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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Prompt 21: The Fine Print

Prompt 21: Solution - FFXIV Write 2022 Characters: Edarien and Seviere, with Louvel @louvel-roche

The world illuminates in soft shadows and clouded memories when he delves into the abyssal layer. This flow of darkness and muted emotions intertwined with the waking world welcomes his presence with starving arms. His is an old soul, worn into the darkness, embedded in the flow and spreading his mind out through the abyssal weave is a simple enough task. Somewhere out there is a wounded wolf.

The first prick of light he finds belongs to the Moth. White wings fluttering behind him and anxious hands patting over the second flicker of light. He almost missed that life’s flame, wavering so thinly he wondered a moment if he was too late.

Darkness seeps from beneath shadowy tree boughs and crooked roots, threads coalescing into a tall, lean form of a dark-haired duskwight. Ash grey skin stretches over muscle and bones and crystalline blue eyes focus on the crumpled figure beneath the Moth’s hands. The drape of shadow black robes cascade over his figure, stretching out like fingers behind him when he strides forwards the last few paces.

“Seviere.” The mage murmurs, a hand falling firm on one of the bard’s shoulders. “Help me carry him deeper.”

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#friend writing!#dark song of the abyss #eldritch duskwight things #wolf in the abyss

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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the bestial urge to just fucking bite down on something delicate

to feel the s h a t t e r of bone under your teeth

the want to let yourself be angry

so tired of being docile

#reblog #muse musings #louvel mood

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Prompt 2: Close Enough

Prompt 2: Bolt - FFXIV Write 2022 Characters: Seviere, Arafel, Omarus and Louvel. Louvel belongs to @louvel-roche and is used with permission from his player. Content Warning: Violence, cursing.

“Did you think I wouldn’t recognize you?”

The bard’s voice was soft but not lacking in any strength. Seviere’s question echoed down the Hall with ease, the place had been designed for sound. The White Hall rose up around him, the pillars of white marble blending into the walls, floor, and ceiling built of the same material. Despite having sunken into the earth during the cataclysm, the Hall was still as ostentatious as the man that owned the place.

That very man waited on a dais at the far end of the hall where a single throne stood. Arafel eased out of the chair, crimson eyes smiling and leather creaking. His hands folded behind his back, hiding the long digits with their blackened tips and strange claw-like nails. Seviere’s eyes narrowed, a huff of irritation emerging. And to think he trusted this man.

Omarus stepped out from between the pillars, a gloved hand latching on to Seviere’s upper arm and stalling his march down the Hall. “Sevi. What -are- you going on about?” The posh garlean accent grated on Seviere’s nerves, and he turned on the artisan with a low pitched growl.

“Stay out of this, Omarus.” Anger when it took in the bard was a volatile thing. So much he was able to withstand. Pain, torment, anguish, these things he had learned to take at the hands of his father and those habits had carried on into those beyond his father. The one thing he couldn’t stand was harm done to those he cared about.

The garlean artisan’s lips parted and Seviere was prepared for the arguments he fully expected out of the man. They both owed Arafel, both protected him, both hid his secrets from the outside world. Seviere’s other arm shifted, just enough for Omarus to notice the arrow clasped in his hand. The shaft was wood with a pointed head forged of silver. Omarus frowned but stepped back, hand sliding away.

“Don’t.” Omarus murmured, a hint of sorrow in his sweet blue eyes. “Nothing good will come from this.”

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#reblog #friend writing!#wolf bewitched by a siren

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Prompt Four

"You aren't Louvel," was how Swan greeted Inwa when he came in for a visit to the inksoul trapped in the oubliette. For Inwa's part, he blinked at the viera, eyes wide and looking around for some sign of the duskwight in question.

"I'm not. Should I be? Are you waiting for him?" Inwa's eyes continued to roam around for some sign of him. Was he visiting Swan and stepped out for a moment? The miqo'te didn't approach the chair yet, his ears turning towards the man in case it was reserved.

"He's the one who brought me here. I wondered when he'd come to see me." Swan pulled one of his knees close to his chest, wrapping his arms around his leg and resting his forehead don against it.

"He has a lot going on. You should spend this time thinking about what you're going to say to Edarien. There will be plenty of time to see him if you get out of here." The man leaned against the counter, looking over the clipboard he left to check out of anything has changed since the came in last.

"Will you tell him?" Swan's head turned to the side, looking at Inwa through the hair that fell in front of his face. There was no immediate answer from Inwa whose head tipped up to examine the ceiling and walls. It was something that Swan noticed the man do a lot. It was as if those abnormal eyes of his could see the answers as if they were written on the very walls.

The truth of his progenitor's actions could be felt in the air. Anxiety. Loss. Depression. Devastation. Disappointment. They were separate and the oubliette suppressed all of his other abilities, but Swan could still feel what those in the space felt.

"You don't think he's going to come to see me," Swan spoke their thoughts quietly over the hum of the magitech the mechanics put in the walls to support the magic of the cell.

"A lot has happened since you were put in here," Inwa spoke the words kindly, always covering the reality of his meaning. 'I'm not as important as something outside', Swan corrected in his mind, watching the miqo'te's back. The more they spoke, the more he was able to discern the words the dragon used and their true meaning.

Learning he could still feel others' emotions wouldn't help him out of his situation, but he did shed light on one thing; Priarch was more complicated than he first thought.

#reblog #friend writing!

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Prompt 6: Loup-Garou

Prompt 6: Onerous - FFXIV Write 2022 Character: Viper and Fraggle

Rock skittered down the slope, unsettling the security of his feet. Viper squinted in the darkness, his hands firm around the butt of his gun. He had a single shot left.

Ahead of him the echoes of growling ricocheted off the stone walls back to him. He was on the right trail. The creature was unlike anything he’d seen before. Taller than any spoken with claws and teeth like a wolf, the figure was humanoid and it walked on two legs with its hands touching down only to increase its agility through the trees. The fact it had dived into the cave system beneath the Shroud came as a surprise to the duskwight hunting it.

A welcome one. Viper was well used to the caves and tunnels that ran beneath Eorzea, having grown up in them and traversed them since he was a toddler. Back then, Edarien ran the trade routes himself, taking the twins with him and teaching them how to not lose their way and survive off what they found within the caverns. The family followed the ancient markings in the caves and the twins learned to read them, which rune marked safety and which marked a hazard, where an exit to the surface was and where a tunnel ran deeper into the planet.

Not many duskwights clung to the old ways and those that did often had reason outside of nostalgia or necessity. Trying to maintain a life down there wasn’t an easy task and came with a range of issues, insults from the surface dwelling elezen among them. How he hated dealing with Gridanians. Ishgard was barely more palatable.

Hunting always made him feel far more alive, engaging a primal part of him like little else could. His head lifted, back straightening up from his stalking posture. The sounds had stopped and so had he at the entrance into a cavern widening far enough he couldn’t make out the ceiling or the far walls. Water splashed down into a shallow pool, the pattering like distant thunder to his straining ears. A shaft of light slithered through the roots overheard emanating from a sizable crack in the rocks far overhead. Too far for anything to escape out that way.

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#reblog #friend writing!#eldritch creations #duskwights

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Prompt 4: So Many Questions

Prompt 4: Free Write - FFXIV Write 2022

Character: Edarien; with mentions of half of Priarch: Inwa @daylightrays, Rain @rain-grey-falcon, Louvel and Colm @louvel-roche, Lance @gorgagne-viperidae, Idristan @roses-and-grimoires, and Talia @reddevil-xiv.

Content Warning: Self-indulgent musings, lightly suggestive.

There is nothing quite like watching the world from the comfort of a throne.

Even if that throne is the high-backed chair made of carved wood, inset with pillowed fabric so cushiony that the once bony mage’s backside would never know pain, standing behind an equally ostentatious desk. It was the perfect place for Edarien to brood.

And brood he did…

What in the hells happened to his organized, peaceful life? He squinted at the floor to ceiling windows across his study like they had personally offended him. One minute, he has most of his world compartmentalized into work, family, and personal. Simple. People fit into the first two and never the last. Sometimes the first two crossed. His siblings helped him with work and a couple of the people he worked with seemed like family now after all they’d been through together.

Sure. He admired people. From afar. Desires were dangerous. They ruined things. They hurt.

And then Inwa opened his big mouth and here he was. With more people crossing into personal than he dared ever hope … No! Want. He didn’t want -this-…

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#reblog #friend writing!

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Prompt #7: Pawn

CW: Mention of blood.

It had been such a calm day, one in which Louvel had managed to keep his sobriety, and yet as night started to fall it began to feel more and more like the world was spiraling into a bad trip.

For the life of him, Louvel couldn’t figure out what caused it. Had it been the sight of a familiar face in the markets? A nostalgic smell or sound? The call of a voice he would have rather forgotten? Whatever it was, it sent his world into chaos.

The duskwight noticed it first with how loud the city had gotten, with how overwhelming every new smell had become. The lights of the street lamps and buildings felt blinding, and before he even realized it he had roamed into the dark depths of the woods in search of solace. In his efforts to escape that sensory overload he had only found himself staggering into new things to flood his senses. The world was so very alive, and he could hear, smell, and feel every heartbeat, breath, and wail of the forest’s existence.

He didn’t remember falling, but he knew he was on the ground, the world a blurry riot of sounds, scents, and raving colors all compounding together into a deep seeded ache. It felt like his bones were breaking under pressure; felt like his insides were being compressed and shaken as if he were in the jaws of that dragon again. He opened his mouth, parted teeth that had grown much too long and sharp, and where there should have been a scream of agony there was only a howl.

Louvel had been sober. He knew this wasn’t a bad reaction to some manner of drug or drink. As the pain subsided and the forest’s oppressive noise was drowned out with the whisper of a dark song, he realized that it was likely a dream. Hazy, off kilter. Aspects of it felt so familiar, like the higher perch of his ears and their increased mobility, as well as the balancing sway of a tail that had not been there prior. The last time this had happened it was due to Seviere’s magic, but the songbird wasn’t here now. Surely this was a dream.

Everything drifted like a dream. Light, effortless, from a perspective a good fulm higher than he was used to seeing the world. The soil felt different below his feet, giving with more weight, scraping below rough pads and sharp claws as a staggering walk evolved into a run. Had he ever moved through the woods so quickly? Each passing tree and path of overgrown shrubs turned into a blur, the streams and rivers barely a streak of momentary color passing his sight before it was gone again. He could see so far, smell the hundreds of souls roaming through the forest, just as much as he could hear their skittering and fleeing with his reckless approach.

A deer bolted at his left, a cluster of birds were startled from a tree on his right. Then the click of a bullet loading into the chamber of a gun pierced through his ears. Familiarity followed the sound, one deep inhale and then another flooding his mind with a scent he knew, one that pulled at his memory yet the dreamy haze kept a name and face out of his grasp. There was a torrent of conflicting feelings raking over his nerves, things he couldn’t pin down rapidly swinging from highs and lows. Ire, affection, resentment, loyalty, frustration, joy. It all flickered through his mind but only one thing really stuck; a deep seeded need to protect this soul. It drew in a step closer to that scent.

Then the first shot was fired.

Without thought he ran. Without a goal in mind he fled. The echoing boom of the following shots were all he needed to know that soul was following. That he was being hunted. This was not how things were supposed to go, something about it felt unnatural. Made his skin crawl. The dark song ringing between his ears grew all the louder.

His strides abandoned the forest in favor of the caves. His home. His domain. A place he could blend into so naturally. A place he knew how to move through; how to stalk, watch, lure, trap. He could hear that other soul, could still smell them, could still feel that tang of something he knew, something familial yet still beyond his full comprehension. A hunter. His kin. A friend. Prey. It was all blurring together, lost in the thunder of his heartbeat and the endless din of the abyss.

So quick was his descent on the other hunter, and to his great disappointment his target proved faster than he anticipated. Much too fast with how quickly that gun came up and went off again. The world blurred further, dimmed as cavern walls rushed by. His ears were still ringing from the boom of the gun when the world went dark.

When Louvel awoke he found himself on the floor of a cave tunnel, the space around him recognizable as something near to his home. All he could smell was blood. His own blood. A quick examination of himself brought to realization he was lying in a puddle of it, wearing naught but his piercings, and a fresh new bullet wound in his left lung.

Perhaps that had not been a dream after all.

( response to this. )

#Louvel Roche #ffxivwrite2022 #duskwight #wolf in the abyss #pawn of the old gods #the old ones hunter

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Prompt #1: Cross

Cross a road, cross a river, cross the harsh waves of the sea.

Cross the expanse between worlds.

Cross out letters, cross out names, cross out your secrets.

Cross out the proof of your existence.

Cross paths with a friend, cross paths with a lover, cross paths with an enemy.

Cross paths with yourself.

Cross your heart in a promise, become cross with others in vexation, cross a line.

Cross the point of no return.

Cross over into another life, cross over into dreams, cross over into death.

Cross over into the oblivion of the abyss.

#ffxivwrite2022 #short abstract things #i have no idea what i'm doing

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Quiet

Sennights had passed and he still wasn’t used to it. Perhaps it was just habit, or desperate wishful thinking.

Louvel stepped into his home, into the comforting embrace of cavern walls and the quiet ambiance of flowing water and a crackling fire. A greeting had primed itself on his lips, a call to the space seeking life he had given so many times before yet withheld before it was fully given voice. There used to be responses, used to be voices echoing off the walls in reply. These days there was nothing, and by now he knew better than to even utter a sound. It would only be his own voice inhabiting the space.

Silence lingered, making every little sound he made in his routine to put away his boots and pack rings all the louder. It all felt so deafening in contrast to the smothering quiet that clung to the dwelling. He still hadn’t gotten used to it, and part of him wondered if he ever would. It might be easier to grow desensitized to the empty silence of his home. Would make things easier to no longer hold onto the futile hope that there might be another soul waiting for him, or that he might at some point hear the door with someone’s arrival.

Perhaps he was being too pessimistic, a notion he tried to keep a hold of yet again and again it slipped through his fingers. Optimism had been in short supply, and life had given him more reasons to doubt than to hope these last few moons. With all that had happened and all the ways he had failed those around him in the last turn, this silent solitude had begun to feel like something he deserved. A just punishment for his transgressions. Perhaps it would be better if things stayed this way.

No matter how much he felt he earned his isolation, it was not what he wanted. All he wanted was another voice, another heartbeat in this space, yet all he had was the quiet, the crackle of the fire, the flow of the waterfall, and the endless din of his own sinking thoughts. There were a slim few ways to remedy this, but more and more he found himself believing it was better to keep to his isolation, to spare others the burden of his neediness. His presence had caused enough grief for others already, why risk causing more?

With a bottle of whiskey in hand to take the place of dinner, Louvel settled himself near the fire, allowing the pop and crackle of the burning logs to provide something in place of conversation. Old routines replaced with new ones, old habits taking firm root once again.

#Louvel Roche #lou rambles #sad wolf hours #return to nothing

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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ft. @louvel-roche

#louvel #teagan #cute things #cleanup after cooking #friend art

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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Routine was a comforting thing; when it flowed as it was supposed to; and it was utter torment the moment it was cast into chaos.

The initial disruption started when Seviere stopped responding to the messages sent to his tomestone. It only got worse when attempts to reach his linkpearl were met with similar silence and he fully noticed that he could not locate Sevi’s tomestone on the tracking map. Any thoughts to follow the next task of his routine were forgotten. Louvel should have been preparing dinner yet instead he found himself searching the streets of Gridania for his husband.

He started at the amphitheater, asking familiar faces still lingering around if they had seen Seviere. Where was he last spotted, where had he been going? He got only scraps of information, most people much too absorbed in their own work to have been keeping tabs on the monochromatic songbird. From there he traced the routes he knew Sevi followed through the streets, the market stalls he knew the siren had a habit of stopping at.

Bells passed and the city yielded nothing but disappointment. The gates beyond were no different, the guards standing post providing him little more than dismissive statements and underhanded insults. Louvel knew better than to expect anything more from the Greens, so it was the forest itself he turned to. Once more the wolf followed the pathways he knew his songbird traveled, traced the steps they had walked together dozens of times, each new step taken leaving him feeling hollow with Seviere’s absence.

Little was found along the initial trails and roads of the Shroud. The wood wailers were of little help, but the same as the merchants and other people traveling the road. Again and again he came up empty handed in his efforts to find even a hint of where Seviere had gone. Another bell passed and his frantic search finally came to a halt once Seviere’s lute was spotted. This discovery did nothing to comfort the wolf. Truly, it had much of the opposite effect.

Louvel’s search resumed with more haste, with a higher roar of anxiety. He traveled to familiar places, followed familiar paths. He checked their dwellings, the places he knew Seviere liked to visit. He checked the White Hall with no one there having seen or heard anything from the missing siren. Further and further he went, covering all the ground he could, tearing through his memory to try to recall each and every little place he had ever seen Seviere go. Every and every nook and cranny of the Shroud a person might be hiding in.

All concept of routine was eroding away. He had nearly missed his evening check-ins with Spider and Inwa; typically pleasant conversations warped into exchanges that were tense and brief. All he could give was an apology and his love before he resumed his search with renewed distress. Night passed without sleep, without a word from his missing partner. Louvel’s hunt had been endless, everything else all but forgotten. With the morning bells settling in, he should have been taking care of other things. He should be checking in on Edarien for their usual conversation with a morning workout. A bath and then breakfast should have followed. Louvel failed to accomplish any of those things. All concept of routine was gone.

More messages were sent to the bard’s tomestone. More attempts were made to get some kind of answer from his linkpeal. All Louvel received was more silence. He’d made his way to his home in Dravania, intent on checking the place one more time just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything while also making sure the lute he had been clinging to like a life line was stored somewhere safe before he went out searching again. It was on his way towards the door to leave that his tomestone finally chimed, that he finally got some kind of answer.

It was an answer that caused his blood to run cold and his breath to lock up in his throat. Stunned, panicked, strung out and tired, Louvel could do little more than stare at the screen for a long stretch of minutes. The duskwight dropped onto one of the stools at the counter, the tomestone clattering to the countertop a second later. How did he process this? How did he sort this out? He could feel his insides twist and tangle; could feel his heart ache as everything inside of him howled in desperation. What was he supposed to do, just wait? He doubted he could manage that. For a moment he took a few seconds to breathe, and to try to think.

Multiple times his tomestone found its way back into his hand, eyes once more reading that message; studying the image with it with renewed dread and mounting fury. Messages were typed, deleted, typed again. Don’t do anything stupid. He read it again, grit his teeth with the effort to swallow it down. He needed to think, to approach this carefully. He could not risk causing Sevi more harm with some reckless, enraged action.

The tomestone was thrown, sent across the room to collide hard with the wall near the table. He’d be grateful for how durable the device was later, but for the moment he only seethed more over the fact it didn’t break. The rest of the kitchen proved much less durable.

Counters, shelves, any flat surface was swiped clean of anything not nailed down, objects flying in all directions in a cacophony of destruction. Jars shattered, utensils clattered across the brick floor, a liquor bottle smashed against one of the cabinets. Nothing was left unscathed. If it could break then it would be broken, shards and fragments left scattered across the floor, the entry of the home left in ruin. None of it compared to how torn up the wolf felt, doubled over onto the floor like just another broken object among the mess.

Louvel screamed, howled until his throat felt raw, until his lungs ached, until he tasted blood and the fringes of his vision dimmed. Another scream came only a breath after the last, and another. Again and again, each a little shorter than the last, each a little more distraught, a little more wavering until he was reduced to breathless sobs.

Another bell passed before he managed to collect himself enough to get up, to find his tomestone again, and to finally piece together a message.

Sevi needs to take medication at the eighth bell every evening with a meal. He should have a couple doses in his bag if you have that.

A pause followed as he tried to maintain some semblance of calm. Seviere’s well-being was all that mattered here.

Please don’t hurt him.

With a woeful curse Louvel set the device down on the table, left it there while he waited for a response. He knew it may well be days before he heard anything. He would see the kitchen put back in order in the meantime, the task doing little to put his mind at ease.

Mentions: @thedarknesssings - Sevi, Spider, Edarien. @daylightrays - Inwa

Favour Returned

For Louvel @louvel-roche <3

——

Night falls. The sound of the symphony swells and fills the air in Gridania with brilliance. Tonight is their final performance of scores dedicated to the renewal of life that Spring brings every year. The amphitheatre is packed, happy faces glowing in the soft lamplight strung overhead inside lanterns of bright paper. Flowers bloom along the edges of the theatre, giving off a sweet scent. The audience waits and no one is disappointed when the spectacle begins.

Dancers dressed in elegant silks and flowing airy fabrics parade across the stage, the dance of the trees and newborn flowers alive in the graceful motion of their limbs. Clowns tumble down the aisles before the performance and during the intermission, entertaining the crowd with their sleight of hand tricks and astounding agility. At the end of the night, the performers take their bows, absorb the applause and hollers with pride in what they’ve done. A grand finale given and no one can argue that.

Tonight was the perfect night.

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#Louvel #Seviere #wolf with separation anxiety #missing siren

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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I want to be inside your darkest everything.

Frida Kahlo (via fridakahlo-art)

#reblog #wolf's greedy teeth

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louvel-roche · 2 years

Note

Louvel,

Every time I see you, you take something away from me. Soon. Soon I will return the favor and take something away from you.

- M.

Perplexed, Louvel studied the note for a long stretch of minutes, turning it over again and again as if he might some how find more to it that he missed. But this is all there had been, no other words, no name, no address to know were it came from. Just vague ominous statements that he wasn't quite sure how to digest.

It left an unsettled knot in his stomach, even more so when trying to shake down the delivery moogle for more information yielded nothing. He couldn't even send back a response, questions, not a damned thing to sort this out.

So, he was left to wait, to see if another note might come, or worse, if some action might actually be taken. Would it just be a robbery? Something more dire? He was already a little paranoia, and this only made that sink deeper; made it all the harder to soothe during sleepless nights.

The note would be left in his home, offered to his partners to review in some hopes one of them might be able to make heads or tails of it. Maybe they would have insight he lacked, or if nothing else, it might make him feel a little less insane for his worries.

#Louvel Roche #ominous things #concerning letters #ty for the message!

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louvel-roche · 2 years

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