THIS JOB IS A GIFT FROM GOD!
And here they are, twenty Job Class Drabbles, 100 words each. Posted in order of class, each beneath its own cut.
First ten:
1. Squire, Lennier
“Have you not aspired to the council?”
“It is not an honor to be aspired to, but appointed to. If it is meant for me, I will take it; if it is not, I am more than content to serve.”
“What about notoriety? Your name written large on history’s pages. Spoken often. Like, say, Valen.”
“I will not remember myself when I am gone. Why must those who will never know me do so?”
“What about love? You want Delenn.”
“My love will stay pure if I will it so.”
“What do you want, Lennier?”
“For you to stop asking.”
2. Chemist, Mathiu
“So.” He sits beside Sanchez, and is struck that they’re both drinking brandy, same kind of glass, same syrupy color. “You taught my sister about explosives.”
Sanchez’s withered cheeks are concave and guarded, his eyes sunk low in lids and stress-lines. “Yes. I did.”
They drink in silence for a while, Mathiu glancing at Marie (who stares warily, at Mathiu knows not what), Sanchez intent on his glass.
“I had suspected,” Mathiu said at last.
“I didn’t put it past you.”
“Smart.”
“Why bring it up now?”
Mathiu actually looked at him. “Because we will need that to take Shazarasade.”
3. Knight, Yuna
She really liked Auron, what little she saw of him. He’d been this shining shadow behind her father, though he’d stopped being so shining, and stopped being a shadow, but he still had the stories of what went on. He’d made this journey before, and even though she didn’t want to lean on him, it was a comfort, knowing Auron was there. He kept his distance, kept his secrets. Yuna thought there was nothing wrong with that at all; after all, this was her journey, not her father’s, and part of Auron’s…well, job, as Guardian, was to let her learn.
4. Archer, Larsa
“He taught you well,” Basch says, and the tone is nearly resigned.
Larsa steadies his stance and does not glance behind. “And if I told you it had been Drace, to instruct me in archery?”
“I would not believe you, my liege.”
Larsa restrains his smile and continues to aim. “And wherefore?”
Though Basch does not come nearer, his whisper is sure, his presence intrusive. “You shoot left.”
Larsa fires, strikes the target in the upmost of the second ring. “I had not noticed.”
“And you aim high.”
“But that is logical,” Larsa reflects, stringing another.
“In warfare,” Basch adds.
.
5. Priest, Yuber
After dismembering Sasarai, Yuber moved on quickly, trailing blood that turned to acid dust, making the carpet steam. It wasn’t worth gloating, didn’t even warrant a laugh. Killing things that wanted to die never felt worth it.
Body or nothing-what was left of his blood tasted like filth-the Archbishop had died a maggot in the end, soulless and stupid. No explosion. No fight. No glory.
Where the Hell was True Earth?
As if it mattered.
Spitting out the priest’s eyeball, already crumbling and dry, Yuber retracted his blades and conjured a circle, leaving the mess for the acolytes.
6. Wizard, Serpico
Serpico could always listen for the wind, for what it did and what it meant. He listens to the wind now, to the things it says. It lies. There’s a disparity in that, and a plain one. All the forbidden lore that Serpico’s read says that the spirits of the wind are male. They’re not. The same way Farnese isn’t actually fire, just in love with it, the voices of the sylph aren’t the voices of men. They keep what they mean inside and tell you want they want you to hear. To master them is to yield to them.
7. Monk, Al-Cid
“Not that I would actually consider this,” said Spider, “but what if I was to take vows?”
Al-Cid set the nut that he was about to eat back in its dish. “I would acclaim it a much less innovative mean of evading the throne than that I aspired to, and a much less effective one than that I accomplished.”
Not quite laughing, Spider quirked his spectacles and glanced at his father’s hands. “The youngest son of Solidor has done this, of his own accord. He wanted to be a monk.”
“And I wanted to be a harem dancer,” said Al-Cid.
8. Thief, Zargabaath
“Mark me,” Zargabaath says, as plain as can be expected from within his gilded carapace of ceremony, “you have won this exaltation, through whatever combination of means befits it.”
“But I have not earned it,” Gabranth interrupts.
“We have an understanding.”
“I am not agreeing with you.” Gabranth adjusts the neck of his new helm, swiveling as if to break it. “I merely speculate as to your train of thought.”
Though inscrutable, Zargabaath’s derision is evident. “You are young,” he says, “and you are using us all.”
Within the confines of his helm, Gabranth smiles roguishly. “And lord Vayne is neither?”
9. Oracle, Viktor
“All right,” he said, slapping his potch down in front of the withered, dark-skinned man. “I’m drunk enough to ask. Tell my fortune.”
“That’s not asking, young man,” the magician replied good-naturedly, and made ome knuckling motions in front of his embers and crystal.
“You’re the first to call me a young man in a real long time, you know that?”
“Mhm,” said the fortune-teller. “Thought you might like that, seeing as you’re going to get very old.”
“Yeah?”
The embers curled into pointed tendrils of smoke. “Mhm. Yes. Old beyond counting. Old like the things you hunt.”
10. Time Mage, Miki
Click. What a nervous tic to have. And what an inconvenient one for a musician. Doesn’t even know when it started. Doesn’t know when anything started. And if he can’t figure that out, of course the why is going to be just as elusive.
The next time he does it, he concentrates, fills in the holes in the Student Council’s conversation but keeps his mind elsewhere. Nothing. Not even context. The visceral symbolism that is Nanami eats everything.
He might guess that he’s measuring something, some progress, some dimension, but if he can’t even tell how long he’s been here-