Moon's mercy. Rowena's compliments were proportional to the desperation of her avarice, and illustrious was worth a few hundred gil on its own. Qana'to's eyes dart between the faces he knows best. Rowena and Hancock wear the exact same tiny smile under their tiny glasses as they gesture to the tiny teacup left for him beside their tiny companion—though it was the wrong tiny companion this time. Qana'to furrows his eyebrows for just a moment at the sight of Krile where he would have expected Tataru. She was also watching him carefully, little cherubic cheeks pinched upwards in a smile that mostly spoke of sadness, and perhaps fear. He sighs through his nose. Her presence is unlikely the work of the traders' manipulation: Krile is strong-willed enough to resist their machinations, and if it were hard-nosed bargaining then a different Lalafell would be here instead. Somehow, that is even more concerning. His back creaks as he bows, in the stiff formal way of the East.

His nostrils twitch as he bends forward toward them. Hancock smells of danger, literally; that cologne he dons when he feels like taking risks wafts from him so thick as to be nearly visible. Best for now to deflect the compliment. "It is so sweet to hear how highly you speak of Hancock, Rowena." His smile is easy, born of practice rather than mirth, though it still feels somewhat unnatural to smile around here, where people were as disinclined to show teeth as they were skin. "I hope I am not interrupting anything," he chirps politely, though he sits without waiting for a response. In his own custom, he would introduce himself to the stranger in their midst before anything else. It is plain on the merchants' faces, though, that every minute of idle chitchat threatened to burst them like overripe fruit, Rowena especially. They would want to skip straight to the interesting proposition that might just appeal to a brave adventurer and then let their newest partner introduce themselves and explain a few details. This is not his land, nor even his table, so he obliges them.

"What brings you all the way out here? Surely you can compliment Hancock just as effectively in letters to him." He looks across each face for clues. Hancock always wore those irritating tinted lenses to keep his eyes from giving himself away, and Rowena's face says only deal, but Krile's spoke of mixed emotions, and strong ones at that.

Krile looks at him and shrugs slightly, but doesn't seem inclined to comment for the moment. She seems almost... anticipatory, in a way. She's not fidgeting, as she's never been one wont to outward displays of anxiety, but by that same token the small amounts of it she is displaying suggest, yeah, rather strong feelings.

Perhaps interestingly, the viera—quite a surprise to see one, really, especially a man—seems to be sharing very similar emotions to hers. And he, likewise, isn't inclined to speak, leaving the conversation to...

Hancock himself seems rather amused by Qana'to's reaction, and accepts his cue, pushing his spectacles up his nose and leaning forward in a way that makes them glint in the light. One might think he goes for that specifically, with much practice. One would, of course, be completely correct in this inference.

"I'll get to the point, then, and it will all become clear," he says in his usual friendly and predatory tone of voice. "Our tale begins with a vessel of the Company happening upon an island n the Glass Ocean. An isle that, it is important to note, was not recorded on any charts we could find, and had no business being there. Deserted, to boot." His smile matches his tone, and he's a practised speaker, with a cadence and intonation of someone telling an exciting story. "Suffice it to say, we were very pleasantly surprised; an unclaimed, undeveloped island smack dab in the middle of a maritime trading route like that would be great for our business in this corner of the world, if we could settle it."

"Kugane does not love trade," explains Rowena, "or if they do they sure ain't showin' it, bleedin' us dry with tariffs. Dependin' on the goods we're payin' more than ten times what we'd owe in Limsa and Ul'dah—and I already have a bone to pick with them."

"What my lovely Rowena means to say is that an additional port of call in this region—one perhaps more amenable to free trade—would be in the best interest of a great many parties."

Qana’to dresses his face in polite shock like an actor donning a Koh mask. “A desert isle on a major shipping lane? How extraordinarily convenient for my most enterprising associates. It certainly would make the journey a good deal easier to have an extra port of call on the way.”

 He shifts to glance at the silent parties. The longer the schemers waited to introduce them, the more uncomfortable Qana’to found it; it violates his sense of politeness, of course, but it also implies greater stakes if the need to set the scene outweighs their need to get to the bargaining.

And where had they gotten a male Viera, anyhow? It had taken him a moment to register it, under that sculptural Viera androgyny, but now the question grabbed him. Fran had said their men were eremitic and faintly hostile—a characterization he had bristled in recognition at. A favorite Gridanian calumny against his own people. The memory of how dismissively she said it makes his tail bristle, and he has to fight not to let it show on his face.

The urge to introduce himself grows as he thinks on it, a kind of reflexive yearning toward camaraderie with his fellow ill-reputed sylvan barbarian. Still, there’s no helping it, he sighs as he watches the impassive stranger across the table. At least he cuts a handsome figure, even if he is intent on remaining a table decoration. Maybe if he drilled hard enough with his eyes he could summon him to speak.

The viera's face softens and he offers Qana'to a wink, though whether it's in response to the obvious faked reaction or to the eye drilling he's being a target of is unclear.

Krile is somewhat less polite about it and actually giggles aloud.

"—were you not previously acquainted?" asks the hyur, interrupting himself when he notices the shift in attention. "I'm sorry, I assumed..."

"Well, we didn't have much time to clarify the situation before the two of you launched into telling your tale, did we?" the lalafell bluntly observes, sounding amused. "There was scarcely time to breathe after Qana'to kneeled down."

Thank you, Krile. "I'm afraid I have not had the pleasure. I am Qana'to of the Amariyo," he says warmly, leaving off the rest of the formula. His gaze remains fixed, and an ear twitches with curiosity, setting the earring in it dancing. "I gather that you are an acquaintance of Krile's—maybe the students in general? That's the only reason Hancock might assume we'd know each other that I can think of."

"Red Fir," he introduces himself, grinning and tilting his head in greeting, "and I used to be a Student of Baldesion myself, back then. 'Tis a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance; I had heard much and more of the fabled Warrior of Light but somehow had failed to hear that he was quite so dashing."

"Oh, let's please wait until after finishing our business before you do that?" she sighs and rolls her eyes with the kind of long-suffering of someone who has long acquaintance with someone's shenanigans. "This is, actually, important."

"I agree. It is of paramount importance," Qana'to replied. "We must immediately get to the bottom of why my reputation fails to account for my good looks." He laughs and shakes his head, setting his earrings jangling again. But for the urgency in Krile's voice, he was more inclined to chat up the Viera and let Rowena's schemes languish. It had been barely a week since Hien retook Doma. Why must they rush forward now, to find more problems to poke their gilded noses into?

He's probably only here because they know your predilection for boys like him. The thought itself rankled. With great reluctance, he broke gaze with the handsome stranger and looked to Krile. "I am surprised to see you here, though, Krile. Tête-à-tête with Eorzea's foremost mercantile concerns is usually Tataru's remit, is it not?" And how gratifying it would be to leave it to her, too.

If she were miqo'te herself this would be when her ears would droop and her tail would settle down. "Well, indeed, but... oh, it occurs to me that perhaps you didn't know? The place where the Students of Baldesion had been headquartered was..."

"An island, which disappeared under mysterious circumstances. And now an island suddenly appears elsewhere under mysterious circumstances." He, too, adopts a much more serious and somber tone when he says that, though perhaps not quite as somber as Krile's. His voice and his eyes are instead filled with steely determination, instead. He will investigate it, Warrior of Light or no. ...but he'd rather the Warrior of Light come with, too.

Qana'to's eyes flick back to Red Fir. "I'd heard it was an island, yes, but Sharlayan is itself on an island, so it seemed reasonable to assume that it was the same one." The Students are largely abstractions to him; nobody within the scions seemed inclined to talk much about them in any detail, not since Moenbryda's fateful visit to the Waking Sands. Nobody wanted to remind Urianger, nor Minfilia. "I guess this must have been the Isle of... Fall, instead?" One of these days they would have to deal with a catastrophe about which he knew more than rumors.

"Without being indelicate, or speaking beyond my expertise," he says slowly. "New islands are not that unusual, right? Volcanoes and such cause them. There's one such near here, in the Ruby Sea. Why would this island be related to the students' old headquarters?"

He starts counting on his fingers. "No volcanic activity in the area to speak of—it's on the Glass Ocean, not the Ruby Sea. It's the right shape and size, roughly, at least from afar. And it appeared fully formed with ruins and monsters and abandoned buildings included."

(Oh, Hancock's face says. Now he understands why the Scions were interested.)

"The lattermost of which is the crux of all your interests. Mystery buildings mean either answers or valuable historical artifacts." Qana'to's tail twitches under the table. "If only there were a team of people inclined to brave such wilderness without immediately getting themselves killed." He purses his lips to keep from sighing aloud. Could all the most urgent cyphers of the world maybe wait a week before crowding forward like Lominsan fishmongers? He'd barely had ten minutes to jack off since he boarded the ship for Kugane a year ago, much less study or relax or pray. When he admitted his loneliness to Gosetsu, the samurai had told him to find a girō—whatever that was; Yugiri had just blushed and avoided the question when he'd asked—and then promptly dragged him to the Azim Steppe. He hadn't had his head hit the same pillow for the next three months. And now, with all that out of the way, another desperate wilderness came clawing for him.

He sighs for real and plays with the teacup in front of him. Maybe Tataru had the right idea. A life of bickering over little metal disks with Hancock and Rowena at least involved a decent amount of sleep. Looking up again, he catches Rowena's hungry eyes. Yeah, maybe not, actually. "I fear you may have been misled, my dear Rowena. I have no army with me now, you know. They are busy in Doma, securing the countryside. And their loyalty was to Hien, anyway." He shrugged. "The rest of my companions mostly scattered within Kugane. It would be some time before I could round them up."

She smacks her lips together. "We don't need an army. Just a few experiences adventurers, the type you can't just hire anywhere."

"The East Aldenard Trading Company sent an expedition, large and well-fuinded, before we knew anything about the island," Hancock explains. "But only a handful returned, and the ones who did reported 'irregularities' with the island's aether, altering the beasts' properties from what we see anywhere else in Eorzea or Othard. This regrettable turn of events forced us to reevaluate our assessment of the island and put our plans on hold for a time. If development was to proceed, it would require a great deal more capital than originally anticipated..."

"So he came to me for a handout, and I obliged. Some of my regular customers were members o' that failed expedition, and they were the ones who told us about the untold riches and treasure and gods know what else. That would more than justify the expense."

"Kami help me, you were not joking," Red Fir says, looking at Krile.