alpal-ult

[alpal-ult]

/loveheart 💛 💚

[alpal-ult]

/loveheart 💚💛

Companion to the Sanson version 💛

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You know I talk too much, honey come put your lips on mine and shut me up

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Febuwhump Day 12: Semi-Conscious Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV, Alternate Universe Characters/Ship: Sanson Smyth/Guydelot Thildonnet (pre-relationship), Coeli Qoet Triggers/Content warnings: n/a

In the cramped confines of the airship's engine room, he waits.

When should he leave, Guydelot wonders - now? He'd heard Sanson and Mogta talking only a moment ago, drifting away. Where are they, even? Somewhere in the Sea of Clouds, Moglin said; vague as all hells. It'd taken a miracle to get back to Gridania and sneak on board the Adders' airship; if the bloke guarding it hadn't owed Guydelot a favor or five, he never would've managed. It'd taken some quick thinking and even quicker talking: he was a member of this mission, after all; that's on record, and he knew Sanson'd be along shortly with the orders.

For all that, now that he's here...

What do I even say?

Sweat rolls down the back of his neck, and he doesn't think it's just the heat of the engine. It's not like him, this hesitation. Not like him, either, to linger like he had in Tailfeather. Normally, when he decides he's damned well done with a situation, he takes his leave - and he stays gone. He'd stormed away from Sanson fully intending to head back to Gridania and wash his hands of the whole mess; let the prissy little prig chase his Ballad of Oblivion to the ends of the world for all he cares.

Or so he'd thought. But he'd lingered, he'd hesitated, coming up with every reason to give it another day...

So what're you gonna say, then, he asks himself, hands curling into fists in frustration at his own hesitation. What is he waiting for? The perfect words? He's a bard; he knows damn well the right words aren't gonna just fall into his lap. And they sure as hells aren't gonna come to him here, are they?

He clambers outside at last, sucking in a breath at the frigid skybound air, a bracing contrast to the engine room. No need to wonder where Sanson'd gone: there's only one path. Guydelot walks slowly, thoughts still churning through his mind. What would Sanson say when he came strolling up?

Does he even dare hope Sanson is just as tormented over all of this as he is? Coeli sure seemed to think so, and then there's the journal burning a hole in Guydelot's satchel... notes on song, sure. And notes, pages of them, of all the things... all the things he wanted to tell Guydelot about, when they meet again.

And isn't that something?

Isn't that-

Fighting, he realizes, his archer's instincts finally winning out over his heart's twisting and turning. He's hearing the sounds of battle.

He's left it too late, he's waited too long.

Damn it all, and damn me, too, he thinks, drawing and stringing his bow; if he hurries, he can still be of some use against... against whatever it is they've found here; whatever beast guards Sanson's Ballad.

It's not a long run, but it's long enough.

He gets there in time to watch Coeli put a last desperate arrow into the red-feathered siren, before the viera crumples to the ground in exhaustion. The siren herself gets out one last ear-searing shriek before she bursts into a seething cloud of aether... which is then drawn back into an innocuous-looking stone monument, evidently from whence it came. Guydelot stands helpless, useless, bow in hand, observing the carnage.

Coeli's wounds don't look bad: she's simply been sapped of all energy by the siren's... song. She opens her blue eyes long enough to notice him, but lacks even the stamina to look surprised - if indeed she is. Her gaze leaves him, traveling toward something lying in the tall grass: something yellow. Something yellow and very, very red.

The bow falls from Guydelot's hands as he runs, unthinking.

Sanson.

He'd taken the brunt of the battle himself; of course he had. His lance is red with the creature's blood, but for every blow he landed, it seems he must've taken three - Sanson Smyth is a mess, and no mistake. Guydelot sinks to the ground beside him, fearing the worst. Part of him flinches away from the idea of even checking for a pulse - if he leaves now, if he runs away again, he can tell himself pretty lies about how the last time he'd seen Sanson, the man had been alive and well...

And maybe if I'd been fast enough, he still would be.

Gritting his teeth, he yanks off a glove and rests his hand on Sanson's throat.

Only for the man himself to flinch under Guydelot's touch.

"G..." Those too-blue eyes flutter open. Barely. Confusion mingles with pain. "Guydelot...? What are you...?"

It goes through him like a knife, and all Guydelot can think about is the thousand times his commanders have reprimanded him as a good-for-nothing, a layabout; a sorry waste of a talented archer. All talent, no discipline; that's Guydelot the Spent! Never where he needed to be! Always had somewhere better to be; always had something better to be doing than following godsdamned orders! And now here he was, the perfect chance to prove to himself - to Sanson - that he was worth a damn, and-

"You... you came," Sanson breathes, wonderment in his eyes, teetering on the edge of consciousness. "I... th-thought.."

He forces himself to speak. He's got nothing better to do. "Too late. I'm sorry, Sanson; I thought I'd..." What? Help? He hadn't known what he meant to say or do. He still doesn't.

He watches Sanson drift. There's a rustle in the grass: Coeli, inching closer. She's learned some healing tricks; thank the Matron for small miracles.

An absence occurs to him. "Mogta?"

She glances at him as she works, weaving aether into mending Sanson's many wounds. "Sanson tried to send us both away," she says, quietly. "Mogta is flying to the encampment of the Vanu Vanu, to seek aid."

He nods, subdued but relieved; he'd feared, for a moment, that his reluctance had cost the moogle bard his life.

It may yet cost Sanson his.

He tried to send them both away, he thinks, heart sinking like a stone: fighting the creature alone would've been suicide, and Sanson's seasoned enough to know it. Why? Why throw away his life on a futile battle, when there was nothing to be gained by-

"It... it never existed."

Sanson's voice again, hazy. Barely conscious at all, speaking as though in a dream. On an impulse he doesn't want to examine too closely, Guydelot takes one of the man's hands. Sanson's eyelids flutter, and his fingers twitch in Guydelot's.

"It was all just... some story, mistold or mis... misremembered," Sanson mumbles, despair in his voice. "An entire tribe... of moogles... she... and the Ballad..."

"Sanson," Guydelot says, uncertain. "You ought to rest. Let Coeli patch you up. We can talk later."

"No," Sanson says, abruptly, squeezing his hand. "No. I need... I was wrong, Guydelot, I was wrong about... about everything-"

"Well, you can be as wrong as you like after you're healed up-"

"I was wrong about you-"

Gods, I can't do this now, Sanson; don't do this to me now! "You're full of holes and barely awake, Sanson the Stiff," he snaps. "There's not a thing you can say now that won't keep for a bell or two. It's waited this long."

Whether the rebuke exhausts him or his wounds claim him, it serves to drop Sanson fully into unconsciousness, which Guydelot's willing to count as a miracle and a reprieve. He takes a shuddering breath, and with only one or two false starts, manages to begin singing a song to augment Coeli's healing: Sanson needs all the help he can get.

He pretends not to feel Coeli's too-knowing gaze on him as he sings.

[alpal-ult]

In mine and many other east Asian cultures, the dragon traditionally symbolises things like power, wealth and strength (imperial symbol and all)

I think we often forget that in the story of the Great Race, the dragon came in fifth because it'd stopped to give people rain. Then it'd stopped again to push a rabbit adrift on a log across the wide river so it reached the shore safely (that's why the Rabbit year comes before the Dragon).

Dragons aren't meant to just be powerful - they are meant to do good with such power, and to help those in need.

So in this lunar new year, I hope you gain more power, so that you might be able to help others. I pray you have abundant resources so you may give to yourself and those around you. I wish you courage, endurance, kindness and generosity, for yourself and your people.

I hope you, and I, will be rain givers, life preservers, joy bringers.

I hope we will be dragons.

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Sousou no Frieren, Ending Illustration EP 02

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lord the peasants are so loud today

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he’s so girldad

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Themis

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I literally can't stop thinking about the WoL and Themis.

The realization that this person you thought was a villain for years is just a sweet little guy before he's thoroughly corrupted by the biggest sacrifice he'll ever make and the fallout of it. That he looks up to you, and you're the kind of hero he aspires to be.

That he respects you so much that he asks for your thoughts on his warring internal identity, because he's unsure if he can be a person when so much duty is on his shoulders.

The guilt that he might have volunteered to be the heart of Zodiark because it's what he thought you might do

There's so much heartbreak throughout the last tier of Pandaemonium -- the way he's so excited to show off his battle skills for you, then so grateful to just spend a few more moments in your presence. The exchange of aether, that the WoL volunteers to give him aether without a second thought to give him form for just a little more stolen time. The pleading for you to hear him out because he has feelings to share in his last moments.

And then he has the absolute gall to tell you that it all had meaning because he got to meet you and get to know you.

And despite finally, finally remembering everything, he chooses not to stay.

Then he dissipates into nothing??? And he's gone.

Because they never stay. Hades and Hythlodaeus didn't. Why would Themis?

But there's still an open portal to Elpis. You can still go back in time and interact with the Unsundered world, daily if you want to, and you have close friends and allies now who live there. So why wouldn't you send a letter? Why wouldn't you wait until Themis shows up again, just to spend another moment of stolen time together?

I will never stop being heartbroken about this 💙

#THIS ONE HURTS #ESPECIALLY SINCE MY AZEM AND THEMIS ARE SIBLINGS #AOUGHHH

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yours is the seat of sacrifice

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They're good friends.

(If you want to be able to suggest art like this, join my Patreon! My monthly mailbag for February has just opened for submissions!)

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bird

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Homeward (Orpheus/Eurydice)

A ficlet about Eurydice, Sanson's Ancient self, and Orpheus, Guydelot's Ancient self.

He is here again, with his sweet melody that filled the night air like a thousand nightingales. It is obvious that he is here for me, though I do not know why he would, when he can have his fill of adoring audience with far more enthusiasm elsewhere. Yet for nigh a moon he had greeted me as I leave for home, leaning his tall frame against the stone wall outside the building. His is a striking form under the moonlight; a shining jewel to my tarnished brass.

"Good evening Eurydice," he says, as per usual.

"Good evening, Orpheus," I reply back, like all of those other days. He smiles back, and nothing else is said; from here on the only sound left will be my footsteps, and a song that follows them until I round over yonder corner. So I walk down the stairs and along the pavement as is routine, but I fail to shake the feeling that something is different tonight.

I look up at the moon, seeking answers. Is it his looks? No, Orpheus has always looked the same; confident and bright, as is his right as one of Altima's protégé. Is it his smile? No, it is always gentle and sincere; a smile just for me, he'd said once, and I could not find the lie in those words.

I crane my ears back towards him when it hits me: Orpheus's melody has a different lilt, imperceptible perhaps to those who have not listened to it near nightly, but it is there—half a note deeper and half a breath slower, as if it is waiting for something to happen, something to rouse it back to its usual tempo.

The book against my chest feels inadequate to contain the sudden swell of heat that blooms within. It's an absurd proposition, that someone like Orpheus could be waiting for someone like me; Eurydice; a plain-faced clerk with far too serious a furrow between my brows and minuscule talent for nothing else except recording history.

And yet...

I stop at the far end of the path, where the pavements change their patterns to a different design. He is still leaning against the pillar, playing, waiting. The wind takes that exact moment to change, and with it, so do I.

"Your melody is different tonight, perchance you can explain its intricacies as I walk home?" I ask, before blushing several shades deep. By the Star, that sounded far too bold—

Orpheus's melody suddenly shifts, this time rising up to a trill, akin to a flight of birds looping through the air. He near jogs to catch up, not breaking even a single note, then stops next to me.

"I've one better. Let me play you a new composition, and you may tell me your opinion of it."

"You know I'm no good critique. I know little and less about techniques," I confess. Instead of chastisement, Orpheus just grins.

"Pah, I've no shortage of people raring to tell me that I ought to use a different scale for more sophistication or some such; no, I'd like you to describe to me what you feel when you hear it, just as you have always done."

I colour even more. It is such a simple ask, and I've always opined on his songs—often unprompted—when he barges into my resting spot at lunch; yet tonight it feels like my answer will forever change the course of... of...

Orpheus waits, still with that handsome grin on his face. His beautiful turquoise eyes shine from behind the mask, and I am drawn ever closer as if pulled by an invisible string. The heat returns to my chest and before I can make a fool of myself, I nod.

His grin bursts into stars. "Come then, let us begin," he says as he lifts his harp and starts walking, in sync with his new melody.

I fall into step with him and listen to this new song, to Orpheus's voice, to the plucking of strings against his fingertips and I let myself feel. The melody tugs at the corner of my lips and before I realise it, I am grinning wide, heart light and aflutter.

I look up at the sky again and send up a wish—to the Star and the Moon, may this feeling never, ever fade.