escordvi | open 🪶 the world owes me a debt, and i've come to collect.

Who: Benedikta Harman & you.
Status: Open.
Where: All around.
What: Oops, all MANTA stuff. And a not-date with Cid.
Warnings: FFXVI spoilers, foul language, suggestive content. The usual.

🗡️ i. bite-sized blessings

[Apparently, Benedikta's ears are looking quite delectable to one small, pink dragon today. This is why she hates Eltrut—half the time she comes here, no, a majority of the times she comes here, there is always something. A goose, a conning healer who sends her out to do his grocery shopping... Today, it is a small pink dragon that has bitten her ear and tries to do it again. She's attempted to swat it away, walk it off, but no matter how fast she moves, it follows her and nips at her, or finds joy in playing with her hair.

Fool her once, shame on her. Fool her twice—]

You little brat!

[—it's managed to grab at her hair, and it pulls, before swooping away from her grappling hands with a chirp, as if it thinks this is some sort of game!?

Someone please help this woman. Or this dragon. She has yet to hear all about how this thing is meant to be returned to Elah, so if you are looking for said pink dragon, here it is.]

🗡️ ii. a steamy winter heist

[It was the exorbitant prices that drew Benedikta to the job first. The black market was always open, and she was always willing. Call it doing someone else's dirty work, if it put a good sack of coin into her pocket, then who is she to complain? Besides, it's not as if stealing something off a ship in the dead of night was difficult—she's done it dozens of times before.

The fact that it was a special sort of tea was only a bonus, so of course she would pocket some for herself... Maybe a handful. Or maybe a whole crate if she could get away with it.

Now, that is the question, isn't it?]

༄ a. getting to the ship. [Perhaps it is your lucky night and Benedikta is feeling somewhat charitable. Charitable enough that she is willing to use anyone she finds as a decoy while she sneaks in to steal the goods. Of course, she isn't about to say as much, as she stands on the docks and stares out to the merchant ship coming into the shore, its lights blinking against the darkening sky.

She has her pipe between her teeth as she almost always does before a job like this, letting the smoke swirl on her tongue before letting it billow outward.]

So, that there is the ship? [She scoffs.] She is certainly impressive.

[As large as a rich, black-market-selling merchant's ship should be. Which is why she's agreed to a "two-person" job.]

༄ b. caught red-handed. [Or, maybe she wasn't feeling so charitable.

As if being caught matters all that much to her. She's in the middle of making off with a whole crate—and the last one, too; people have been busy—of these tea bags (there must be hundreds of them in here) when she hears footsteps coming. She hardly flinches, if at all, and stands there with it tucked haphazardly under her arm while she stares the other person down with a smile before she tosses her head back.

Yep. You saw right. A whole box.]

Sorry. As they say, the early bird and all. A shame you came all this way only to come out empty-handed, but try again another night.

[There may have been a threat underlining her voice somewhere.]

🗡️ iii. poke 'n prance

[Well, at the very least, being paired up with Benedikta for a challenge like this cannot get any better... or worse than this, depending on who you ask. Having a history of torturing others means that she knows exactly where to put the sword and how much pain it will inflict. After all, when fishing for information, it is best to poke and prod it out of someone, and you can't very well gain much from a dead person, now can you?

Which is why she walks up with her own sword in her hand with all the confidence and arrogance of a pretty peacock, her fingers caressing the sharp edge of her blade, from hilt all the way to its jagged tip.]

Now, pay close attention to where I stick you because we can only do this once. Perhaps twice, if you can withstand it.

[She smiles, so sweet and saccharine and sarcastic.]

So, consider this a valuable lesson.

🗡️ iv. coins of the crescent

[Well. What she thought would be a nice, peaceful ride out to this island to fetch some coins turned out to be... well, everything but. It had been fine for the most part, but as the island came into view through the fog, things had started to tip and tip and tip until everything went fucking tits up.

Not only did the crew start to howl and turn rabid, much like those stupid wolves she can hear in the distance, but so did the captain, and now the ship is wayward on the seas at the behest of the waves. Fortunately, she can use the winds to guide them true, but it will take a little more concentration than what she can afford as she drives her sword into the shoulder of one infected crew that lunges at her with what could only be thought of as a kitten's claws.

Don't worry, that won't kill him, but it will send him reeling to the ground wailing in pain, and she kicks him in the gut to quiet him.

Whoever might be standing near her, she will shout at them with no shortage of rage in her voice as she gives her sword a brandish, the blood spraying from her blade.]

Might anyone spare a moment to take care of them while I attempt to not crash this fucking ship!?

[Must she do everything!?]

🗡️ v. untitled goose bounty 2

[Well, this is certainly not what she was expecting to see when she arrived on Eltrut, or tried to. She'd heard sounds from above across the ship's deck first—the worried shouts of the crew and riftfarers alike. Benedikta had been enjoying the peaceful ride in her cabin aboard the Stormbringer, and had half a mind to ignore the noise and go right back to sleep...

...

Until she hears something else.

The loud, low, rumbling sound of a... honk?

Something visceral shatters through Benedikta's whole body then, forcing her to sit up when the flashbacks of those eight-headed geese attacked her not even a month ago. She rushes to her feet and then out the door, shoving people out of her way as she storms up to the deck where she beholds—]

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

[—an eight-headed(?) goose large enough that it could peck out Eltrut's eye.

Much, much larger than she recalls it being.

And she is pulled out of her reverie only by the sounds of magitech cannons being blasted off.]

I see it's come back for another taste.

🗡️ vi. wildcard

[None of these prompts work for you? Want to do something that isn't from the MANTA board? Feel free to hit up my plotting comment, or via plurk @

crystariums! I'm also around on the game discord, and PM works, too! Also open to texts/bottled messages!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She doesn't seem to understand what's happening, only that they are going somewhere new!!!]

Now... where do the dragons live. She shouldn't be the only one around here...

I can't say I've seen any others like her...[...but he does know someone who sends the wildest letters.] But from what I've been told, they might want to go somewhere far away from human cities.

[Looking down at the baby. Who looks up and just kind of chirps. Bruh why are you looking at her, she doesn't know shit!]

So, a remote island, then.

[And there's just the slightest, almost wicked upturn of her lip.]

Do you enjoy swimming?

...I grew up on a river?

[Benedikta, no.]

And? That didn't answer my question.

[He'd better come up with something quick because here they are at the port, and the dragon has started to wriggle in her little burrito of his shirt to try and fly out of there.]

Just because you grew up on a river doesn't mean you like it. Or know how.

[She should at least hope he knows how to swim, however!!!]

Of course I know how to swim--hey, hey, hold on a minute, I'll let you out.

[He's going to carefully unwrap the burrito! Be free, you tiny menace!

...he stepped out onto the dock to do it. Oh, Kaveh, you magnificent genius, you.]

Good.

[She'll continue to walk past him, motioning to a small boat with a sail tied down nearby. Whose boat? She has no idea, but clearly it doesn't matter if they've left it unguarded, right?

The dragon flits after her, and lands upon it to sniff around when Benedikta motions to it, her boot coming to rest on its edges.]

This should do us well enough.

Right...

[He's eyeing it a little dubiously--is this hers? but he'll step onto the boat. What could go wrong.]

Do you know how to steer this?

[Funny. Benedikta doesn't seem to be stepping onto the boat, only keeping her foot hooked over the edge as she looks out to the vast sea beyond. The dragon chirps, curious, as she looks up at her before she's trying to claw her way up onto Kaveh's lap.]

I could probably figure it out.

[She starts to unhook the rope that ties it down and gives it a little toss into the boat.

...

.... hm.]

Do you?

...It's a little different from the river boats I'm used to but I can figure it out if I need to?

[He's scritching the dragon (and ignoring the claws in his thighs oh archons) but...wait. Why isn't this lady on the boat? Why is she asking these questions?

...Surely she doesn't mean to...]

[...

She doesn't respond at first, and instead, she reaches into her pocket, pulls out her pipe, and lights it with something of a thoughtful hum. Her eyes cast upward to the sun, and then out, gauging the direction of not just the winds, but of the tide and where she recalls there being several other isolated islands.

An inhale of her pipe, and—]

Excellent.

[—she kicks her foot against the boat. There's a very sudden and noticeable shift in the winds, all of it controlled by her fingertips. It catches the sails and a tide sweeps in forcing Kaveh, the dragon, and the boat lurching away from the dock, and from her.]

[Kaveh is so dumbfounded he's silent for a good while. But, before the boat drifts out of sight, one can hear an unmistakeable shriek, carried by an honestly pretty impressive pair of lungs.]

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

[...I'm sure this won't make for awkward reunions later on.]

[Oh, Kaveh. If only you knew how much is wrong with her.

But Benedikta only smiles and laughs, though by the time she actually does, the wind has carried him too far away that he might not even see it. What he will see, however, is a wave before she turns around on her heel and walks away.

But she won't leave him to steer all on his own. Those winds beneath the sail will carry him due northwest where he will land on an island with plenty of trees and wildlife and space for the little dragon to roam free. Just as Benedikta wished she would have. And, on top of all that, it will be far enough that she won't be bothering Eltrut again anytime soon.

...

And far enough that it will take Kaveh some time to get back without her winds to guide him, so... he might be better off making a call...

She's done her part, though. :) Good work, team!]

open 🪶 the world owes me a debt, and i've come to collect.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

i'm so sorry kaveh........ 😔

I'm cackling

wrapping this here, enjoy the wide open seas kaveh! 🎀😌