© 2025 Joelle R.
wiscar marshe went out into the stormy day, between the salt workers' shifts, once again up to his shins in the brine of loch seld. he performed this daily salty ritual to thin out the seemingly endless population of yabbys that gathered menacingly right outside the saltery.
right. aim for the soft underside. get the bugger with one blow. even though it was routine, he still reminded himself of how he was taught to deal with the wavekin those summers ago, in the wake of ala mhigo's liberation.
squelch! the yabby was felled in a single blow to the fleshy underside of its head. wiscar wiped his scimitar free of yabby blood on the side of his trousers. he occasionally thought of sending off a letter to m'naago rahz about sparing a party to try to tackle the yabby problem at its source. with the depth and breadth of loch seld, the yabby nests could be just about anywhere, so he always discarded the idea.
brushing himself off slightly, he started to turn back towards the saltery to welcome the next shift; however, he was distracted by an unusual figure standing on the raised planks above the shallow shores of the loch. the sun hidden behind the storm clouds made them hard to identify at this distance, but there weren't many pairs of leporine ears to go around these parts. especially ones coupled with a fishing pole.
wiscar's boots creaked the boards as he went to greet the viera. the spell fishing had put over her was broken as she heard the noise.
"evenin'!" she said in a bright tone. she looked him over and surmised, "it's wiscar, yeah?"
"aye. don't think we've had the pleasure, but there's not too many viera 'round here. aemilia, yeah? we were practically side-by-side crashin' the gate that day." wiscar said proudly, gesturing towards the gate of the city. thanks to the provisional government's initiatives, the gate was new and gleaming, and the various scorch marks and craters left on the sandstone walls from the ul'dahn thaumaturges were repaired. wiscar frequently entertained himself by thinking of how the mages caused more collateral damage than the limsan cannons during the siege.
"'fraid not. everything was a blur that day." she said apologetically as she nervously fiddled with the reel of her pole. "but i do know of you from naago."
"mind if i sit with ya?" he asked as he finished his approach. he sat at her side on the planks after she welcomed the company. "you close with m'naago?" wiscar noted the absence of her tribal letter.
"aye, you could say that." aemilia chuckled, as wiscar settled down.
wiscar understood. "ah, that's good to hear. that lass works too bloody hard and i'm glad she has someone special in her life. i'm still looking for a wife myself…been keeping too busy after ala mhigo's liberation. speakin' of workin' too hard," he said with a sheepish grin.
"o-oh, we're not…th-that's to say…" somehow the flush that crept into her face was visible even in the meagre light of the stormy evening. she fiddled with her reel even more.
wiscar laughed uproariously. "it's alright, lass. i'm sure it'll happen when you're both ready." wanting to save her from further fluster, he changed tacks. "fish bitin' today? the loch's fish are moody on the best o' days."
aemilia composed herself and sighed. "can't rightly say that they are. house of splendors in the reach is payin' good for sculptor fish. some syndicate prick in ul'dah claimed to have trained one to carve a statue of hisself, and now all the rich buggers with more money than sense are clamourin' for one, dead or alive." she sighed at the idea of a dead fish being preferable to a chisel. "soldier over in lochwatch," she motioned at the fortification formerly called porta praetoria during the occupation, "mentioned they wake up during storms to feed in the early evening. since they're s'posed to be big, i figured i could attract them by mooching a rock saltfish…but i haven't seen as much as a fry today." she reeled in the silkworm pupa on her line to emphasize her point to wiscar.
"sculptor, eh…?" wiscar rubbed his chin. "m’naago mentioned you were a fisher of some caliber. surprised you're not here for stethacanthus."
"stetha…who?"
wiscar chuckled. "i s'pose that's a legend you'd really only know if you're from one of the villages 'round here and not the city. tell ya what," he said as he rose from his seat next to her. "if you want to take a break and come back to the saltery, my grandda could tell you more and i'll send you off with some salt fish for your travels."
aemilia could not imagine a world where she would refuse either fish stories or a salty snack, let alone both. she collapsed her telescopic ironworks rod, stowed it and her bait box into her travel bag, and followed wiscar back to the saltery.
as the storm clouds cleared, the bell rang for the next shift to start as the last of the wan light left the lochs. women and men rose from their conversations to file out and start their work illuminated by ceruleum lamps. some attended to directing concentrated brine to salterns to evaporate under the next day's sun, while others took up their rakes to gather crystals in the salterns that had already yielded the loch's bounty. still others packed the finest ala mhigan salt crystals that had been collected, to be shipped to the bustling markets of ul'dah, the fine restaurants in limsa lominsa, or even make their way across the bounty to the stalls in radz-at-han. wiscar looked at the activity and motioned widely towards it.
"you see that, lass? that's what we fought for, you and me. it's hard work, but each n' every one of 'em is proud to help bring ala mhigo back to glory." aemilia raptly looked on at the bustle. "now where's that grandda o'mine…"
"you lookin' for me, lad?" an elderly highlander man emerged from the shadows, appearing seemingly from nowhere. wiscar started, but aemilia was still enraptured by the salt workers and hardly noticed.
"grandda, how the hells do you manage do that? my poor heart, for rhalgr's sake…"
the old man chuckled. "i spent the better part of me life avoidin' imperials. but ah…who do we have here, wiscar? you finally bring a wife home? lass looks like she could carry you over the wedding threshold," the old man said approvingly.
this finally roused aemilia out of her salt-induced reverie. it was finally too dark to tell but she was flushing. she stammered, "n-no! i hardly know wiscar!" with a moment to gather her thoughts, she added simply, "and 'sides…i prefer the fairer sex."
it was wiscar's turn to have his flush shrouded in darkness. the old man laughed as though this was the funniest interaction he'd witnessed in his long life. "aye, fair enough, lass. i'm just ribbin' me grandson." he approached aemilia with the assistance of his walking stick, and stuck out his hand. "name's watt. what brings you to our little corner of the lochs?"
aemilia took the weathered hand in hers and shook. "aemilia grenat. ah, i s'pose i was fishing, as i tend to do between adventurin' contracts. your grandson said you may have a fishing yarn to spin for me? stethacanthus?" she said with a grin.
"oh, you're quite an ambitious angler, miss grenat." watt said approvingly, matching her grin. "wiscar!" the power behind the old man's lungs made the younger man start again. "don't just stand there, lad, get out food and a bottle of arak for the young woman.”
the three hiked up three sets of stone staircases built into the rock, farther back from the workers’ activity. from this distance, they could only see the blue of their lamps, an occasional smaller lantern hooked to the side of a salt worker dancing like will o’ the wisp as their owners worked the salterns. wiscar quickly had a roaring campfire going for the trio, and stuck several pearl-eyed fish on stakes over it to roast. watt produced three glasses from his bag, meted out arak from the bottle and water from his canteen in each, and handed one to his grandson and their guest.
“to ala mhigo!” watt exclaimed as he raised his own glass of arak to her. aemilia loved the aniseed-flavoured spirit, but shied away from drinking since her recuperation in ishgard, having used it to cope with loss too many times. still…the company was good, and it was a toast she could not deny. “to ala mhigo!” she raised her glass of cloudy spirit in return and swiftly downed it. liquorice-tinged memories of drinking at past campfires with her comrades-in-arms came flooding back.
watt took a fish skewer and handed it to aemilia, breaking her out of her reverie. “you know ‘bout these fish, lass?”
she considered. the pearlescent eyes had been charred. “pearl-eyes…i read in a guide that naturalists found drawings of them that date to the second umbral era. there's some in those caves up near sothwatch,” she pointed at the tower, illuminating the now clear southern skies.
watt nodded. “sweetwater, aye. they survived there because of the freshwater springs. your knowledge of your homeland shows just how much you love it, lass.”
“that i do, old man," aemilia said, beaming. "the only thing i love as much as books about gyr abania are fishing guides. or books with haughty noble ladies being swept off their feet by roguish women…” she sighed dreamily and took a bite from her skewered fish.
watt gave another of his resonant laughs. “me late wife — may we meet in rhalgr's halls once again — couldn't get enough of those. but aye, the fish here are as tenacious as the people, and stethacanthus is more tenacious than the rest.” aemilia could tell that the old man was really getting into it now.
“those caves acted as shelter during the sixth umbral calamity too, as you'll know. as skalla sank ‘neath the sea during the great flood, its remaining people huddled in those caves, hopin’ against hope that the waters wouldn't reach them. they say that all manner of wavekin were agitated by the flood and prowled the waters. those survivors ate nothin’ but fish, waitin’ for the waters to subside…your sculptor being one of ‘em,” watt went on, aemilia eagerly devouring every word of the story. “story goes that one of the survivors of skalla managed to hook two of ‘em sculptors at once, and the other survivors were overjoyed at the bounty. when the fisher tried to catch another, though…a great wavekin with a pillar o’ salt on its head crested the waters, and took the fisher and his pole with ‘em.”
“TWO sculptors?” aemilia despaired. “i can't even catch one.”
“two sculptors.” watt repeated. “it’s a fish o’ legend, lass. you can’t expect to just dip yer pole in the water and immediately pull up the loch seld monster.”
“fair enough, old man.” she grinned.
“mind, i think stethacanthus is big, but probably not big enough to eat you whole, lass. that’s just fishing stories for you — s’posed to be a tale about bein’ content with what you have or some such nonsense told to poor folks to keep them from askin’ for just a scrap more. but the fish is real and elusive. i expect if yer goin’ for one — because there ARE more than one out there, i assure you — i’ll be sure to see you from the saltery every time it storms for the next couple o’ months. i’ll see to it that my grandson makes sure to fetch you for dinner when he can.” wiscar looked startled at being addressed after sitting in silence during the fable.
“aye, grandda. but if you’ve got the time while you’re around, aemilia…” wiscar said tentatively. “and if you could use the spare coin, i could use the help rootin’ out the whatever nest those blasted yabbys come out from to harass the saltery workers. i had thought ‘bout writin’ m’naago to ask to send someone to help with it…but i’ll save myself the parchment since you’re here,” he smiled sheepishly.
aemilia’s pension from the resistance kept her comfortable, but something had to pay for her want of the latest and greatest fishing gear from the ironworks. “it’s a deal.”
the campfire continued to roar as the three swapped stories about life after driving out the empire from their home well into the night.