"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.

She shrugs.

Red Fir sighs and looks up at Qana'to again. "So, these hawks are planning on sending a group again, and I at least am planning to go with, because I want to know what happened to the Isle of Val and—" And all of my friends. The words die in his throat, and he swallows dryly and wets his lips. Then he clears his throat and continues. "But they don't think that more sellswords will cut it, and I am inclined to agree. So whatever they have to say, the request I have to make of you, stranger though I may be, is to at least give this some thought. Having more experienced people helping us explore would make us that much more likely to succeed."

He won't explicitly say that this also means that probably fewer people would die, out of the expeditionary group, the more experienced people are sent. If nothing else, that's exactly the extremely manipulative tactic Rowena and Hancock are trying to employ to pull on the Warrior of Light's heartstrings, and it leaves him with a bad taste in his mouth; he doesn't want to give them the power to compel Qana'to to help just by claiming that if he doesn't they'll send other people who will get killed in his stead. That'd be vile.

But, well. He is thinking it. In purely practical terms.

So, the Viera man they were dangling is going to be the sacrificial bait if he didn't accept. Confound it! I hate being right. At least this one seems to be aware of what awaits him. Qana'to closes his eyes for a long moment and sighs again. Check and mate. There is nothing left to discuss, except perhaps a polite inquiry into whichever gossip it was who leaked to Lolorito's stooges that he had a weakness for headstrong pretty-boys, so he could strangle him later. "Very well. I will think about it," he mutters venomously, draining the hot tea in one gulp and clunking the teacup indelicately on its saucer. He rises to feet and turns to stalk away, only remembering at the last second to bow. "I've heard enough. Give me a day or two to consider whom even I could bring on such a fool's errand without compromising our work here in Othard, alright? I'll take my leave now, if you don't mind; I have been looking forward to soaking my worries in the Kugane hot springs for some time now, and as it appears that may suddenly I have little time left to enjoy them, I would seize it."

Well that just happened. Once Qana'to is well and truly gone he looks at Krile to ask, "Do you think...?"

"Oh, I think it will do you good to live in suspense, actually!" she replies brightly, clapping her hands together and smiling a smile that is almost more unsettling for looking so genuine. "Not you, though," she adds, to Red Fir. "You, I think, would benefit from a soak in the hot springs, too."

"...ah?"

"I assume you must have worries, too? I'm sure everyone does. And I myself still have some matters to discuss with our friends, here, so I will not be joining you."

...he is really fond of this lalafell. "With your leave, then," he tells the other three, finishing his tea, standing up, and bowing, too. He doesn't miss the irony in doing this when he is actually the only one at this table who is from what Eorzeans call "the Far East" and he is most certainly not from these parts of the Far East, but it seemed appropriate.

Outside, the sun feels as oppressive as his obligations, and Qana'to cringes at the prickling of sweat on his brow. Where are the trees around here when you need them? He shakes his head in annoyance and marches toward the bridge, defying the sun's insistence that he slow down. By the time he makes it over the bridge, though, he is panting. They want me to lead an expedition to a tropical island, and I can barely take a summer day without shade. He laughed aloud, and a confused woman looked quizzically at him until he sobered himself and kept walking. What is a little sweat, in the end? That is the point of a hot springs, no?

Maybe for everyone else, it is. For Qana'to of the Amariyo, the point is to strip to the nude where nobody could complain about it, or call the Sekisegumi over it. He grinned to himself again. If he were leading an expedition on an island, no pants would be the very first rule. Let's see how Hancock's dumb mercenaries felt about that!

Stop it, Qana'to. You're almost getting excited over the idea.

The Kugane hot springs do indeed allow—or, even, encourage—nudity, and while it being the middle of the day means that there aren't that many people (they tend to show up in higher numbers in the morning and late afternoon) it is still not completely empty. There's a little area before the springs themselves where he can leave his affairs, and of course there's the direct connection to the Bokairo Inn, so he can undress there and soon enough he is able to enjoy the water.

It is all he could do not to strip directly in the reception area, but he trudges back to his room at the Bokairo first. It surprises him, in retrospect, that Hancock never brought the room up in his attempts to cajole him. Then again, he had not given him much of a chance. He slithers out of his sweaty clothes with audible groans of relief and deposits them where the maid service would find them. They really do think of everything here in Kugane. It has its charms.

Turning on his heel, he marches back out into the hall, not bothering with a towel or any such pretensions. Every step gets lighter and faster until, emerging into the spa area, he launches himself into the water, wading to the edge of the highest pool and sitting. He looks around; two or three other patrons are busily ignoring him, and he returns the favor, closing his eyes.

And then opening them. A pressure had built in his groin almost the moment he had relaxed. He looks down only reluctantly. Ah, moon's mercy. The tip of his cock is poking out of the water, and he shifts awkwardly to pull it back under. He fidgets again, trying to get both comfortable and discreet.

Screw it, he thinks, and starts to purr loudly enough to drown out everything else. They can move away if they don't like it. If I'm not touching it, I can hardly be blamed.

"Fancy seeing you here," says a recently-familiar voice, walking over to where Qana'to is.

And if Qana'to opens his eyes he might notice a few things about Red Fir that were not visible when he was clothed. One, his feet are not shaped like Qana'to's used to; rather, they look more like a rabbit's, tall and angled, three claws at the tip and a dew claw to the side (which might explain how Fran could wear those stiletto heels in a fight, actually). Two, he doesn't have balls, and from this angle Qana'to can easily see that the viera has a vagina instead—but despite the queerness neither penis nor vagina look underdeveloped or otherwise remarkable. Three, he has a pair of Archon marks, from Sharlayan, like the ones Thancred and Y'shtola have on their necks and Urianger has on his face, except his are tattooed along the diagonal lines of his hipbone and pointing down at his genitals like arrows that want to specifically draw the eye. Beyond that, he is fit—not very thickly built but having lean wiry muscle that suggests someone who is in fact very physically active—and completely hairless everywhere.

As for things Red Fir hadn't noticed until he got closer, well, you know. Now it's too late, he's already said hi, and walking away to leave Qana'to to his, ah, privacy, would be more awkward than studiously ignoring it.

Qana'to blinks lazily up at the man who so rudely intruded on his quiet time, and grins, despite himself, at the expression of mild surprise on Red Fir's face. Even without following the man's eyes, he can guess the cause readily enough. Somehow, after all the effort to respect the ways people here reacted to such displays, failing to conceal it feels like a relief. A respite. An oh well I tried, now I can stop worrying so much.

"Who would have thought, indeed," he replies drily, looking the bunny over as he talks. "Go ahead and sit, if you like, no need to stand—" he stutters at the end as his eyes alight on the man's hips and groin. Well, I guess I don't have a monopoly on surprises there, he thinks first; then, immediately after: Is that normal? I knew Viera men always had a touch of femininity about them, but—no, there's no way that's ordinary. His mouth caught up a moment later. "—unless you prefer to only have your feet wet." Perhaps mercifully, the shock causes his tip to wilt back under the water, though only barely. He nods up at Red Fir. "You and the others finished your tea, then?"

"I am not here to wet my feet," he says with an amused quirk to his lips as he lowers himself into the water. Qana'to's surprise does help center him a bit, again; he's a lot more sure of himself when he gets to be surprising. "But 'finished' is probably the wrong word, since they were still there when I left. I had not been planning to come here, you seemed to need your alone time, but Krile did that thing she does where she tells you what you should do without actually doing so and she told me I should also come here so I kind of assumed she knew something I didn't about how well you might take that. If she was just trying to vex one or both of us I'll be cross with her but honestly it's the price of admission to dealing with her at all, often." Oh he's babbling maybe he should stop that.

"Krile said that, did she?" She knows me better than I thought. "Well, I can't be sure the plan was not in fact to cause mischief," he adds, "but it does happen that I prefer socialization to solitude." He grins sardonically. "Hence my displeasure at being asked to explore another desert isle without any friends to keep me company at night." He smiles more easily this time, and slaps his tail on the water playfully. "So no need to be a stranger. The fangs are mostly decorative." He lifts his arms behind his head and leans back. "If you're as bent on this particular adventure as you say, maybe you'll have to play that part yourself. I was telling the truth when I said I don't have many people at my beck and call presently to go gallavanting off to a random sandbar. It's just as well you came by so we could get to know each other."

"To wit, you seem to know more about me than I about you—even if what you know is probably too flattering by half." He pauses and smirks. "Curiously un-fabled handsomeness aside, perhaps. Are all Viera men so inclined toward such disarming straightforwardness?" It's refreshing.

"Oh I assure you I am quite unique, or at least quite rare, and you shouldn't generalise anything you learn about me to other viera," he replies with a cocky grin. "For one, I left that thrice-damned jungle.

"I don't think there's much you can say about all viera males, though. There are not that many of us but enough to be different. I think I was... perhaps a bit too forward for my brethren." He shrugs. "I'm sure they were pretty relieved to be rid of me, and the feeling was mutual; sometimes I think the only reason they didn't kick me out themselves was because it was forbidden." A slight smirk. "Ironically the very reason I left, in a way."

"Yes, I suppose a cursory glance at you does reveal some unique attributes about you," he replies. He pauses just a moment before smiling and adding, "I doubt most Sharlayans have their archon tattoos tracing their hipbones, for instance. Certainly you're the first of those I've seen naked to put them there."

"I for my part am a perfectly unremarkable example of my people," he added with a dry grin. "Except that I'm a Keeper, I suppose; we are the more rarified half. Have you spent much time on the western mainland? I suppose you would have mostly been on Fall—Val?—the island."

Red Fir grins shamelessly at the comment about his Archon mark but doesn't respond to it. "I've had opportunity to see most of Eorzea, yeah. Before being a scholar I was a Sharlayan gleaner—something like an errand boy, going all over everywhere to fetch specimens for study or deal with strange phenomena. I even visited Garlemald once, but that was before they were an empire hellbent on conquering the rest of the world. But yeah, I've met my share of miqo'te."

"Well, you have me at a disadvantage, then," he replies with an airy chuckle. "I know very little of you, and am meeting you in a world very different from my own, besides. You are one of very few Viera I have met, though what little understanding I have suggests there are some surface similarities between your people and mine." With how the man had grinned earlier at his playful comments, and his own emotional exhaustion, he can't resist another little jibe. He drops his voice lower, to his purring register, so that nobody else hears it as he leans toward the Viera beside him. "Not so many similarities, though, to be unfazed at a hard-on. We don't consider them remarkable."

A stray impulse to get himself hard again just to viciously enjoy the Viera's awkward reaction once more flits across his consciousness, but he lets it go. That would definitely be a violation of local rules—at least if it happened again on purpose.

He rolls his eyes and widens his grin. "I was merely surprised and did not want to interrupt you," he says, similarly leaning closer to the miqo'te and switching to a lower register. "Though I would not be unfazed regardless; it feels like the sort of issue I could help with." And he's not trying to get hard but this conversation is having nonzero effect on him, though whether that's visible beneath the onsen's waters is another matter.