giggled.
"Now rise, M'nyka Tiqa, and do your tribe proud," Louisa finished. Veronyka released her held breath, sucking in another, and Louisa shook her head at her foolish sister.
"So that's how we get those marks," said Veronyka, having raced from the kitchen, overturning her chair in the process, to stand in front of the bathroom mirror gazing at her reflection. She kept touching the marks and looking at her fingers, as if expecting them to still be wet. "Wow, they dry quick."
"They sure do," said Louisa, deciding to keep the tribal secret for now. "Now, remember-"
"Yes, yes, I'm still Veronyka Felis," said Veronyka. "I still don't get why we have to be in hiding, though."
"It's for the best," said Louisa. Because maybe the Imperials wouldn't hunt down any escaped members of the M tribe, but maybe they would. And that was simply a risk that she could not take.
"Yeah, yeah," said Veronyka. "I wanna show Kebbe my marks!"
"Well, I can't stop you," said Louisa. "Just try not to get into too much trouble."
"I won't," said Veronyka, which wasn't reassuring in the slightest. But Louisa let her go, for what else was she to do?