9. lend an ear

“How could I possibly lend someone an ear? I don’t even have ears.”

“It’s just a saying, Marz.”

“It’s a stupid saying. What is wrong with the word listen? Everyone understands what that means!” The xaela threw her hands in the air before crossing her arms over her chest and scowling. Stupid Eorzea, full of stupid people who had never met a person without ears before.

Kaede sighed and shot her a look that clearly said you are ridiculous and you are acting a like a child, but she managed not to vocalize it for once. “If it helps any, I think that lalafell might have been senile. Or blind. Certainly deaf. Either way, I doubt he noticed our ears or lack thereof.” She shrugged and resettled her pack on her shoulder, squinting out at the harbor. “At least he told us how to get to the Isles of Umbra.” Not that she sounded thrilled about that prospect, and Marz did not understand how a girl who had grown up next to the ocean, raised by pirates, could be so afraid of it.

“I swear to Nhaama if this turns out to be another – what did you call it?”

“Wild apkallu chase.”

“Thank you. If this turns out to be another wild apkallu chase, I say we ‘borrow’ an ear from that horse’s arse of a professor, that way we have one to lend out to the next person who uses that line on us. He has plenty to spare.”

That was something else that was deeply obnoxious about Eorzea – elezen. Sure there had been a few nice ones, but on the whole, they were smarmy and self-absorbed and a lot of them lived in the snow. And they looked silly, like someone had grabbed a hyur by their ears and feet and stretched them. She hadn’t the faintest idea what Kaede saw in them that she spent so many of her evenings lately in Camp Dragonhead – she claimed she was “training,” but combat training didn’t normally leave a girl with a markedly sunnier disposition than she’d left with, in Marz’s experience. And it wasn’t like Haurchefant had been subtle about his interest.

They had better things to be doing than whatever Kaede wouldn’t admit she was up to, or the nonsense Alberic kept spouting at her about a dragon eye and some runaway Ishgardian in spiky armor, and especially better than running all over Eorzea doing pointless errands.

Kaede snorted, the sound pulling Marz’s focus back outwards, but she didn’t disagree with Marz’s plan. “Well, time to get on with it, then. Not that I’m overly thrilled to go behead a bunch of shambling corpses, but at least it’s better than Sahagin, or Leviathan’s thralls.” The raen shuddered, and then marched down the docks to secure them passage.

One afternoon of running around asking questions of a bunch of glassy-eyed adventurers and dealing with an infuriatingly evasive lighthouse keeper later, Kaede was looking paler than a sheet at the stories they’d heard about undead walking into the waves, lured by some sort of song.

Annoyed by the fact that no one around here would just say what they were thinking, Marz planted her hands on her hips and glared at her traveling companion. “What’s got you all freaked out anyway? You clearly know what we’re up against, so spit it out.”

“I don’t know for sure, but… it sounds like a siren,” she replied, with enough gravity that the word was clearly supposed to mean something. Marz just tilted her head and waited for an explanation. Before Kaede could explain, however, the sound of heavy, trundling footsteps caught both of their attention.

The deaf old lalafell had followed them to the Isles, and explained – if you could call it that, cluttered as his ramblings were with expletives and colorful phrases that Marz could only assume referred to women – the nature of the siren and how she lured men to death with her song, then handed Kaede a pair of brass earplugs and marched off to the beach before either of them could get a word in edgewise.

Marz and Kaede both stared at the useless pieces of brass in Kaede’s hand, and promptly dissolved into laughter at the absurdity of it, before Kaede threw them over her shoulder into the sand.

“Navigator’s tits, he is senile. What in the hells are we meant to do with these?”

Marz shrugged. “Bet I could sing louder than it. Maybe that would work.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

“…No. I don’t.” Kaede sighed, and rubbed her forehead with her hand. “Maybe… the Echo will protect us? Sirens aren’t primals, but they still enthrall people…”

Marz grinned and slapped her on the shoulder as they walked. “Don’t worry, if you start looking all loveydovey and wandering into the water, I’ll fish you out before you drown.”

“Wonderful. Thank you so much. I’m not worried at all now.”

The look on Kaede’s face when the siren’s singing had abruptly stopped after taking an arrow to the wing – an arrow that Marz had liberally slathered with a silencing potion – had been worth every moment of grumbling and pacing and endless fruitless strategizing Marz had had to endure that afternoon.

As soon as Kaede had finished dutifully beheading the wave of skeletons the siren had called up from the depths, she walked over and grabbed Marz by the shoulders, shaking her a little. “Why, in Azeyma’s name, didn’t you lead with that plan.”

“Because, sunshine, I wouldn’t have gotten to see your reaction when it turned out that I planned better than you did, for once.”

“…You are the most annoying person I have ever met,” Kaede grumbled, but there was no real venom in her tone. “But... that was very resourceful of you.”

Marz shrugged. “We have some similar stories back home, of creatures that lure people to their deaths, by singing or mimicking the voices of loved ones. Just so happened I remembered it. And had the reagents handy for the countermeasure. You're welcome, by the way.”

Kaede was saved the indignity of having to express any further gratitude by the appearance of the lighthouse keeper, who handed over the warded pot full of corrupted crystals.

It wasn’t until they were on the skiff returning to Aleport that Kaede spoke again. “Marz.”

“Yeah?”

“What element would you guess that the crystals that make up that formation are?” she asked with a wave towards the brilliant, glowing orange spikes that shot out both sides of the lighthouse, like a giant lightning bolt. Or an explosion, frozen in time.

Marz wrinkled her nose as she stared up at them. “Well. By the color… fire? Maybe earth? Though since it was a lighthouse, I'd probably guess fire.”

A deep sigh echoed into the night as Marz turned back to her in confusion. “'Fire is extinguished by Wind. Ice is melted by Fire. Wind is obstructed by Ice.' That’s what’s called the three submissions – and if we’re trying to counter wind, well…”

It was all Marz could do not to pitch the pot of useless crystals into the ocean as she groaned.