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The pauper from Pearl Lane had been having a rough time of it lately. Her hunger had persisted for several days now and her lips were parched for want of drink, but her coinpurse held not the weight to grant her proper succor. It was out of hope for this succor that she raised her fingers to the strings of her instrument each time a pair of legs clad in more than just rags like her fellow beggars passed by, but so far that day pickings had been slim.

She was not a bad musician per se, in fact the clear and lilting melody of her music granted warmth to the streets lined with refugees, filth and the usual cavalcade of shady characters, but it was often said that a flower grown in the filth and the mud, out of sight and appreciation was no more than a weed. Even so, weeds needed to eat too.

Such was her hope that when the little wooden bowl she left out for alms suddenly rattled with the jingle of coin scarcely was she able to believe her ears. It startled her so that she missed a note and stopped mid-song, glancing up at her benefactor standing over her all hunched into herself by the empty crates, broken barrels and beer bottles.

They were enrobed in simple dark cloth like an acolyte or a mage from the thaumaturge’s guild, covered from head-to-toe while also obscuring face, form and identity. Despite this the pauper could clearly tell her patron was noticeably portly, with a vast midsection that ballooned at the waist where the robes struggled to conceal their figure. Perhaps they were one of the overstuffed bourgeois that called Ul’dah home? It didn’t matter, she decided right away when she noticed the coins in her bowl glinted with a gilding of gold.

She grabbed at the coins with a thin arm, snatching at them as though they would evaporate in a puff of vapour, which wasn’t unreasonable for gil in Pearl Lane. “Thank ye sir-… ma’am.” She mumbled, unable to tell what title was proper. “Did ye want a request? I could play ye a ballad from Ala Mhigo if ye like.”

The robed figure continued to look down at her, and from the shadows beneath the hood she could have sworn she caught the outline of a smile, a warm one albeit with a hint of pity.

“I’d like that, but not here. How would you like to make a bit more gil? Enough for a couple meals and a warm bed?” They asked.

The voice was undoubtedly masculine but young and didn’t quite match their girth, but bugger that. Her ears pricked up at the sound of more coin. “What’s the catch? There must needs be a catch if you’re offering that much and I don’t bed strangers sir. If I did that I wouldn’t have me instrument ‘ere.” She said.

The man half turned as though to walk away, but stopped. The pauper realised he was instead looking down the lane for others that may have been listening in on their conversation. That was wise. After a moment he turned back and scratched a little itch on the tip of his nose, lifting the edge of his hood just enough with a wrist that she could see a neatly trimmed ginger beard. He was still smiling, cheekily, like a co-conspirator looking forward to a laugh.

“In a bell bring your bowl and instrument to the throughway across from Sunsilk Tapestries. When I’m ready play me your song.” He grinned.

“Eh? And what kind of song were you wanting then?” She asked.

He turned to leave for real this time. “Oh, I don’t know. Something... something spicy.”

“Spicy?”

“Yeah, something you could dance to.” He said.

----

Everything hinged on whether the beggar musician would decide to turn up. Music was the integral part of the robed stranger’s devious and delicious plan, and without music there could be no performance. That much was obvious.

He waited through the next bell with baited and belaboured breath, trying his best not to seem conspicuous in his prodigiously corpulent robes. In truth this was the most he had been outside and wandering the streets in public for a few months and he had been planning this devilish distraction for the better part of a moon. The very thought of it tingled his toes to the very tip of his tail.

He took tea in a parlor not too far away from the Tapestries and kept a weather eye on the road ahead, drinking tea in only the literal sense as a meal might have made him too overstuffed to… well, for his purposes anyway.

Eventually, near long enough to cause adequate worry did the pauper arrive with her strings in tow. He could have cried out for the sight of it, for the idea that yes, this was going to actually happen. It would happen today.

R’oadan stood, left a scattering of coin on the table before him and stole off into the street again.

It was time.

----

A more haggard, timeworn lady that could have been the very definition of beautiful had she proper nutrition, clothing and less cares in the world slunk by her clutching her instrument on the way to the appointed place and time. Even if her benefactor didn’t show up, even if it turned out she’d be playing her tunes to the bustling throughway with barely a glance turned her way, well, she already had his coin. Even the slight chance of a promise of more was worth making this venture out of Pearl Lane and into Ul’dah proper, provided the Brass Blades didn’t come and take her away.

It was a chance she was willing to take. The dirty musician took up a spot by the side of the road near a large empty expanse of pavement, just as requested opposite the tapestry store. She pulled her alms bowl out from beneath her clothes and laid it out by her feet, placing the tips of fingers to the delicate, horsehair instrument strings. Before she began she cast her gaze across the aisle of moving foot-traffic, looking for the portly man from before.

She had almost given up scanning the sea of faces and legs before spotting him out of the corner of her eye at a juncture of an alleyway and the street, seemingly looking right at her from beneath the darkness of his robes. He seemed to nod at her, conveying instruction without words.

She began her spicy song, a distant melody from radz-at-han that one could dance to. The notes fought to be heard through the sound of bustle and chatter, but it was not drowned out entirely. Indeed, people were noticing the music and turning to look at her. It almost made her blush, being out in public like this in her rags, and yet…

The attention that had been directed at her moved towards the thaumaturge in dark robes as he walked (or more like wobbled) to the empty expanse of pavement several paces away. As awkward as his movements were it almost felt like his steps were made in pace with the strumming of her strings and from the vantage point she had sitting on the ground she could see that he was wearing sandals – his ankles tanned, and moreover, slender.

The music began to swell as the pace picked up to enter the song proper, the man who had given her coin, enough coin for succor and a warm bed for the night did a little spin in his robes, his hands went to his midsection and pulled a cord loose, and…

The robes were off in a flash, the large piece of cloth transforming from a full-body covering to a ripple of dark fabric that twirled about the man’s body like the sailing on a flag and was let go into the air – to be tossed aside and forgotten some yalms to the side of him. Beneath stood a young miqo’te lad with hair like the sky at sunset and skin the colour of the desert dunes, clad in the sultry, jingling garb of the concubines of Thavnair from across the sea. He glinted in the bright light of the Thanalan day, not fat or portly like she had assumed but beautiful and wrought with athletic muscle and grace.

The reason why she had thought him one of the corpulent elite of Ul’dah’s high society, if not from the careless donation of coin, then from the vast and completely mismatched midsection of the youth that would have looked much more normal on a mother expecting many multiples, instead draped with gold chains, a touch of gladiator’s oil for shine and sheen and a bellybutton piecing that held to further chains strung about his bronzed body. The musician had heard his voice before, it held a masculine timbre that befit his frame, and indeed the youth had a soft ginger beard that she had seen before, but the cognitive dissonance of his gravid body turned no small measure of heads.

The miqo’te had come prepared for this perfectly planned performance by donning a metal half-mask that obscured his upper face down to the bridge of his nose, only allowing his mouth and chin free.

The only thing he feared more than not doing this dance in the most public of places was the fear of being caught – of being recognised by all and sundry. The concept had caused a bubble of anxiety to bloom within his already tightly packed belly, but that very same notion was the arbiter of his giddiness and ardour for everyone to look upon him, to see him in his most fruitful form. It was the energy that formed each of his impassioned dance steps.

From the loose sleeves of his vest he drew twin silken scarves and ribboned them through the air as he twirled and pirouetted with expert abandon, rocking his hips in time to the saucy twang of the music as his fluffy tail made up the third ribbon and followed him whenever he shimmied and slid, never very far behind. His hands came up to beckon to the crowd, as though to draw them towards him and his most exotic of dances, smiling and licking his lips with sensual abandon as he mutely called to the lalafel wide eyed with a cracked monocle, the roegadyn lady smiling widely and clapping along to the song, the green-haired highlander with a reed bag of onions and… bread…

Description
Support me on Patreon!
Or support on ko-fi if you'd like!

Text by

The pauper from Pearl Lane had been having a rough time of it lately. Her hunger had persisted for several days now and her lips were parched for want of drink, but her coinpurse held not the weight to grant her proper succor. It was out of hope for this succor that she raised her fingers to the strings of her instrument each time a pair of legs clad in more than just rags like her fellow beggars passed by, but so far that day pickings had been slim.

She was not a bad musician per se, in fact the clear and lilting melody of her music granted warmth to the streets lined with refugees, filth and the usual cavalcade of shady characters, but it was often said that a flower grown in the filth and the mud, out of sight and appreciation was no more than a weed. Even so, weeds needed to eat too.

Such was her hope that when the little wooden bowl she left out for alms suddenly rattled with the jingle of coin scarcely was she able to believe her ears. It startled her so that she missed a note and stopped mid-song, glancing up at her benefactor standing over her all hunched into herself by the empty crates, broken barrels and beer bottles.

They were enrobed in simple dark cloth like an acolyte or a mage from the thaumaturge’s guild, covered from head-to-toe while also obscuring face, form and identity. Despite this the pauper could clearly tell her patron was noticeably portly, with a vast midsection that ballooned at the waist where the robes struggled to conceal their figure. Perhaps they were one of the overstuffed bourgeois that called Ul’dah home? It didn’t matter, she decided right away when she noticed the coins in her bowl glinted with a gilding of gold.

She grabbed at the coins with a thin arm, snatching at them as though they would evaporate in a puff of vapour, which wasn’t unreasonable for gil in Pearl Lane. “Thank ye sir-… ma’am.” She mumbled, unable to tell what title was proper. “Did ye want a request? I could play ye a ballad from Ala Mhigo if ye like.”

The robed figure continued to look down at her, and from the shadows beneath the hood she could have sworn she caught the outline of a smile, a warm one albeit with a hint of pity.

“I’d like that, but not here. How would you like to make a bit more gil? Enough for a couple meals and a warm bed?” They asked.

The voice was undoubtedly masculine but young and didn’t quite match their girth, but bugger that. Her ears pricked up at the sound of more coin. “What’s the catch? There must needs be a catch if you’re offering that much and I don’t bed strangers sir. If I did that I wouldn’t have me instrument ‘ere.” She said.

The man half turned as though to walk away, but stopped. The pauper realised he was instead looking down the lane for others that may have been listening in on their conversation. That was wise. After a moment he turned back and scratched a little itch on the tip of his nose, lifting the edge of his hood just enough with a wrist that she could see a neatly trimmed ginger beard. He was still smiling, cheekily, like a co-conspirator looking forward to a laugh.

“In a bell bring your bowl and instrument to the throughway across from Sunsilk Tapestries. When I’m ready play me your song.” He grinned.

“Eh? And what kind of song were you wanting then?” She asked.

He turned to leave for real this time. “Oh, I don’t know. Something... something spicy.”

“Spicy?”

“Yeah, something you could dance to.” He said.

----

Everything hinged on whether the beggar musician would decide to turn up. Music was the integral part of the robed stranger’s devious and delicious plan, and without music there could be no performance. That much was obvious.

He waited through the next bell with baited and belaboured breath, trying his best not to seem conspicuous in his prodigiously corpulent robes. In truth this was the most he had been outside and wandering the streets in public for a few months and he had been planning this devilish distraction for the better part of a moon. The very thought of it tingled his toes to the very tip of his tail.

He took tea in a parlor not too far away from the Tapestries and kept a weather eye on the road ahead, drinking tea in only the literal sense as a meal might have made him too overstuffed to… well, for his purposes anyway.

Eventually, near long enough to cause adequate worry did the pauper arrive with her strings in tow. He could have cried out for the sight of it, for the idea that yes, this was going to actually happen. It would happen today.

R’oadan stood, left a scattering of coin on the table before him and stole off into the street again.

It was time.

----

A more haggard, timeworn lady that could have been the very definition of beautiful had she proper nutrition, clothing and less cares in the world slunk by her clutching her instrument on the way to the appointed place and time. Even if her benefactor didn’t show up, even if it turned out she’d be playing her tunes to the bustling throughway with barely a glance turned her way, well, she already had his coin. Even the slight chance of a promise of more was worth making this venture out of Pearl Lane and into Ul’dah proper, provided the Brass Blades didn’t come and take her away.

It was a chance she was willing to take. The dirty musician took up a spot by the side of the road near a large empty expanse of pavement, just as requested opposite the tapestry store. She pulled her alms bowl out from beneath her clothes and laid it out by her feet, placing the tips of fingers to the delicate, horsehair instrument strings. Before she began she cast her gaze across the aisle of moving foot-traffic, looking for the portly man from before.

She had almost given up scanning the sea of faces and legs before spotting him out of the corner of her eye at a juncture of an alleyway and the street, seemingly looking right at her from beneath the darkness of his robes. He seemed to nod at her, conveying instruction without words.

She began her spicy song, a distant melody from radz-at-han that one could dance to. The notes fought to be heard through the sound of bustle and chatter, but it was not drowned out entirely. Indeed, people were noticing the music and turning to look at her. It almost made her blush, being out in public like this in her rags, and yet…

The attention that had been directed at her moved towards the thaumaturge in dark robes as he walked (or more like wobbled) to the empty expanse of pavement several paces away. As awkward as his movements were it almost felt like his steps were made in pace with the strumming of her strings and from the vantage point she had sitting on the ground she could see that he was wearing sandals – his ankles tanned, and moreover, slender.

The music began to swell as the pace picked up to enter the song proper, the man who had given her coin, enough coin for succor and a warm bed for the night did a little spin in his robes, his hands went to his midsection and pulled a cord loose, and…

The robes were off in a flash, the large piece of cloth transforming from a full-body covering to a ripple of dark fabric that twirled about the man’s body like the sailing on a flag and was let go into the air – to be tossed aside and forgotten some yalms to the side of him. Beneath stood a young miqo’te lad with hair like the sky at sunset and skin the colour of the desert dunes, clad in the sultry, jingling garb of the concubines of Thavnair from across the sea. He glinted in the bright light of the Thanalan day, not fat or portly like she had assumed but beautiful and wrought with athletic muscle and grace.

The reason why she had thought him one of the corpulent elite of Ul’dah’s high society, if not from the careless donation of coin, then from the vast and completely mismatched midsection of the youth that would have looked much more normal on a mother expecting many multiples, instead draped with gold chains, a touch of gladiator’s oil for shine and sheen and a bellybutton piecing that held to further chains strung about his bronzed body. The musician had heard his voice before, it held a masculine timbre that befit his frame, and indeed the youth had a soft ginger beard that she had seen before, but the cognitive dissonance of his gravid body turned no small measure of heads.

The miqo’te had come prepared for this perfectly planned performance by donning a metal half-mask that obscured his upper face down to the bridge of his nose, only allowing his mouth and chin free.

The only thing he feared more than not doing this dance in the most public of places was the fear of being caught – of being recognised by all and sundry. The concept had caused a bubble of anxiety to bloom within his already tightly packed belly, but that very same notion was the arbiter of his giddiness and ardour for everyone to look upon him, to see him in his most fruitful form. It was the energy that formed each of his impassioned dance steps.

From the loose sleeves of his vest he drew twin silken scarves and ribboned them through the air as he twirled and pirouetted with expert abandon, rocking his hips in time to the saucy twang of the music as his fluffy tail made up the third ribbon and followed him whenever he shimmied and slid, never very far behind. His hands came up to beckon to the crowd, as though to draw them towards him and his most exotic of dances, smiling and licking his lips with sensual abandon as he mutely called to the lalafel wide eyed with a cracked monocle, the roegadyn lady smiling widely and clapping along to the song, the green-haired highlander with a reed bag of onions and… bread…