Ardbert stops cold with his impassioned response, the color draining from his face. Her family, dead? Murdered by Ishgard's war against the dragons, no doubt.
His voice is quiet, pained, and he reaches out to her with one hand, wrapping the other arm gently around Hythlo, who's unusually quiet. "... You're Auri, but the only thing that matters where you're from is what the people with the swords and axes and arrows think. A good friend of mine told me about the Au Ra."
Children like stories; Ardbert had paid close attention to these in case it gave him an edge against the Source's Warrior of Light, and it's ironic how he uses that knowledge now. "He said they live either on a steppe, a place of malms and malms of grass, or in the deep valleys on the bottoms of the mountains. Both hail from the Far Eastern continent of Othard. The place has been heavily scarred by war, and many refuges fled to Eorzea, including your family."
He pauses, then smiles with moist eyes. "Au Ra aren't common, and Ishgard has isolated itself from all of its neighbors. They don't know what Au Ra look like, being a 'strange' and foreign race. All Ishgard knows and remembers is fear and war. Your grandparents couldn't know the truth."
Ardbert gestures with his outstretched palm, bidding her to at least consider taking it. "But I know the truth. Right now, you're just a scared little girl like any other scared little girl would be in a really strange place that you don't understand with a strange man telling you things that don't make a bit of sense."
no subject
Ardbert stops cold with his impassioned response, the color draining from his face. Her family, dead? Murdered by Ishgard's war against the dragons, no doubt.
His voice is quiet, pained, and he reaches out to her with one hand, wrapping the other arm gently around Hythlo, who's unusually quiet. "... You're Auri, but the only thing that matters where you're from is what the people with the swords and axes and arrows think. A good friend of mine told me about the Au Ra."
Children like stories; Ardbert had paid close attention to these in case it gave him an edge against the Source's Warrior of Light, and it's ironic how he uses that knowledge now. "He said they live either on a steppe, a place of malms and malms of grass, or in the deep valleys on the bottoms of the mountains. Both hail from the Far Eastern continent of Othard. The place has been heavily scarred by war, and many refuges fled to Eorzea, including your family."
He pauses, then smiles with moist eyes. "Au Ra aren't common, and Ishgard has isolated itself from all of its neighbors. They don't know what Au Ra look like, being a 'strange' and foreign race. All Ishgard knows and remembers is fear and war. Your grandparents couldn't know the truth."
Ardbert gestures with his outstretched palm, bidding her to at least consider taking it. "But I know the truth. Right now, you're just a scared little girl like any other scared little girl would be in a really strange place that you don't understand with a strange man telling you things that don't make a bit of sense."