You make your first reputation on the streets of Limsa Lominsa as a swordsman. Though the streets are dominated by axe-bearers, those trained in the way of the sword are hardly unheard of in the city that's barely a step above a pirate's den. Axe-wielders and mages, and you lean over the tomes of the arcanists and find something familiar tickles your mind at the sight of the geometries. It isn't your magic, but it isn't not your magic, something familiar from a dream.
Familiar from a dream like the sword you keep on your hip. You were never taught to use it; your mother would never have allowed it. But the motions came so naturally to you the moment you picked it up. The day you left, you picked up the sword, whether you knew it or not. The sword belongs to the dreams, and once it hung there in reality, something about the world felt a little more right.
Now that you're here, in Eorzea, it's more apparent than ever that the style with which you use that sword marks you out. You never considered even for a moment picking up a shield with it; your stance is all wrong for it, too high even as your attacks swing lower than most are willing to risk. You hear on the streets that Eorzea's swordsmanship style originated in the gladatorial arena, and it seems right to you, because it's got that kind of showy, fully-body-downward-chop thing going on that leaves people too open if they don't have the shield on their off hand to block.
Your downward blows are at a sharper angle and come from the shoulder more than the waist. You spin your blade in your hand, you thrust at the stomach - your style isn't designed to play the way a gladiator's is. Gladiators don't go for each other's stomachs. And gladiators don't use their offhand to punch like some kind of back-alley brawler (it isn't, and you have an instinctive respect for martial arts and fist-fighters, but it feels that way compared to the life you left behind).
You picked up a set of pugilist's knuckles, instead. Just the one, the glove-mounted kind that doesn't cost you any real dexterity and more to the point doesn't require you to be holding something in that hand. It's more accurately a gauntlet than a glove, and you're still not entirely satisfied with it, but it's a nasty surprise for people who expect that sword and shield, sword and low wide stance, sword and openings go hand in hand.
But you, the dream of you, notices things. And so you notice the paired blades, the green-and-white, and the way they disappear into crowds.
And you're not so stupid that you haven't noticed them noticing you.
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Familiar from a dream like the sword you keep on your hip. You were never taught to use it; your mother would never have allowed it. But the motions came so naturally to you the moment you picked it up. The day you left, you picked up the sword, whether you knew it or not. The sword belongs to the dreams, and once it hung there in reality, something about the world felt a little more right.
Now that you're here, in Eorzea, it's more apparent than ever that the style with which you use that sword marks you out. You never considered even for a moment picking up a shield with it; your stance is all wrong for it, too high even as your attacks swing lower than most are willing to risk. You hear on the streets that Eorzea's swordsmanship style originated in the gladatorial arena, and it seems right to you, because it's got that kind of showy, fully-body-downward-chop thing going on that leaves people too open if they don't have the shield on their off hand to block.
Your downward blows are at a sharper angle and come from the shoulder more than the waist. You spin your blade in your hand, you thrust at the stomach - your style isn't designed to play the way a gladiator's is. Gladiators don't go for each other's stomachs. And gladiators don't use their offhand to punch like some kind of back-alley brawler (it isn't, and you have an instinctive respect for martial arts and fist-fighters, but it feels that way compared to the life you left behind).
You picked up a set of pugilist's knuckles, instead. Just the one, the glove-mounted kind that doesn't cost you any real dexterity and more to the point doesn't require you to be holding something in that hand. It's more accurately a gauntlet than a glove, and you're still not entirely satisfied with it, but it's a nasty surprise for people who expect that sword and shield, sword and low wide stance, sword and openings go hand in hand.
But you, the dream of you, notices things. And so you notice the paired blades, the green-and-white, and the way they disappear into crowds.
And you're not so stupid that you haven't noticed them noticing you.