“I can't believe you agreed to help without any sort of negotiating,” Next to Muur, the small and grumpy elf was pouring over a book with an intensity that Muur guessed was matched only by some poor, well meaning teacher straining his mind and eyesight in an attempt to parse the illegible walls of texts she called ‘essays’ for grammatical errors. Said intensity was somewhat undermined by the fact that the ledger she was auditing was one recounting the purchase of various hygiene products, “That's like… I dunno. We're part of the Order of merchant gods, it's got to be part of our holy book!”
“I did negotiate.” Muur countered without missing a beat as her eyes flicked between two books, cross-referencing line by line with her fingers to keep track while her tail handled a quill to jot down anything amiss she noticed. She’d gotten to all the livestock and exotic wildlife trading and it was a big ol’ mess due to how subjective the values could get. “First I refused to even give a proper verbal agreement before seeing what I would be working with, then I got her to promise to give equal help with my paper as I give here. Sure, there weren’t hours of haggling, but that’s because we’re friends working on an honor system rather than company representatives trying to screw over each other.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever…” Orliane, as any good teen would, just scoffed and glared at Muur’s tail, making it rather obvious what her gripes were really about. “I still say you should've negotiated more though. Ask for cooler stuff to audit for one– Okay, that's got to be a front for something. This is the third time he's paid over thirty-five thousand gil for a crate of half a dozen specialty skin cream for his butt. There's no way that's legit.”
“Sounds like it, I’m seeing a bunch of exotic mounts here so he probably used it as an excuse nobody would question. And it being something embarrassing like that would make anyone who looks into it after he hid it and was cagey about it think it’s just him being mortified rather than covering up bribes or whatever in the hells that actually is.” Muur mused, idly patting Orliane’s head because she was a horrible, terrible draconic witch like that.
Alas, the poor Elezen was no mighty mage or plucky hero, so she was unable to do much besides whine impotently, “Staaaaaph!” She did attempt to bat away the hand so ruthlessly torturing her. To no avail, for the wicked witch would not be so easily denied.
As fun as bullying her senior-junior was, Muur still paid attention to the books she'd been told to examine. The dead merchant, some lalafel named Capapa (had she heard that name before?), had apparently been trying to make himself a proper zoo of some kind. There were wolves, coeurls and– bears? Who in their right mind would buy a breeding pair of bears? At least the drakes and tropical birds made a bit of sense. But bears?
Flipping the page to get away from that particular bit of insanity, she came across something far more interesting— or at least more sane. According to some missives, the man was in the market for a ‘chocobo of unusual pedigree and plumage’. His first attempts saw him try to persuade (bribe) the Royal Zoo of the Sultana to sell him an egg. Based on the rather curt responses from the Royal Zookeeper, he was told to kindly shut the fuck up and take his business elsewhere. Which, unfortunately, he did.
Without going into details, the next few pages told a rather loathsome story of forcefully trying to breed his ‘perfect’ horse-bird, and of how he abjectly failed to accomplish even the most basic of caretaking tasks. Based on a few notes, he was ready to call the attempt off, slaughter the birds for meat and start over. Clearly, the brood he’d been given was utterly deficient, and none of this was his fault in the least.
Fortunately, he heard rumours of a magnificent bird in the deepest parts of Dravania. He spared no expenses to have it captured and shipped to his estate– “If you’re gonna mess up my hair like that, can you at least tell me what you found?”
“Yeah, look at this. He actually went and had a wild chocobo captured, and not just any wee little one. That thing sounds like a very lost Yol.” Muur said as her tail dexterously put down the quill on the inkpot and used it to point at the specific passage as her free hand hefted up the book.
With a small shift in posture, the teen not only managed to free herself from the horrors of the pats (for now) but to get a better angle on the book, “What in the Twelves’ a Yol?” Muttering to herself, she perused the page with a frown, “‘Bird with feathers of flames, and–’ Hold on…” with a swipe of her arms, she pushed all of her tasks to the side and pulled Muur’s find so it sat between them.
“Wild Chocobos aren't super rare around Eorzea. They're just really dangerous because of how territorial they are,” She quickly explained, “I only saw captive ones that had been mostly tamed, but apparently if you get anywhere close to their nest, they get super aggressive. Point is, lots of merchants make their Gil trading them– I thiiiiink our militant order actually has a deal with one to make sure their mounts never get too domesticated? But… this isn’t right,” Grabbing Muur’s tail, she used it like a pen to tap the sentence she'd started to read, “A ‘bird with feathers of flames, and the stature of two grown Hyurs’. That’s no wild chocobo I’ve ever heard of, they usually have darker feathers, kinda closer to sand than the bright yellow of the ones you’ll see used around Ul’Dah. They were pretty clear on that when my class was forced to care for chocobos for half a week, they didn’t want one of us to lose a hand because we tried to feed the wrong bird.”
“One with red feathers–” She paused and reread the words on the page, “–Sorry, one with red feathers and white tips sounds more like one that’d be bred by the royal zoo for a noble. The bit about two grown Hyurs though, I know what that means. That’s a Draught Chocobo. They’re these huge birds you don’t really see around Ul’dah. They’re mainly used for working the land, and we live in the desert. Sometimes they’re used by people from The Shroud to pull caravans into Ul’Dah, but that’s rare. Uuuuuh, I also think they make great livestock guardians? Maybe? ‘Cuz territorial and stuff.”
“I have heard of other breeds with other plumage colors, but so far I’ve only seen bog-standard yellow and… ah. That’s why this was tickling a memory.” Muur muttered, before answering the question she knew was coming, “I actually saw this bird in Scorpion's Crossing during an escort quest, definitely as big and red as it says here and it didn’t look like some idiots had just covered a wild chocobo in red dye to get a nice payout.”
“If you ask me, that would have been more impressive than catching it.” Tapping the tip of Muur’s tail on the desk, Orliane hummed, “Do you remember anything about it when you saw it? Did it seem aggressive, depressed or like it was pulling its feathers? Everyone’s got to learn the basics of chocobo care in the Order– they’re not sacred sacred, but since they’re the most common method of moving goods and working the land, it’s considered a key piece of knowledge.”
“It had to be heavily sedated because it was apoplectic and damaging both the cage it was in and anyone who got anywhere near, didn’t get to see much more since they tossed a tarp over the whole thing and told everyone to scram. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bird was the one to kill the merchant after he got cocky.” Muur mused.
“That's… not good at all. If it's that aggressive it's probably going to be put to death.” Orliane's grimace mirrored the lizard’s, “We had some training on what happens to animals during audits, so I can guess what's gonna happen here. If the possibility is here, they're released to the wild. Since it's from Dravania, you can forget about that. I wouldn't be too surprised if the Royal Zoo is asked to care for a bunch of the other animals, but they're super picky. So I dunno?”
“Anyone else who could take it, even if just temporarily so the poor thing doesn’t cap off who knows how many days of abuse with being put down?” Muur asked with a deep grimace.
Orliane clearly thought about it, but slowly began to shake her head. Before the Au’Ra could feel any chagrin over that fact, a new voice spoke up from behind the pair. “You could, if you’re willing to put in the effort.”
Gravely and tired, Muur had heard it before. “Hey uncle L’Fise,” and sure enough, when she turned around to face her roommate’s ‘uncle’, she was greeted by the sight of Silent Umbrage’s unfortunate superior, “What do you mean by that?”
“A few things,” Wedging himself between the two girls, he grabbed the book they had been poring over and quickly scanned it, “First, I must say how glad I am that Silent managed to foist her work unto someone else. Again. That woman I swear… But onto the matter that concerns you, there’s a way to keep that animal alive for a time. Perhaps even save it from the slaughter.” Turning slightly, he pointed a smokeless pipe at Muur and began to explain, “Due to your involvement in this, you could claim him as rightful spoil. Usually these sorts of requests are scrutinised, but as the sprout said, I doubt anyone will look too closely at such a request. From there, it’d be your duty to care for it, meaning you’d need to house, feed and train it if it is as wild as this implies. In my eyes, this seems hardly worth it. But knowing who first mentored you…”
“It ain’t a Yol, but I’ll take it.” Muur interjected with a nod and a crooked smile. It may even be something with which to mend bridges once she eventually made her way back to the Steppes and had to deal with… everything.
“...You would do it regardless.” If the man was surprised, his dull smile and rueful sigh didn't show it one bit, “Gankma's brat if ever there was one. Alright, if you want to claim that beast of a bird as your own…”
As he started to explain the intricacies of Muur's newest sidequest, Orliane made sure that she wouldn’t be forgotten, “Can somebody at least tell me what's a Yol?!”