The mission report was short and honestly concerning. "Talk with Sir Frasier at the mansion past Marianne's bakery. You will get your mission and payment there." Even more concerning the mansion is on a hill with no real footpath to be seen. Anya's cane is gripped in their hand tightly while they wait for the rest of the group, the carvings on the hand hold being her only real grounding under all this stress. Quickly the rest of the group appears, her legs almost buckle when Arte looks a second too long at the cane and she tries to lean less on it. Though other than that everyone doesn't bat much of an eye at it, though the only others that didn't know are a bit too busy staring into each others eyes and hyping each other up for the talk with our future boss.
They go through the tall grass with Arte leading, the grass attempting to tickle er's chin. Noctis stays by the back of the group, if only to make it seem like Anya isn't going as slow and to hold her shoulders if he sees her close to falling. The gesture is combated with a scowl the first few times, but low nods of thanks after saving a tumble that might've rolled her back down to where they started.
Once the whole team is at the front walkway, Anya is praying to every God she knows that she never has to walk that ever again. Once Blix knocks on the door it opens, as if this stout man has been waiting the whole whole hour we've been getting up his hill. He invites us in with a hand and a smile that wrinkles the corners of his eyes. Before we can all sit down he starts speaking. "Thank you for agreeing to help. My son is in a difficult position." He temples his hands, elbows rested on the purple and gold chair he's sat in.
Anya's cane sits between their thighs as they lean forward resting on the hold. Jas and Blix sit on the couch with her with the other two standing at either side. When Blix speaks up everyone starts to realize they had waited a bit too long to elaborate. "What sort of trouble has he gotten himself into specifically?"
The man quirks an eye at Blix, clearly not expecting her to lead on speaking. "A few days ago he just ran off somewhere, saying he was going to pick some flowers with his friend, Neil or something like that. It would've been normal for my little Aleksei to be gone with him for a day, even two sometimes but this is just concerning..." The old man chews on his fingernails, eyes darting a bit and landing onto Noctis. It's understanding at least, he's all imposing and dread to look at, not to mention how his image fades out of your eyes once he goes past your immediate vision. He doesn't even try to look sorry for his disconnect with being perceived, he just keeps that dumb neutral face and nods.
"If that's all the info you have, could you point us to where he was going." At Blix's words the man's eyes dart back to her too fast.
"Yes the meadow he usually goes to isn't too far. There's a big silo that you can see from here." He pulls himself out of the chair to walk and point it out. Thank god there's a path but it doesn't look as even as it should.
Turns out it's even worse than Anya expected. Her legs were already tired so when Noctis offers a hand she doesn't care about the soft whispers between Blix and Jas the moment they notice. Soon enough and really far too late the sun starts to set and Jas grabs the tents and bedrolls from his pack. "Ok everyone!" He yells with three tents behind him. "How are we going to split these up? I'm voting 'he's, 'she's, and 'they's."
"I'm a 'she' and a 'they', where would I go?" Anya raises their hand from the lazily spread out bedroll they're laying face down on.
"I'm none of those." Arte half-yells, poking at the fire Blix started.
"I'm only a 'he' out of convenience." Noctis says rubbing Anya's back lightly.
"Ok so fuck all y'all and your fucked up relation to gender," He thinks for a moment. "Actually I have no place to speak here, my relation to gender is pretty fucked too."
