[ti]complete[/ti][001] what size were these again?

It wouldn’t take long before mother (heh) dearest’s story would be interrupted right in the middle by—

“Took you long enough,” was all she would be getting from him.

The entire kicker out of this was that their ‘mother dearest’ actually managed to cut Sidra off before she could do anything further and like—

“Oh, my god. Did you skip all of the tutorials?” he would type back in the little chatbox, before turning to her and—

Uh oh.

Oh boy.

They were… they were really asking for it, huh?

Now that their ‘mom’ had taken a proper look at the two of them (and even called them twins, to boot, oops) he would blink as he turned to face her and—

“Oh, you did not just—”

Sidra

“Famous last words,” he would snark back in the little chat window, and if she were to look over his way, she would catch him giving her a very familiar pointed eye roll.

“You said that the last time, too. Remember when we were both sprouts in Eorzea? You just… ran off into the wild! No wonder your job experience isn’t maxed out,” he would add a few moments afterward; before making a shushing gesture as he was the one who was doing the listening for them.

His jaw opened wide the moment he caught on to what their ‘mom’ was talking about; of how their dad was a notorious womanizer who probably had too many flings in other places, but never came home—it was the typical ‘my dad left to buy milk from the store’ scenario, only made a thousand times spicier by the fact that there were ‘other women’ mentioned.

“Yikes, man,” he would type once more.

“Mother dearest is going on about how ‘Dad’ left to get milk and didn’t come back, leaving her to take care of the both of us. You know, immersion and all that.”

Sidra

“Oh my god you just want to get the hell out of here, huh?” he would type back; since he was the one who had to carry her through most of XIV, things were looking to be the same here as well, too!

“Wait, give me a few more minutes,” he would add on as he was the one doing the processing for every single little thing…

“…who knew that our NPC mother was incredibly chatty? More like ranty, but… you get the point,” he would continue before finding the corresponding ‘haha’ emoji and adding it to the message.

And then, and freaking then…

There would be a menu prompt that would flash in not just his line of vision, but also hers would she care to look.

“There was a point to all of this, you know. The running shoes…” he would add as he examined the blinking notification box he could see on his end—there should be one on her end too, if she hadn’t dismissed the option yet.

(And luckily this was a Key Item, so no chance of her losing it!)

Sidra

“It’s similar to the mounts in Eorzea, silly,” he would type back now that the Key Item: Running Shoes had been deposited in their respective inventories.

“Like, you know you can move around fast, right—these things should allow us to go even faster than normal ‘running’ speed, give or take.”

And with that, the twins were ‘released’ from their mother dearest’s ranty story about how their father had gone out to buy milk and never returned.

(Probably decided to run away because he couldn’t stand her long-windedness, but who knows?!)

“Well, Sid, shall we get the hell out of here before we get cornered again in another thirty-minute story-telling session?” he would smirk her way.

Sidra