ofdragonsdeep

[ofdragonsdeep]

Due to the changes Tumblr recently implemented, I will now only be posting my writing to AO3. I will still share links to writing on this blog, but the stories themselves will be external.

#yes I know I can toggle it off #and I'm going to #but it's the principle

[ofdragonsdeep]

21: Grave

A sombre visit on a sorrowful day.

(discusses 2.x character death)

The Shroud did not welcome outsiders, but it tolerated Ar’telan. He cut through the underbrush, boots crunching on the twigs and grass as he walked, a familiar path by now. The Southern end of the Shroud was a busy place, in the grand scheme of things - twisted things crept in from the West, Quarrymill bustled with a healthy population of adventurers keen to brave the cursed Gelmorran ruins, Camp Tranquil warred with poachers on the edge of the woods. A few brave holdouts of goblin poachers still huddled by the little pond outside of Quarrymill, but they gave Ar’telan a wide berth as he passed. These days, his reputation preceded him.

The bones of the Coerlclaw King’s outpost still stood, too. One corner had been walled off, torches burning from atop the palisade wall, but the woman on guard raised a hand in greeting to him as he walked past. Not unwelcome, but not welcome. He was used it by now.

The air grew heavier in the tunnel to the fount, weighed down by the thickness of the aether there. He weaved his way through the water, batting plasmoids out of the way and sidestepping the boars, until he arrived at the fountain.

They called it Urth’s Gift, for reasons Ar’telan still did not fully understand. Odin had been sealed there, once, though now the weapon roamed the Shroud, resisting all attempts to contain it. He had taken part in the first few attempts to subdue it, before they had lost too many people to its hunger. Sometimes he caught word of it, as he passed through Gridania, but it was out of his hands now.

He stood in the water, looking at the wood beyond. The trees rose in defiance of mortal passage, the leaves and branches so thick even a lalafell would struggle to slip between them. The water babbled, a peaceful serenade to those around to hear it. He reached out a hand and brushed his fingers against the stone, a dozen thoughts in his mind and not a word on his fingers.

It had been three years, to the day, since he had found Wilred’s body in the water. It had reached through the numbness that had suffused him then, the cold, hard shock of it. There had been no danger in the wood, they had thought, and they had not been wrong, exactly.

It had been easier to follow orders. To do as he was told, to keep busy and not think. A weapon, unfeeling, pointed at their problems until they disappeared. They had used him like that, played politics around his fugue and not cared a whit for him. Even Alphinaud had not paid him so much as a second glance, though it was hard to imagine the boy doing the same thing now. What was to come…

It had hurt, then, like a knife in the gut, stabbed and twisted, because a part of him had wondered. If he had pulled himself from the torpor, despite the pain, despite the lack of support, despite the walls falling around him - could he have saved Wilred? 

A part of him had felt like he should have done. With time between the tragedies, he knew now that he never could have changed things - they would never have done such a thing if he was watching, but they had manipulated events so that he never could have been. But even knowing that, it still seemed like such a pointless waste.

Wilred had been buried in Little Ala Mhigo, far away from his birthplace but in the place he had made his home. Ar’telan visited there, too, but coming out here, to the scene of the crime - it felt more real, somehow. 

He had lost so many, over the years. Averted that fate for so many more. Health and crisis kept him from marking every sombre occasion, and some would say that there were too many for him to keep them in his mind every passing year, but he tried. He owed it to the dead to remember them, even if there was nothing he could have done.

But even with the clarity of hindsight, he hoped that Wilred would forgive him.

#I could've worked at making it not sad but I like this sort of character exploration tbh #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023

[ofdragonsdeep]

20: Hamper

It was a ploy to delay him, this Ar'telan knew. But he met it head-on.

(6.4/Anabeseios spoilers)

It had been a foregone conclusion, that they would come to blows. From the moment those blue eyes had looked at him from across the floor of Pandæmonium, before he had even spoken of Athena’s magic. It had been written on his face, if one knew how to see it. The delight. The guilt. The control.

He had gone out of his way, even beyond his orders. At least, Ar’telan had assumed they were orders. Athena had woven strange compulsions into all of those she had reconstituted, in this horrible facsimile of life. Breaking Themis would not have been easy, even with his soul weakened by time and the memories patchy and few. But the desire…

Ar’telan understood it. He did. As much as he abhorred how circumstance seemed so eager to throw him headfirst into conflict, he was a skilled fighter. Skill inspired respect, a desire to pit one’s own talent against it. It was that same root that had spawned all of Zenos’s twisted games, his eagerness for something meaningful. In Themis - Themis was better adjusted than Zenos, even with the stifling customs of ancient times influencing his every move. So he had watched, and wondered, and had been content never to know.

Ar’telan wondered if this fragment recalled anything of life as Elidibus, the Elidibus that had stepped from Zodiark, a figment of a god’s imagination held together by duty and necessity. Of their fight atop the Crystal Tower on the First. If he even remembered that, after all that time, he had finally got his wish.

Ar’telan was tired of fighting to the death.

He drew his sword as the aether gathered around Themis. Ar’telan had seen this before, when Emet-Selch had transformed in Amaurot, when Hermes had transformed in Elpis, when he and Elidibus had fought…

The tip of the spear was aimed at his heart, and the smile on Themis’s face was tinged with sadness.

He had all but begged Elidibus not to fight him, even though he had known it was inevitable.

He had run that torturous gauntlet in Amaurot, wondering whose faces Elidibus had seen in the images Ar’telan had cut down.

He thought of Elidibus now, sat calmly with the researchers in Aporia, explaining that he could not aid them because the danger his presence put them in was too great.

Did he still recall their clash in the tower with sorrow in his heart? Did he even remember the longing?

—

Steel met steel. Magic met aether. The simulacrum of Lahabrea had offered to conjure duplicates for him, the way they had done in Pandæmonium proper, but Ar’telan had refused him just this once. Foolish, perhaps, to not take an advantage, but Themis was not the only one of them who was stubborn.

He had watched him wearing Ardbert’s skin, and though the others had baulked at it, a part of him had known it was freely given.

It was a bitter truth that the visions his Echo pulled from Elidibus’s broken mind were almost lost to their host, and he had vowed to keep them for him.

When he had first come back from Pandæmonium, Elidibus had offered to peer within his own memory crystal, that it might offer a clue. But Ar’telan knew well enough that he had wanted to build a sense of self around who he was now, and not a man long dead, and so he had refused him.

Both of them had been afraid of the answers.

—

It was hard not to see the similarities, and strange to imagine that this was the beginning of them, though he was seeing them at the end.

Elidibus had pulled the fragmented images of souls from other shards to try and bar his progress, a mess of light and purpose that barely held together under the strain.

He had summoned them again in desperate prayer, a strange irony to lend fuel to his primal rage. And how he had prayed…

Dynamis. When Meteion had seen it in their desperate fight, had been taken aback, if only for a moment, Ar’telan had thought of Elidibus. Unsundered, so full of aether that dynamis had been nothing more than a crackpot theory, and yet he had worn it like a mantle. 

Our strength. Our unity. 

Again and again Ar’telan had been the bearer of the torch for a thousand crying souls, and again and again his enemies looked to only his strength, his resolve. Emet-Selch had sought a singular hero he never could have found - not in Ar’telan, nor in any of the Sundered. Elidibus had tried to bear every hope, every dream, every prayer, and been crushed beneath the weight of it.

Gods, if only he could have borne just a fraction of the pain for him.

—

No victory came without sacrifice. No fight was not hard-won. But Ar’telan, panting hard with exhaustion and nursing several fresh wounds, could feel only the familiar twist of dread as Themis fell to the floor before him. The aether he had wrapped about himself dissipated with a rush, and Ar’telan could see the pain writ clear into every line on his face. Despite it all, the Emissary smiled.

All of them had screamed defiance at the end. Lahabrea, face contorting as he tried to pretend he did not care that Igeyorhm had died in front of him, that he was untouchable. Emet-Selch, screaming into the darkness at the futility of struggle. Elidibus, trying to take one more desperate step, one more desperate act, to fulfil his purpose. To save his people.

And then the moment of realisation. When the pain faded, the cloud lifted, and they lingered in the space between life and death. The Tempering’s claws retracting, so inexorably slowly, and everything they had ignored made itself felt, full-force.

A welcomed end.

All of them had deserved better.

Ar’telan knelt beside Themis, all but collapsed in front of him. He did not know how much of Elidibus’s ravaged soul Athena had stitched together to pull Themis from the aether, to stamp the memories of the past upon him consent unsought, but Ar’telan was done with being a helpless witness.

“...The longer you spend here… The longer… she has,” Themis managed, his voice wracked with pain. “Go, my falling star.”

“No.”

He put his hand on top of Themis’s, closed his eyes, and channelled aether.

—

Perhaps Athena had predicted that he would waste his time on sentimentality. She had manipulated it in Hephaistos, after all, twisting his love to her benefit. But her interest in Ar’telan had been sudden, in the grand scheme of her design, so perhaps she had not.

It didn’t matter. Ar’telan walked from that false Convocation Hall with Themis behind him. In the Aitiascope, Erichthonios and Lahabrea waited with the other researchers. Above them, in Thaumazein, another fragment of Elidibus waited. The aether would not last forever, this Ar’telan knew. But it was something.

Once, just once, he could fight the tragedy head-on. And this time, unlike every other ragged memory, he could choose to.

#no I don't want to write a fight scene thanks for asking #one day I'll write something normal about these two #today is not that day #tomorrow is not looking good either #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ew spoilers #ffxivwrite2023 #I missed yesterday because sick but I'll catch up probably

[ofdragonsdeep]

18: A Fish Out Of Water

A most unorthodox suggestion.

“Are you sure about this?”

Mitron paced back and forth past the rows of aquariums, the frown set so deeply on his face that it seemed likely to stay there forever. Behind him, Orn Mahr eyed the fish hungrily, but Ar’telan was reasonably certain that he wouldn’t be able to get in.

“Reasonably confident,” he replied. Mitron’s grimace lengthened.

“This wasn’t your idea,” he said. This time it was Ar’telan’s turn to wince.

“No.”

“And you agreed?”

“It worked for Elidibus.”

Mitron heaved a very put-upon sigh, pivoting one final time on the flagstones and walking over to the benches, where he all but fell into one with a defeated huff of air.

“Alright. Fine. I’ll surrender to this plan, but. I have conditions.” Ar’telan nodded, walking over to the table to join him. “Firstly, I’m putting you in between me and him. Sorry.” 

“Understandable,” Ar’telan replied, though the idea didn’t exactly thrill him.

“Second, and this is very important - this was Thancred’s idea, I’m assuming?” The look on Mitron’s face was accusatory, as if Thancred would feel it through the aether somehow, but Ar’telan nodded all the same. “Well, you can tell him that next time he wants to suggest something so patently insane, he can come himself.”

“Thancred hates fishing.”

“That is not the point, and you know it.” They both froze as a splashing noise echoed from the back of the room. “Don’t you DARE,” Mitron practically bellowed, almost teleporting across the room to fish the errant dragonet out of his aquariums before any permanent damage was done.

Ar’telan decided this counted as a win.

—

It was a pleasant time of the year for Sharlayan weather, a little too warm for snow and not overly prone to rain. Ar’telan still found it a little cold for his liking, but as far as he could tell Sharlayan never reached a comfortable temperature, not even in the heights of summer. So he would take it.

It helped that there wasn’t a giant whale marooned in the harbour any more, too.

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Mitron muttered. It was warm enough for him, if his current attire was anything to go by - the floral print on his thin shirt seemed more at home on a tropical island than the cold coast of Sharlayan, perhaps, but Mitron had never let that stop him. 

“I think you should give it a chance,” Ar’telan replied.

“You’re a bad idea,” Orn Mahr said. He spoke in Meracydian, as was his wont when throwing insults he didn’t really mean, but Mitron’s Echo meant he understood it regardless.

“Shut it, pipsqueak, or you’re going to be the one acting as the meat shield,” he grumbled.

A flash of the aetheryte shard heralded the arrival of their guest. Hephaistos towered a good foot of height above even Mitron, and his permanent frown and sensible dress cut an imposing figure that was only slightly undercut by the red carbuncle that pranced about his feet.

“Thancred informed me that you would be waiting for me, though he did not say why,” he offered as greeting. “I raised my suspicions, and he remarked-”

“Very Lahabrea of you,” Mitron finished, which set the frown in further.

“Quite,” Hehpahistos said. “For what purpose is my presence required?”

“You’ll see when we get there,” Ar’telan replied, gesturing towards the boat.

“We’re going fishing!” Orn Mahr exclaimed, and both Ar’telan and Mitron winced in unison.

“...Fishing,” Hephaistos repeated, every syllable utterly stripped of approval.

“It’s a bonding activity,” Ar’telan offered, wilting under Hephaistos’s stern look. Mitron sighed.

“Look, just get in the boat, ok? It won’t be that bad,” he said. “And before you blame either of us, I’ll have you know this was Thancred’s idea.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Hephaistos said, raising an eyebrow. The carbuncle at his feet grabbed one of his shoelaces in its mouth, and began to determinedly tug him towards the water. “Obstinate creature. Very well. I will tolerate this exercise in futility.”

“Thanks,” Ar’telan signed weakly. Mitron gave him a dubious look, but the two of them - and Orn Mahr, after much grumbly deliberation - joined Hephaistos in the boat.

—

The seas were calm, the sea breeze pleasant, and the clouds just populous enough to preclude the need for a sunhat. Mitron, in a rare display of restraint, had not simply jumped into the sea to begin fishing by hand, and had instead produced a rod. Orn Mahr was stood at the head of the boat, pretending to be a figurehead by swapping between overly dramatic poses. Which left Ar’telan and Hephaistos at the back of the boat, sat in uncomfortable silence.

They were not alone, exactly. Lily had settled on Ar’telan’s head and begun her familiar activity of glaring at the nearest Ascian judgmentally. The carbuncles were staring at each other, possibly as some sort of arcane attempt to bond. But the air was still discomforting.

“Aquatic life is the purview of the Words of Mitron,” Hephaistos remarked. Ar’telan replied by passing him a fishing rod. “Unless you wish for me to catch an illusory fish, my expertise is useless to you.”

“According to some sources, some of the fish on the First-” Mitron began, before cutting himself off. “Well, if we ever manage to figure out a way to get back there, you can go and be useful for me.”

“Can you not go yourself?” Hephaistos said. Ar’telan felt the wince.

“Not exactly,” Mitron said, his tone more evasive than a Monk’s footwork. 

“It’s relaxing once you get used to it,” Ar’telan tried. 

“I am not stressed,” Hephaistos replied, which was a blatant lie as far as Ar’telan was concerned, but he knew better than to poke it.

“You don’t have to be. Don’t you want to see what a world unfettered by the strict requirements of ordained Creation has produced?” Hephaistos grunted at that, but he did take the fishing rod, which was progress.

“An untamed wilderness is hardly something to be lauded,” he said, “though I suppose it is a good enough demonstration of useful traits. The knowledge would augment my work, should I ever have cause to begin it anew.” He regarded the fishing rod with scepticism, then looked over at Mitron, studying his movements. Rather than offer unwanted tips, Ar’telan shuffled around in the seat and cast his own line out over the water. It wasn’t the worst idea Thancred had ever had, he supposed, although in the grand scheme of things that was a difficult prize to win. He was glad that Mitron had agreed to come, though. Hephaistos hadn’t said so much as a word against him since they had pulled Athena’s claws out of his soul, but the irrational spectre of Lahabrea was hard to shake. 

He thought of Pandæmonium, suspended in eerie silence in the Aitiascope. Of Claudien, missing. There had been no news from Labyrinthos yet, and even then the burgeoning emergency in the Void had taken priority, but it would not stay silent forever.

Hephaistos tried to cast a line, a clumsy movement that made him frown in consternation. The lure hit the water, though, and with small, careful movements he tested the reel, attempting to understand how the rod functioned. In almost every way he did not belong there - legs too long to sit comfortably on the boat even without the claws to contend with, hands smooth from academic work, a precise, careful attitude that disliked the flexibility that fishing so often required. But he had made the effort, in spite of it. Ar’telan appreciated that.

The way things had been going, he’d take a win where he could get one.  

#this prompt was laser targetted at my interests I'm so stoked #Also this is the first fill to acknowledge weight of eternity #which is still canon despite Anabaseios doing its best to shoot me in the feet by the way #We'll cover that later #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023 #ew spoilers

[ofdragonsdeep]

16: Jerk

Ar'telan peruses the various offerings of Mord Souq

(lots of food talk in this fill)

Ahm Araeng was a strange place.

They had flown in on Amaro with a trader, and Ar’telan had recognised the way the land fell away from forest to desert beneath them from his many airship journeys on the Source. Ahm Araeng had no amalj’aa, though - they were called Zun here, but Ar’telan had no idea where their original homes might have been. The shape of the land, too, was different. It helped that the First had not suffered the Calamity of Earth, he supposed. 

They had landed, and he had been braced for the desert heat which never came. The Light hung in the sky above them just the same as everywhere else, a perfect, placid stasis. There was no cold of night because there was no night, there was no heat of day because the sun was absent. Just sand, undisturbed by lack of wind. A moment in time, perfectly preserved for a century. 

The city - well, once it had been a city, now it was mostly emptied buildings and a few stubborn holdouts - had life in it, though. Hunters of Sin Eaters, hunters of more typical game…

The kobolds being obsessed with coin had been a surprise, though.

The First called them Mord, and they bustled about the old city with all the fervour Ar’telan was used to seeing them exhibit for the forge. It seemed wrong to see them without their helmets, but they had festooned the streets with stalls, shouting praises for their wares whenever a potential customer seemed close at hand - and when they weren’t, just in case. People of all stripes passed through, bartering over finds they’d sifted out of the sand, or creatures they’d hunted out in the wastes. 

Cassard had led him to the aetheryte and explained the concept of “cracking the coinpurse”, of introducing yourself to the local residents by making a purchase at a shop. They would not take gil, of course, and Ar’telan rarely had much of that to his name regardless, but the Exarch had given him an old, golden disc he called a Voeburtite Honor to take with him, and it seemed that they would take this.

Ghen Gen had sent them to another mord named Rhon Ron. The grimace on Cassard’s face had made Ar’telan cautious, but as they arrived at the stall, he saw very little out of the ordinary.

“Welcome to Rhon Ron’s, traveller!” the excited mord proclaimed. All manner of foods were spread across the stall, most of them identifiable. Some kind of bread, spiced meats, dried meats, a jar full of preserved insects - at least, he was reasonably certain they were insects. Either that, or very very small pieces of a much larger creature.

“They all look tasty, yes?” the mord remarked. The aroma wafting up from the wares was pleasant enough, Ar’telan had to agree. Some of them were clearly prepared to survive a much warmer desert than the one they found themselves in, but it likely wouldn’t detract too much.

“I’m not helping you eat it,” Cassard muttered, so quietly Ar’telan almost missed it. 

“What’s in that?” he asked, pointing to the jar of mysteries.

“Wrigglers!” Rhon Ron proclaimed, delighted. Ar’telan frowned.

“Small sand worms?” he guessed. 

“Wrigglers,” Rhon Ron repeated. “My favourite option!” Ar’telan was not entirely sure that the exciteable mord wouldn’t have said that about every option, but it was a vote of confidence. There was one way to find out what it was, he supposed.

“I’ll take the wrigglers,” he decided. Rhon Ron held out an expectant hand, and even though the entire city had rumbled with the news that there was a newcomer with a voeburtite honor, his eyes still widened as Ar’telan put it into his palm. Tiny, sharp teeth bit into the metal, testing its purity.

“One Voeburtite honor gets you fifteen jars!” he exclaimed, pulling a crate of jars from under the stall. Cassard looked a little ill, but Ar’telan cracked one open regardless. The glazing was fragrant, almost fruity, and the skin had a pleasant crunch to it as he put it into his mouth. They were like little candied sweets, and were the nicest thing he’d eaten since he first arrived on the First. He didn’t even realise that most of the market square was staring at him expectantly until he’d gone through the entire jar. 

“I’m not sharing,” he told Cassard, picking up the crate. They would likely be in Mord Souq for the rest of the day - or what feeble meaning that held - before heading out to trek across the desert, and if there were any left by then, they would be a nice trail snack.

“Keeping the merchandise down, yes?” Rhon Ron asked, and Ar’telan wrinkled his nose, offended.

“Of course. I thought these were your favourite?” he replied. Rhon Ron seemed surprised by the reminder.

“Well, yes! But most non-Mord do not appreciate the finer points of Mord cuisine!” he clarified. Ar’telan made an amused noise at that, opening another jar with one hand.

“Their loss,” he signed, with a decidedly non-wriggly wriggler between his fingers. “Actually - can I have some of the meat, too?” Cassard went several shades paler at the proclamation.

Cowards, the lot of them.

#is your WoL normal or did they want to eat everything on the table #Unsurprisingly Art is option 2 #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023 #Art will eat anything. ANYTHING. #And also misses Meracydian food #Mord food isn't that much weirder than Eorzean food to him

[ofdragonsdeep]

15: Portentous

The Contingent's arrival in Garlemald did not offer a hopeful view of the future.

It was the end of a long, hard march that found the Ilsabardian Contingent in Garlemald proper. Already they had needed to defend themselves, taking prisoners and wounded and counting the dead, and to Ar’telan it felt like an ill omen.

The abandoned town, renamed on the spur of the moment to Camp Broken Glass, had already become a hub of activity. In the absence of a ready supply of ceruleum, they had set up fires of wood or coke in the key buildings, already well underway in converting some of the old civilian residences into a temporary holding area for the Tempered while they tried to heal them.

Ar’telan stood on the edge of the town, the hubbub at his back, and looked out over Garlemald. There was a grandness in the bones of it, the same way that the towering ruins of Amaurot had still inspired awe in all of those who looked upon them. He could trace the old skyline with the burned-out husks and toppled giants, and imagined it in its prime. When the people had been - not free, not when Emet-Selch had manipulated their trajectory the entire time, but at least of their own minds.

The Tower that rose from the centre of the old city loomed like a hungry predator. It radiated a tangible malice, something Ar’telan had never felt from a simple building before. The Castrums had been intimidating and cold, but they had not been hungry like the tower was. They were buildings. Buildings with a dangerous purpose, admittedly, but it was the people within them that made them dangerous. 

Unlike the rest of the city, it was impossible to picture what the building had looked like before the nation fell. It was a horrible scrapheap of twisted metal, that same bone-and-skin design of the Tower of Zot and its ilk, but supported by a vast suit of metal armour. Bones of steel and hate.

Ar’telan did not want to think about how it might have been built.

Whether he liked it or not, though, it was their destination. Zenos would be in palace - not out of some sense of superiority, but because it was the most prudent place to be, if he sought another fight. There were good odds on Fandaniel being with him, although Ar’telan was not keen to ascribe any one motive to the strange former Ascian. He had claimed to want death - death on so vast a scale that a Calamity would seem a gentle gust of wind in comparison. Ar’telan was used to Ascians having ulterior motives, but he was yet to see any in Fandaniel. Perhaps they were buried deep. Perhaps he played a longer game than could be measured in mortal lives. Or perhaps he truly was so lost in his immortal torpor that he would willingly throw himself from the ledge. It unsettled him.

It would not be easy to get to the Tower. If there were any people left alive in Garlemald untempered, they had to be a priority, but they were unlikely to let a group of outsiders walk up to the door. Ar’telan did not know how deep the allure of the savage ran in Garlemald’s people, but not all of them would be so quick to discard their upbringing as Cid. He had watched Gaius unpick the pieces of himself from the wreckage of Garlemald’s dream, and even then he still clung to it. Nero, for all his idiosyncrasies, was too used to being pushed into the position of ‘lesser’ to do it to anyone else. But all he had known before today were the misfits, the runaways, the outcasts - or the iron fist and its steel-toed boot. 

He knew that the Contingent would want him at the lead of their cautious march into the city. He knew that as soon as they found something, he would be called back from his impromptu vigil to investigate. And he knew, with that deep, abiding dread that certainty brought, that eventually there would be someone who knew him.

Not knew him. They wouldn’t know anything about him other than what a Garlean would learn in passing. The Champion of Eorzea - pushing back the Garlean initiative to ‘civilise’ the lesser races. The people he had killed, because the alternative was his own death, or a sea of blood as they marched across the land. Because they could never have surrendered, but who on the Garlean side would think that? What was he to them but the most savage of the savages, the rabid beast that fought a kind handler? Even Zenos, who had thought to call him friend - and meant it, in any way that made sense to the man - had called him a beast with the next breath. He had hunted Ar’telan, not treated him as an equal.

The idea of giving him what he wanted did not sit well with Ar’telan.

With a sigh, he leaned back against the nearest wall, closing his eyes. The Tower’s presence was tangible enough that it hummed in the aether, so he couldn’t close it out entirely, but it was a minor reprieve. Maybe it would be fine. Maybe it would be simple. Maybe the collapse of their entire way of life would make it easier to meet them somewhere both sides understood.

Somehow, he doubted it.

#tbh the only reason Ar'telan keeps it together is because he knows they're all indoctrinated #and familiarity is comforting when everything else turns upside down. #He understands that. still hurts though #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023 #ew spoilers

[ofdragonsdeep]

14: Clear

There was no more Light in the skies of the First - except in the edges of his vision

At first, he had chalked it up to his brush with death.

He had those more often than was perhaps healthy, these days, and the Echo would scream when he fought against fate. It had never been so dire as when he had tried to save Haurchefant from the spear, but as he had staggered down the conjured image of a broken earth, unsure if Emet-Selch would kill him or if the Light would claim him first, it had felt like he was falling apart at the seams.

He hadn’t noticed it straight away. The Crystarium had been awash with celebration at the final end of the Light, and it had been so busy and he so tired that he had done his best to hide from it, most of the time. But as the nausea faded and the gold started to recede from his skin, one thing had lingered.

The Echo was a strange gift, never the same for any two people who held it. Ar’telan’s visions had evolved, over time - sometimes still that sepia-toned movie that wrote itself over all of his senses, as if he were wholly there but entirely separate, but sometimes putting him right into the eyes of the unfortunate who had triggered it. Sometimes colour. Never a perception of his actual reality, never an immediate realisation of what was happening.

This was different.

He had seen it out of the corner of his eye at first, in his room in the Pendants. Like a crack in the glass - but there was no glass in the windows of the rooms, no rain or wind or temperature variation requiring it for so long. He had blinked, rubbed his eyes, but it had remained. There were no visitors to his room these days, so it couldn’t be a trick of the aether. 

He had stood up, walked over to it, and watched it sit unchanging. Like a tiny shard of glass, suspended in midair, and through it…

The world the same, but bathed in Light.

It had unsettled him so much that he had not told any of the others, not even Thancred or Haurchefant. The First was free now, wasn’t it? The only daunting task before them was how to deliver the souls of his friends safely home, in a way that did not kill the Exarch to do it. Ryne had told him that the Light inside him was stable, just like it had been after Philia’s defeat, and he was at no risk of turning. Indeed, the way his body had healed supported what she said, not that he had any reason to doubt her. So why this?

It didn’t leave him. Every so often he would catch glimpses of it - walking through the Crystarium, fishing in the Greatwood, helping Kai-Shirr in Eulmore. Cracked glass, and the Light through the window.

Looking through the aperture told him nothing. The world through the window was still, empty - awash with Light and lifeless with it, like a twisted recreation of the Void, everything the Ascians had feared and Ardbert had laboured with his friends to prevent. Every so often, he caught the porcelain white of a sin eater, but they never lingered in frame long enough for him to know anything beyond what had become of the bustling, lively cities he truly stood in.

Perhaps he was going mad. One last favour from the Light, as it relinquished its hold on him.

He still said nothing.

The first time he returned to the Source since seeing the strange portals, a part of him expected to see it there, too. The whole world awash in Light, like a bitter mockery of what was meant to be. He almost looked away on instinct, a flicker in the snow as he walked through Coerthas, but it was different this time.

He saw the greenery on the path, poking tenaciously through the snow. Walked up to the window. His hands went straight through it, just as they always had, but he could see through it just as well.

The sky was clear and blue, this imaginary Coerthas sharing reality’s weather. But up on Providence Point, there was a half-grown garden surrounding Menphina’s holy stone, and behind it, Francel knelt in the newborn grass.

Ar’telan remembered, with a lurch in his stomach, the things he had learned from the Exarch. The past that he had come from, the future they had prevented - it had diverged before the 8th Calamity. He had spoken of lives hard-won as though they were dead, and Haurchefant had told Ar’telan just how distressed and concerned the Exarch had been when his soul had been pulled across the Rift. The records the post-Calamity Ironworks had kept, the memoir Count Edmont had written…

It still didn’t make sense, but it wasn’t Light. So it couldn’t simply being the Light trying to have one final laugh at his expense. It was something more than that, something… he hesitated to call it worse, when it had so far been nothing more than images in the corners of his vision, but it was more. He watched for them now, the telltale sound of glass shattering the way his soul had fractured within him when the Light had beckoned. He saw in fragments a world so similar to his reality, but so subtly different. He saw, once or twice, the corpse-strewn reality of the 8th Umbral Calamity, saw oranges rotting on the trees in La Noscea, saw the mass graves, saw the desperate remnants fight over scraps the same way that the residents of the First had tried to nurse feeble plants in Light-scorched earth. There was no rhyme or reason to their appearance, but the noise, the way it made him flinch, the ache in his head that he barely registered after so long in so much pain…

It felt like the Echo.

Emboldened now, he took it to the Scions. Their initial reaction, of course, was concern that he had not spoken up sooner. But after the concern had died down, it gave them something to focus on that wasn’t the lingering worry of going home, of wanting to lend aid in things they couldn’t. They would find him an answer. Even if it wasn’t the right one at first, or a nice one in the end, it would make sense eventually.

So long as it didn’t kill him, he would live with it.

#Art's broken Echo is something I don't utilise nearly as much as I should in post-ShB fills #I had a list of the different timelines he sees at one point #I could make it again if pushed #Almost all of them are Worse. *Almost* all of them. #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023 #fun fact! It's his blind eye that sees these alternate presents

[ofdragonsdeep]

13: Check

In Pandæmonium, Lahabrea has a single question for the 'familiar'.

Disquiet. Discomfort. The sound of metal on metal, clanking chains. Loud in the stifling silence.

Ar’telan did not hate Pandæmonium. Its flaws were not a fault of its design, and his troubles within the walls were never the fault of the facility itself. But sometimes, Ar’telan hated being in Pandæmonium.

Sometimes, he knew why.

Lahabrea’s eyes regarded him from across the room, not an inch of emotion in them. It was a far cry from his victorious cackling in the Praetorium, and even further from the measured kindness he had shown him during his brief stint as ‘Thancred’. But Ar’telan had seen the fevered passion that drove Hephaistos, had faced down the fire a second time, and he had known it.

More than anything, that terrified him.

But he would not be the first to break their silence, and so he had stood in the room listening to Erichthonios explain the steps they were taking to help the Warders, and hadn’t said a single word.

“...And for everyone else, we just need some more time to research the specifics of the spell,” Erichthonios said, heaving a heavy breath. “Seems like a lot when you’ve not been gone too long, I know.”

“That will do,” Lahabrea cut in, and Ar’telan saw the reflexive flinch from Erichthonios, before he pulled himself up a little taller.

“Right. That’s everything,” he agreed. His gaze went from Lahabrea to Ar’telan, the muscles in his hands tensing as he fought not to make a fist. He did not want to leave the two of them alone. 

“I would like a private word,” Lahabrea said, the slightest twitch of irritation on his face at being forced to elaborate, as swiftly suppressed as everything else. Then, to the surprise of everyone in the room, he took a long breath and added, “please.”

“But-”

“It’s ok,” Ar’telan said, although he very much did not feel ok. “I can handle Lahabrea.”. Erichthonios looked at him again, and relented with another sigh.

“Alright. I’ll be with the Warders,” he said, turning sharply on his heel and leaving before he could change his mind. There was the faintest hint of a smile on Lahabrea’s face.

“He is a stubborn boy,” he remarked, voice quiet.

“He gets that from you,” Ar’telan said, and tried very hard not to lace it with judgement. Lahabrea folded his arms.

“Perhaps,” he allowed. “I will confess I have many questions I would like to ask, in an ideal environment, but I suspect you would answer none of them.” Ar’telan, cautious, inclined his head in agreement. “So I will ask but one: how?”

“You’ll need to be more specific than that,” Ar’telan replied, not that he thought he could answer any of its variants with anything approaching honestly. Lahabrea considered the question.

“Then I shall frame it,” he allowed. “You claim to be a familiar - this is a lie that should be clear to people even without knowing Azem, and yet it is believed even by those in my Words. Your aether is as Azem’s, this is true - but it is not simply Azem’s signature, the way the Sunforged might mirror me, or Argos mirror Venat. It is Azem’s. Fragmented and distilled, something far weaker than the whole, but unmistakable in its nature. Yet Azem is whole, and you are whole despite your fractured soul.” His gaze was elsewhere, and Ar’telan knew he thought of Hephaistos, buried deep beneath Pandæmonium, a piece of himself cut off perhaps forever, pieces lost. That what he had dug out in his attempts to oust Athena would be something he could never claim while they were parted - all his fire, all his passion, all his love. 

He was wrong about that. But it was hardly Ar’telan’s place to tell him that.

“You want me to tell you how Azem has managed to lose a piece of themselves and yet lost nothing,” Ar’telan said. Lahabrea did not nod, but the frown on his face was answer enough. “And somehow you think that of everything I’ve been unable to say, this will be the one thing that I can.”

“I know that you have told Elidibus more than he has told me,” Lahabrea said, and though there was no accusation in the words, Ar’telan still flinched. “And while Azem and I have had our differences of opinion, I know they would not keep something like this from me.”

“Does Azem know?” Ar’telan asked, without even thinking. Unlike him, Lahabrea did not flinch, but he did close his eyes for a fleeting moment that felt all too long.

“He does now,” he said. His voice was quiet, but still carried across the room, as commanding as Ar’telan had always known it. Of all the things about Lahabrea that had changed, some did stay the same. “And they told me what I expected to hear. That you are no familiar. That you have never even met. That Elidibus trusts you with his very life, despite your broken soul and battered body.”

“He does the same for you,” Ar’telan said. Lahabrea was quiet for a long moment, nary a movement from him.

“He does,” he agreed, but the pause weighed heavy in the quiet. “The wound felt grievous, but it was little more than a scratch compared to what your soul has suffered.” Ar’telan thought of the people of the First, seven times less a soul and so easily dismissed by Emet-Selch as not even people. He thought of the rest of the Source, one Rejoining fewer than he and Ardbert’s final, reckless gambit. He knew how the Lahabrea he had known thought of them, of course. But what would this Lahabrea think?

How he hated this question. The knowledge that those who were had been lost - but not completely. No, they were recognisable in the wreckage of their lives, like an old mural eroded by rain, a mockery of freedom and expression contorted over the years of suffering and atrocity.

Even his Lahabrea had known the pain of losing your home. Masquerading as Thancred, wearing his skin like a mask, he had not been able to put it into proper words, but he had understood. The feeling that you might never go back. The fear of losing it forever. The knowledge, twisting and thorned, that even if they did find their way back, they would not return the same.

Even through the Tempering, it hurt the same.

“I can’t tell you how to heal the wound,” Ar’telan said. “Not without destroying Hephaistos. And I won’t be party to that.” Lahabrea shook his head.

“I am not asking you that,” he said. “Indeed, if I were to ask it, it would not be you I took the question to, but Azem. Our souls - as they should be - are far more equivalent.” He sighed, shaking his head slightly. “No. I am asking… how you live with it. The examination. The dismissal. The hurt.” Ar’telan saw his jaw tense, knew it was not an easy thing to ask. “There are those who think you lesser - to their detriment, in Hephaistos’s case, but it comes from your allies, too. And even those who do not know the state of your soul can see your wounds.” He felt Lahabrea’s eyes on him, knew he looked to the scars where Zero - where Zenos - had clawed out what was left of his eye. Knew that he would not understand the significance of the Light aether that pooled in the wounds, or know what that dead eye saw, but would see it all the same. 

Lahabrea was asking how to heal from the unhealable.

“...It isn’t a question I can’t answer,” Ar’telan said, “but it is not one that I… can. I don’t know that I can say that I live with it at all.” He sighed. “But I do know that you cannot heal until you acknowledge the wound. The person you were will never exist again. Even if you choose to kill Hephaistos-”

“He is not-” Lahabrea began, then cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Forgive me. Continue.”

Forgive me?

It was unlike him.

“Even if you piece your soul back together,” Ar’telan continued, “it won’t be the same. Because you’ll still have… all those years where you weren’t whole. All those years where you pretended you were. Where you hid the extent of your pain even from yourself because you thought it to be the right course.” He bit his lip. “It’s not my place to say if that was right. I know what Erichthonios has told me, but I know that he is… a little biassed.” That got the slightest turn of Lahabrea’s lips, the closest he would get to a smile. “So I guess you start by letting yourself feel it, and go from there.” Ar’telan offered him a smile. “Having friends helps. But I know you still have those.”

“It is not like Elidibus to have so loose a tongue,” Lahabrea said, but he did not argue. “I appreciate your time, and your words, even if it puts me no closer to an answer to the enigma you represent.”

“Good,” Ar’telan replied, as close to flippant as he dared to get.

“I suspect I shall never have a proof, only theories,” Lahabrea allowed, a slight nod of his head to accompany the statement. “You may leave. I know you do not visit this prison to speak with me.” 

It would have bothered Ar’telan that he was so obvious, once, but here he found he did not much care.

Besides, for all his stubbornness, Erichthonios was better company.

#fishwheeled right back into angstland don't mind me #I can and will get worse that is a threat #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ew spoilers #ffxivwrite2023

[ofdragonsdeep]

12: Dowdy

The Rising Stones was in need of a makeover after the departure of the Scions.

Mitron and Tataru do not agree as to what.

After so many years of the Scions, and the building they had called their home, it felt strange to Ar’telan to be standing in it all but empty.

The last time it had been this empty, half of the Scions had lay unmoving in a nearby room. But this time there were no Scions, no Unukalhai waiting in the Solar, none of the Domans sitting and speaking with those who had been spared the Exarch’s spell. F’lhaminn sat in Rowena’s establishment rather than behind the bar. His steps echoed in the emptiness.

Well. The almost emptiness.

“Ar’telan! There you are!” Tataru exclaimed, all but leaping to her feet and nearly headbutting Mitron in the chin as she did so. “We were just finishing up here-”

“Not even one aquarium?” Mitron cut in, dismay clear on his face. Tataru folded her arms and gave him a stern look.

“If you can fund it, you can build it,” she said, and it sounded to Ar’telan that she had said the same phrase many times in the last day, if the dismay in Mitron’s face was anything to go by.

“Do you know how to make money?” he tried, turning to his apparent saviour. “What is it that they use in this part of the world?”

“Gil,” Ar’telan replied, raising an eyebrow in concern. Tataru scowled.

“He’s here because I asked him nicely,” she reminded Mitron, who relented with hands raised in surrender.

“Come talk to me after?” he tried, and Ar’telan nodded with a rueful smile.

—

It was a strange experience for Ar’telan, after so many moons of being prodded and poked by chirurgeons, to instead be prodded and poked by a seamstress. Tataru was remarkably gentle by her standards, in fact, but it was still a solid half a bell before she released him from his enforced captivity.

Mitron stood in the large side area that had once been where Hoary and Coultenet trained the other rookie scions. It was not completely empty, but it was significantly barer than it had once been, both in boxes and in people.

“I’m just saying, we could fit like four aquariums in here,” he said, not turning around as Ar’telan approached. “Could get a real display going. I told her we could charge for entry but apparently she ‘doesn’t do loans’, tch.” Ar’telan suppressed a laugh.

“You’re paying for others’ sins in that regard, I’m afraid,” he replied, standing beside Mitron and surveying the area. It was true that it would have made for an excellent display - if he had not had the thought now, the two score other times the man had casually mentioned it since his resurrection would have planted the idea quite firmly in Ar’telan’s head. Tataru had not listened to his attempts to back Mitron up before now, however - citing everything from bias to needing the space - and she was not likely to start now.

“But in theory,” Mitron said, and Ar’telan nodded.

“In theory, it would make for an excellent space,” he agreed. “I’ve built one or two smaller habitats before. I could probably source-”

“For free?” Mitron said, latching onto the idea immediately. Ar’telan grimaced.

“Tataru told me that if I don’t start valuing my time she’d start charging me herself,” he replied. Mitron slumped slightly at that. “Have you tried selling your fish?” Ar’telan offered. Mitron blinked.

“The last thing I fished up was a fish with an invisible forehead,” he replied. “They have some wild stuff up on Azys Lla.” 

“I can name at least three people who would buy that,” Ar’telan replied, his face the picture of seriousness. Mitron frowned.

“Can I pay you in fish?” he suggested. 

“I think you  have to at least try, for Tataru to not make you wear your new aquarium as a hat,” Ar’telan replied, and Mitron sighed, leaning against the nearest pillar and considering the proposition.

“Alright, alright. So I fish up weird things that look cool, and then we sell them, and then I give you the- what was it again?”

“Gil,” Ar’telan replied, his lips curling up in amusement.

“The gil, and then you put in an aquarium, and we do that…” He paused, tapping his finger against the air as he counted. “...a number of times. That’s a lot of weird fish that I could be putting in the aquariums, you know.”

“You could always offer slightly less weird fish?” Ar’telan suggested. “Zahar’ak has some lovely discus, I can talk to the Amalj’aa-”

“Now you sound like Hythlodaeus,” Mitron muttered. “I want it on the record that I’m not responsible for the transparent head fish, by the way. That was all nature. I have backup.”

“Do you want the aquariums or not?” Ar’telan said, and Mitron sighed.

“Ok, ok. Less weird fish to weirder people at…” He glanced over to the other side of the room, where Tataru was lost in a haze of fabric and measurements. “...A very fair and reasonable price,” he finished, just in case she overheard. “How much do you charge for a modestly strange fish?” 

“Depends who you sell it to,” Ar’telan replied. “Don’t try Rowena. The thought of outplaying her is tempting, but never reality.” Mitron looked at him for a few seconds, took in the grim look on his face, and nodded slowly.

“Will you at least come with me so I don’t make a complete tit of myself?” he said. Ar’telan laughed at that.

“Now that I have experience in,” he agreed.

#this was going to be about them actually decorating but it turned into fish capitalism #oh well. sell unconditionals like the rest of us Mitron #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023

[ofdragonsdeep]

11: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

After a disastrous encounter with Tataru's carbuncle in the caves below Hell's Lid, Ar'telan tries to teach her to control it.

“Are you sure this will work better?”

“There’s a good chance.”

Deep in the bowels of the volcano the locals knew as Hell’s Lid, Ar’telan and Tataru sat beside an opened book on arcanima. It was, Ar’telan had to admit, a little distant from the ideal conditions in which one was expected to learn arcane geometries. But he had learned in the corner of a ship’s hold, surrounded by people talking at him in languages he didn’t understand, so this was at least better than that. If nothing else, they both understood what the curious animals that surrounded them were saying. Not something he had ever expected to say, before he had learned about the concept of Auspices.

He had known, in that run-ragged-fugue-state way that he remembered anything surrounding the assault on Castrum Meridianum, that Tataru had been dabbling in arcanima with little success. He had expected that she had either given it up, or had improved. Unfortunately, their recent misadventures with teaching Soroban had shown that neither were the case. If anything, she had got worse.

This was perplexing in the extreme to Ar’telan. He was not the world’s best arcanist, nor indeed the best summoner in his estimation, but Tataru’s skill with numbers far put his to shame. Even with far less aether at her disposal, if she had been able to summon a carbuncle, she should have been able to control it.

“Picture the form, then follow the lines of aether that the sigil maps for you,” Ar’telan instructed, picking up his own carbuncle and putting it between them, to serve as a guide. When Tataru picked up her book, Ar’telan notice it sidling away from her in tiny steps, and put one hand on its back to keep it still. Sometimes you had to face the terror in order to move forward.

Tataru hummed a little tune, hand held over the book to channel her aether, and with a flourish and a sparkle of aether, the little hellbeast that was her carbuncle manifested in front of them. It blinked, scratched behind its ear with one back paw, then sat down on top of Ar’telan’s grimoire.

“That’s good, right?” Tataru asked. Ar’telan held back the grimace. 

“Well, it’s the right shape,” he allowed. Her carbuncle met his eyes, and he was filled with a deep-seated sense of fear that he couldn’t quite place. “Try a basic command.” Tataru nodded, determination in her eyes.

“Sit!” she demanded, to the already-sat carbuncle. It didn’t move. “Yes! One step on the road to becoming the greatest, richest arcanist that ever lived.”

“I think it’s the toll work they do that gets the Melvaan’s Gate Arcanists their money, not their carbuncle summoning skill,” Ar’telan disagreed, but, much like her carbuncle, Tataru ignored him. 

“Alright, now attack!” Tataru instructed. The carbuncle continued to sit, though for a moment Ar’telan was concerned it might decide to launch itself at him.

“The three core commands are ordering the carbuncle to a location, instructing it to wait, and instructing it to watch for incoming danger,” Ar’telan said. “We should start there. Once you can get it moving, you can ask it to augment your magical abilities.” Tataru looked at the carbuncle. The carbuncle looked at Tataru.

“Go!” she demanded, hopping to her feet and gesturing with a flourish towards one of the nearby shrines.

The carbuncle looked at Tataru.

Tataru looked at the carbuncle.

“Go!” she said again, before picking it up and walking it over to the location. She held it over her head as Kamaitachi watched in bemusement. “Success- ack!” she managed, interrupted by the carbuncle wriggling free, trotting politely back across the stone floor, and sitting back down on the book.

“...We can work on that,” Ar’telan said. His carbuncle looked up at him, disbelief clear on its face, and he scratched it behind the ears to distract it. “Try guard, instead.” Tataru stomped back over, put her hands on her hips, and stared down at the carbuncle. The only reason it hadn’t won the award for most stubborn creature on the planet was because Tataru existed.

“Alright. Protect me!” she demanded. The carbuncle curled up on the book, oblivious to her commands. “Please?” she tried. The carbuncle got up, and for a moment Ar’telan thought they might have made some progress, but it only pattered around in a circle, got a little more comfortable, and went straight back to sleep.

“...Well, it’s not hostile, so that’s something,” Ar’telan decided. “And it’s yet to run away. So that’s progress”

“Is it?” Tataru asked, a dejected look on her face. “How do you do it?” Ar’telan looked down at his own carbuncle at the question, and it looked back up at him with wide, vacant eyes.

“Necessity,” he replied. “Maybe you’d be better off learning the scholar’s arts. The Faeries are much more independent by their nature, so maybe its… stubbornness would help somewhat.”  He sighed, shaking his head. “Although that would require convincing someone to give a rare historical artefact to a novice arcanist, so… maybe not.”

“I’m sure they’d listen if it was you that was asking,” Tataru said, linking her hands behind her back and giving him a look that had almost certainly bankrupted lesser men.

“You’d still have to repay them somehow,” Ar’telan replied, which made Tataru’s nose curl up in distaste.

“Fine, fine. Maybe once I can get this one going!” she decided, a smile back on her face once more. “You! Up!” 

Tataru looked at the carbuncle.

The carbuncle let out a little aetheric snore.

“...We’ll come back to this later,” Ar’telan decided. “...Can you get it off my grimoire, at least?” They both looked down at the tome, at the slightly wrinkled pages where the carbuncle had made its bed.

“Give it half a bell?” she offered, and Ar’telan sighed in defeat.

#Neither of them will learn from this experience thanks for asking #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023 #I was tempted to go for the whole “phobia of drinks from strangers” angle #but decided I didn't have the spoons for angst today #I will not apologise for this

[ofdragonsdeep]

9: Fair

Ar'telan ruminates on the problem of Voidsent.

There was always a period, when they stopped moving and the adrenaline faded, where Ar’telan had to sit and reckon with his thoughts.

This time was no different. It hadn’t started as a high-stakes outing - just an adventure, one that might help the struggling people of Thavnair if it paid off, but not one that the world weighed on. Even while they had studied the Voidgate it hadn’t been pressing, and Ar’telan had let himself focus on all the other worrying things which demanded his attention. But now they had ventured into the depths, they had uncovered the beginnings of a plot, and they had found… her.

There were not many things in life that were uncomplicated, but Ar’telan had considered Voidsent to be one of them. Just as he shunned Allag and its works, so too was he dedicated to destroying the Voidsent. Not all of them were summoned by Allag’s hubris, of course, especially not in recent times. But there was a reason that Meracydia did not bury her dead.

He had not expected it to be easy, but he had not expected it to be this complicated. Even the cure for Tempering had not filled him with such strife - certainly they had a cure now, and it could be applied now, but there was no reason to feel guilt for not holding out for the impossible at the cost of lives before. He had pushed for the preservation of the people in Azys Lla’s stasis pods and the Ragnarok’s suspension vessels only because, once detached from the systems which tormented them to fuel a primal’s need for prayer, they as good as slept. Unknowing and harmless. They were, perhaps, the only time they could have afforded to wait.

Meracydia’s stance on the Tempered was similar to Voidsent. Destroy, then mourn. It had been chaos into which Tiamat had been freed from her bonds, but he had shared their knowledge with her all the same, and she had carried it back to Meracydia with her, he hoped. But even with a cure in hand, if there was no other choice, there was no guilt in killing the Tempered to save your own life.

Voidsent were supposed to have been the same. He had met several clever Voidsent, yes, but never a single one that wasn’t aether-hungry. And they did not die. Meracydia had learned this long ago, in the war with Allag, and it had been kept close ever since. Strike them down and they will return to the Void. Give them no means by which to return. Give them not an inch of mercy. Ar’telan had borne witness to his people’s nightmare only in Eorzea, Voidsent puppeting dead flesh for nefarious ends, and it had only reinforced his beliefs. Destroy on sight. The only good Voidsent was a dead Voidsent.

And here she lay. In a deep torpor from her efforts, but alive. She had no name except that which she had been given - Zero, a hope of infinite possibility - and no goal other than the same ones any other Voidsent had. Survive. Feed. Offer nothing without reward.

And yet.

Ever since they had found out that the reflections were precisely that, shards of the Source with all of its diverse peoples, the stakes had been too high for him to consider what that meant for the Void. Unukalhai had been rescued as the Shard was falling, and was no Voidsent. Cyella, too, had been rescued with her faculties intact, and was no ravening beast. But Zero…

He had recognised her immediately, before the crystal of light had returned her original form to her. The creature at Zenos’s side, the very reason he had even entertained the idea of a ‘reaper’ and learned from the Lemures rather than dismissing them out of hand. Using a Voidsent was never safe. One step from being taken over, a dance with the aether-hungry pit that would give you power up until the moment it could consume you. Orcus had seemed to back up the theory, but then there was her. She had torn out his eye when bound to Zenos, the same unthinking, unfeeling machine of perpetual violence that Ar’telan had come to expect from the Voidsent.

And she had told him she was a slave.

He had never thought about the idea of a Voidsent in chains as being something bad. One banished to the Void would return in time, but one chained could do nothing. He had seen the hunger for freedom in the chained when he had helped the Redbills with the Mhachi relics, but it had been easy to roll that into their hunger for more. More aether, more power, more. But even then they had been people, hadn’t they? With dreams and hopes and desires, all bleached out by the darkness to their broadest strokes, but there nonetheless.

Zero had not apologised for the injuries he had sustained at her hand, but only because it had been Zenos guiding her, she the weapon and he the wielder. His people would call him a fool for entertaining a Voidsent for even a moment, even one with the power she held, the only power that could save them against something - someone like Scarmiglione or the other Archfiends.

It was more complicated than it had been back home. Not that he thought it a poor idea to banish a Voidsent back to where it crawled from, generally speaking, but they were not animals. Well, perhaps some of them had been, once - some of the hellhounds had certainly seemed more like a twisted facsimile of a dog than a person warped by darkness - but not all of them. 

He would have been exiled for even considering this, if anyone back home had found out. That it seemed a person who rested in the other room, not a demon, would mean nothing - Voidsent had tried such tricks before. Every bone in his body cried out for him not to trust it, the ache in his Light-touched scars reminded him of the damage a Voidsent could do.

But she had been a slave.

She had watched her whole world die and been unable to stop it.

Zenos had closed his fingers around her and wrung every drop of power he could from her, in the service of his own selfish ends. His one desire. His reason for living, which had nearly killed them both.

Ar’telan knew how it felt to be used like that. He knew because of the way every muscle tensed at the thought of it, the way his tail twitched at the thought. And so, even though it went against every instinct, every lesson he had ever learned, he knew he had to give her a chance. Treat her with the same respect as she had shown them - and she had not devoured them on sight, or even tried to, which put her a few rungs above most of the Voidsent they had met so far. He would show her grace, and hope that it did not backfire on him.

Hope that no-one in his homeland ever learned of it, or his temporary separation would be a permanent one.

#this one is more of a character study/internal monologue than an actual story-story if that makes sense #His feelings on this entire matter are far more complicated than I can fit into one fill #But this is certainly where he started so we have that #warrior of light (solo story) #ffxivwrite2023 #ff14 #ew spoilers #The one thing stronger than homeland tradition: Zenos being an absolute jerk and the shared experience of being fucked over by that

[ofdragonsdeep]

8: Shed

After Ultima Thule, Ar'telan's convalescence is interrupted by some unexpected guests.

The morning sun came through the curtains in the same place every morning. The thin strip of light cut across the floor of Ar’telan’s room in the Baldesion Annex, rousing him from an uneasy sleep, and the day would begin just as all those prior had.

The pain would keep him awake at night, making a deep sleep all but impossible, and so he woke tired. He no longer needed to be overseen by a healer at all hours, but he had barely been lucid for most of that period regardless. A small mercy, he supposed, for he would have felt even more stifled than he did now.

It was difficult, he had been told, to treat a man recovering from fatal wounds. Unsurprising perhaps, but no less harrowing even with the knowledge. When he had been brought back from Ultima Thule, barely breathing, barely conscious, they had not been sure if he would live. In truth, he had already died more than once, kept alive by the dynamis that suffused every corner of the place knitting him back together just long enough for him to keep going. The Scions had done their best on the Ragnarok, and Thancred had propped him up long enough for him to see them make landfall, but it had barely touched the issues that lay beneath his papered-over skin.

He breathed. He lived. But barely, a facsimile of a life, built on hopes and dreams, and it began to crumble the more the aether of Etheirys set in.

His torso and his head were a sea of bandages now, and he had even grown used to the feeling of being so cocooned. It hurt, more than anything had hurt before, more than Ifrit’s fires or the fever that had almost consumed him in the wake of the Calamity. And just like that sad, pitiful wreck of a man he had been after the moonfall, again he could do nothing about it.

There was a knock at the door. It was a courtesy, for even if he had the voice to tell them not to enter, he was too sick to keep them out.

“Good morning,” Krile said, shuffling around the barely-opened door and closing it as quietly as the sturdy wood allowed. She smiled, but it was tired. Just as any of the Scions did, she had more than her fair share of heavy weights to carry, but knowing that she was technically responsible, in some twisted way, for his current state had added lines to her face. His heart ached for her, but even if he’d had the strength for a prolonged conversation, he doubted he could convince her she held no blame. He was intimately familiar with the feeling, after all, and nothing he’d done had ever shaken it for him. “How are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” he replied, a single motion with a shaky hand. Only his right would reliably answer, his left another casualty of the splints that kept him held together. He had learned to make it work. “Better for sun.” Krile attempted a reassuring look, but it was lost in her worry and the heavy bags beneath her eyes. His constant watch had ended, but she was bone-tired still from it.

“Well, being good enough for jokes is a good start,” she decided, walking over to the window and opening the curtains for him. He had flinched from the light after the Calamity, but after the endless pitch-dark of the void of space, the starless horizon of the Endsinger’s dead sun, he welcomed the light. A terrible ambassador for what Eorzea considered a Keeper of the Moon. “We have some good news for you today.”

“Good?” Ar’telan repeated, surprised for the moment his face allowed the movement, before it turned into a wince of pain and a return to practised neutrality.

“I hope so,” Krile said, walking back over to him. A wave of healing aether washed over him, and the pain subsided, just a little. “Maybe even two pieces of it. May I?”

Ar’telan made a noise of assent - he couldn’t nod, not really - and lay as still as he could on the bed, his good eye closed. She was always gentle, when she changed the bandages and redressed his wounds, but it still hurt a little. He was glad for her years of expertise making it as painless as it could be.

“Hmm. If we’re careful,” she murmured, almost to herself, as her delicate fingers fastened off another bandage. “I wouldn’t advise doing it for long, but if you’d like, we can try and sit you up for a little while.” 

Ar’telan held back the grimace at needing help to do such a simple thing, if only because it would hurt to give in to it, and made another noise of agreement instead. At first, he had been a little disappointed that the dynamis, the raw energy of hopes and feelings, had not returned his voice to him - repaired the damage his injuries and infections had caused. But after seeing what dynamis considered to be fixing a body, he was a little less upset about it.

Krile helped him sit, an awkward affair given she was only half his height and helped only by the low frame of the bed. It hurt, and his abdomen twinged unhappily even after he was safely sat, but it felt unreasonably good to be in a sitting position again after so long.

“Thanks,” he signed, an awkward word with his hand still trying to hold him up. Her keen eyes were on his injuries, rather than his words, but she nodded all the same, the Echo taking his words to her.

“I suppose you’ve missed it,” she said, then sighed softly. “I suppose you’ve missed a lot of things. I don’t need to give you the talk again, do I?”

“Slow. Careful,” Ar’telan repeated. He knew the wisdom in the words, of course, but he had long since run out of unique roof patterns to stare at. Perhaps now he could read. That seemed an agreeable enough way to pass the time, even if it would be slower for not being able to follow the text with one finger.

“It’ll be a while yet before most of you is healed enough for activity, but we should be able to take the bandages from your face soon enough,” Krile said, a hint of hope in her voice. “You are not… precisely looking your best, so perhaps we will hold off on the mirror to accompany it for a few weeks more, though.”

“Kind as ever,” Ar’telan said, and this time he did grimace, and it did hurt. Not as soon as Krile hoped, perhaps, but it was something to look forward to. He had precious little of that, these days.

“We also have some visitors for you,” Krile said, and this time the smile did touch her eyes just a little. 

“Visitors?” Ar’telan repeated, confused. “When… like this?” Krile chuckled.

“No-one who will be put off by your slightly wild appearance, I promise,” she assured, but that only increased his confusion. “We know it’s… been hard for you. This level of convalescence is hard for anyone, never mind someone used to being up and about like you.” The realm wouldn’t save itself, that was true, but Ar’telan had not found himself feeling pressed to return to heroics. He was hoping it would at least stay saved long enough for him to do a little fishing in Thavnair’s recently-calmed waters, though. “And the Scions… Well. People have been busy, of course,” Krile continued. An evasive sentence, much as many of those on the Scions had been. They visited him from time to time, of course, all of them did, but it had been moons now that he had been confined to his room. It was impractical to corral everyone for so long. “So Raha and I had a discussion about it, and Raha took a little trip to Thavnair and had a chat with Vrtra, and, well…” She took a breath. She seemed a little discomposed, which was unusual for her, but Ar’telan was hardly the best judge of mood with half of his brain pain-addled and the other half on numbing herbs. “We had some visitors a few hours ago. They’re quite excited to meet you.” Ar’telan frowned, trying to piece together who Krile could even be referring to. Varshahn could have come on the boat, he supposed, but that seemed unlikely. Vrtra could have spoken to any of the dragons in Coerthas, but G’raha could easily have journeyed there himself without involving the very busy Satrap. Truth be told, Ar’telan did not consider himself to have all that many Thavnairian friends. The apocalypse had made him many connections, yes, but friends? Ones who would take such a long journey to see him?

Krile walked over to the window and threw it open. The crisp spring breeze filtered through the room, bracing but not quite unpleasant, and it made Ar’telan long to walk outside again.

A strange feeling.

“You can come in now,” Krile called, and there was the telltale thrum of wings and the sound of heavy bodies alighting on stone. A dragonet, vivid green and wide-eyed, tumbled through the open window and scrambled to right themselves on Krile’s head; a wyvern settled into a roosting stance on the balcony, and the head of the largest falak Ar’telan had ever seen snaked down to view him through pensive eyes. He had to assume that the rest of it - and there was an impressive amount of rest, at his guess - lay coiled on the roof.

“This is Orn Mahr, Moh Rhei, and Stoh Oosh,” Krile said.

“Hello!” Orn Mahr added, and it took every ounce of will in Ar’telan’s body not to inhale in surprise.

Meracydian.

“Full many days did we journey hence,” the falak - Stoh Oosh - said, their voice a rumbled dragonspeak that settled into Ar’telan’s bones. “Our mother did say that thou rested alone. ‘Tis poor form for the bearer of our Brood’s hope to be left so.”

“They said we could come and then we could be your brood!” Orn Mahr said, his tiny voice all but vibrating with excitement. “And that you would travel all over and we could see everything in the whole wide world!”

“We know that you cannot return home as of now,” said the third. “So we bring the Dusk Mother’s words of thanks for your deeds in freeing her from her chains of sorrow, and the work your friends yet labour to complete in freeing the Dawn Father’s children from their own bonds. To see a child of Meracydia in a dragonless tribe is wrong indeed. So we shall right it.”

“Our mother did bid me bring to thee a message,” Stoh Oosh said. “A knowledge that thy wounds will mend, and thy heart will heal. That one watched over by Midgardsormr, even in his slumber, will know our safety and protection. Thou art so named by our mother: Shall Ahm, the protector of our mother’s Song, and its shield against those who sought to break it. This we shall sing to all who listen, and pray for thy swift recovery.”

“Then we can go exploring!” Orn Mahr said, taking off from Krile’s head and landing at the foot of Ar’telan’s bed.

“Don’t disturb the bandages!” Krile exclaimed, lines of worry creasing her face, and the little dragonet jumped impatiently on the spot instead.

“I…” Ar’telan managed, his words entirely escaping him. How closely Krile and G’raha must have listened, to know what to ask. He rarely spoke of his homeland - it hurt to remember it, when a homecoming seemed so impossible, and so few people even believed him when he told them of his origins that he had simply stopped talking. Only the Scions knew more than a handful, and even they had only gathered pieces over the many years they had known each other. The questions on questions asked, to know that each tribe had a dragon to watch over it. To know what he had found missing, more than anything else, for the long time he had been in Eorzea.

“We shall remain here until thou art healed,” Stoh Oosh informed him. “And we shall remain after thy departure from these halls, until such time as thou hast found a new place considered home.”

“I’ll come with you! And I’ll tell them everything!” Orn Mahr said, flapping his wings and puffing his chest out proudly. “So you have to get better fast!”

“It will take as long as it takes,” Krile chastised. “...I’m sorry, Ar’telan. This is a little more overwhelming than I had hoped.”

“No, it’s… thankyou,” he managed, wincing with every jostling movement. “To do this means… a lot to me.” Krile smiled at that.

“Even if it makes it just a little easier, it’s worth it,” she said.

#I had to check I hadn't written about this before because it's an important part of Art's story for me now #But apparently I hadn't! So today you get this #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023 #ew spoilers #shed as in to shed bandages #or perhaps to shed an old skin and start anew #Orn Mahr: Born in Summer #Moh Rhei: Prayer of the Moon #Stoh Oosh: Storm Chaser #yes I am aware that this is a direct contradiction of yesterday's attempt to write shorter fills #Will I learn anything? Probably not

[ofdragonsdeep]

7: Noisome

A young dragonet objects to chocobos.

“Whacha doing?”

Orn Mahr’s face peered down at Ar’telan from the rafters, a little flutter of snow drifting to the floor where he had shed Ishgard’s latest gift on arrival. 

“Cleaning the stable,” he replied, the brush balanced awkwardly in his elbow as he said it. The dragonet squinted at the chocobos.

“They’re very dirty,” he agreed. Ar’telan sighed.

“No, they’re black on purpose,” he corrected. “Ishgard has bred flight-capable chocobos for generations.” Orn Mahr flew down from the roof and alighted on the nearest stable door, immediately engaging in a staring contest with its occupant, a particularly ornery chocobo in House Fortemps livery.

“But all chocobos can fly,” Orn Mahr countered. His new rival tried to peck him, and warbled in irritation when he just took off and hovered out of reach.

“They haven’t always been able to,” Ar’telan said. “And you don’t have to train a black chocobo, or so I’m told.” Orn Mahr landed on top of the doorframe, and stuck his tongue out at the chocobo.

“They’re stinky,” he decided. “And you’ll be stinky, too, if you stay in here! Then what will your mate think?” Ar’telan grimaced at that.

“I doubt Haurchefant will mind,” he said. “And someone has to do the work, and today that is me.” He smiled slightly. “You’re free to leave if it’s too hard for you.”

“No child of Tiamat flinches from difficulty!” Orn Mahr disagreed. “Give me a broom!” He looked over at the collection of tools, fluttering over to them. “...They don’t have the small ones,” he complained. “Have they never seen a lalafell before? How am I supposed to steal one now?” Ar’telan hid the laugh behind his hand.

“You can be moral support,” he suggested, and Orn Mahr alighted on his shoulder.

“I am very good at that,” he agreed. “Onward! And quickly, so I do not have to smell the stinky animals any more.”

#trying that whole “short” thing out today #It's surprisingly difficult to just let myself write what feels like filler #ffxivwrite2023 #ff14 #warrior of light (solo story) #I love Orn Mahr which makes it easier

[ofdragonsdeep]

6: Ring

The circles close, like the snake devouring its own tail.

There was something unsettlingly perfect about Elpis.

Ar’telan had been in the floating islands, as much as his tenuous presence could be considered it, for over a day now, and it had not lost the feeling. Every gust of refreshing wind was ordained by the weather controllers, every aspect of the environment meticulously curated. Any creature acting out of turn was corralled and removed, through fair means or foul. It was alive, but not alive.

Not to say that it was a bad place to be. The researchers he had spoken to had found him fascinating, in some cases in a very intense way. He disliked the way they examined his ‘flaws’, but he had learned a great deal from them nonetheless. They were dedicated to their work, even if the idea of creating a perfect creature seemed strange to Ar’telan. They cared about the creations under their care. It wasn’t a bad place to be.

It just didn’t feel like a good one.

He hadn’t articulated this feeling to Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus. He was not entirely convinced that either of them were lending him the same weight of opinion as a person deserved, never mind a peer. Hythlodaeus treated him like a particularly strange child, and Emet-Selch tolerated him. He adored Meteion despite how little time he had spent with her, but she was not likely to understand the feeling either. She would feel it, though, with every moment she spent around him, and he would have no words to explain it to her. Hermes was lost in his work, in his own feelings, in his education of Meteion.

He held in a sigh, watching as Hythlodaeus had a cheery conversation with the researcher stood by the Neus they were due to take. The lines on Emet-Selch’s face, ones that would normally be hidden by his mask, twitched with every minute spent in idleness, but not enough for him to actually say something. It felt like looking at ghosts.

—

Another rotation of the sun saw Ar’telan with the same worries, but a different space to have them in.

Meeting Venat had not made it better. She had recognised the magic in him, Hydaelyn’s Blessing of Light, and she treated him like a person, but she still felt like a ghost. All of them did. He knew her voice from the lifestream, the crystal imploring him in soul-deep words: Hear. Feel. Think.

And here she was normal. Not for the Ancients, no, not in her white robe of retirement and her excitable thirst for adventure, but she felt so real. Perhaps unsurprising that she would one day watch over the Sundered so stoically, when they lived their lives the same way.

Elidibus - his heart ached to think the name - had told him he could not change anything. That he would not be able to act at all, and if he did, he had no guarantee of being able to return to the world he wished to save if he did enact change. And yet his heart ached for these ghosts, because they were real here.

“You seem troubled.” Venat. “I promise that Emet-Selch looks that annoyed for everyone, if it helps.”

“I know. It’s not that,” Ar’telan replied, sitting himself down on the edge of the island and earning a quiet noise of concern from Venat when he put his legs over the edge. Elpis claimed to be highly dangerous, but in honesty Ar’telan could name more dangerous postal runs. Then again, given the frankly bizarre client list the Head Postmoogle had often given him, maybe that wasn’t saying much.

“We’ve time to talk about it, if you like,” Venat offered, sitting down beside him. He had already talked too much, that was half of the problem. But what could he even say?

“Maybe in a few thousand years,” he offered, which made her laugh. He had never heard Hydaelyn laugh, it had to be said, though he had never looked on her with much fondness that might cause her to. Another guilt to add to his list. 

“You did a brave thing, speaking up,” she said. “Understandable that Emet-Selch would not like it, considering the part he is due to play, but you are not at fault for that.” Ar’telan sighed.

“I know that,” he said. “That’s…” He shook his head. “I did not tell you all of the details. I mean, I hardly have time to cover the lifetimes between your now and mine. But…” He thought of running from Ul’dah after the Banquet, of the image of the life draining from Nanamo’s face. Of the desperation on the Warriors of Darkness, and the dejection in Ardbert when they had met again - a lifetime for him, and but a span of moons for Ar’telan. So much suffering, so much pain, and… “...I blamed - I will blame you. Hydaelyn. For it. All of the tragedies we endure, and all of the mysterious words we received in return, drawn like blood from stone. I thought - I thought of you as a heartless creature, ordering Minfilia to her death.” He swallowed back his feelings, as if it would help. “But it’s my fault. I told you about the First - I was here, in this now, and it is my fault that you know all of this. And it saves so many, yes, but…” He trailed off, unsure what words he could even sign to give life to the depth of his feelings. Here, in this place where every moment felt ordained, in this society where everything was set up so tidily, everyone so predictable. So perfect. How could he even explain the chaos, the feelings it engendered?

“You remind me of Azem,” Venat remarked, making Ar’telan blink in surprise. “It’s a compliment, from me, lest you worry,” she added, a smile creasing the corners of her mouth. “They feel everything so deeply. They fit in so poorly in Amaurot.” Ar’telan could see the happiness at the thought of it lining her bright blue eyes. “I felt guilty about it for a long time. Bringing them into a place like Amaurot, asking them to work within a framework they so clearly chafed against. But despite it all, they made the role their own.” She glanced down at him, a curious look on her face. “It is strange, to see an echo of their soul in your own, and I know as well as any that a life lived before has no bearing on one lived now. But in this, at least, you are alike. And you are not at fault for what will happen - what has happened, for you.” She closed her eyes. “If I fail, despite all you have armed me with, and yet create this primal, it will be my choice to act on what you’ve told me. My choice to push events towards this moment, in the hopes that it gives your people a future we could never have. Tell me: of everything you’ve ever done, even the things that you regret - do you think it worth doing?” Ar’telan sat with the question, fingers wrapping around each other uneasily as he considered the answer.

“I don’t think that it matters what one person thinks,” he replied. “I was happy to give my own life to save the realm. One for many. And I know… I know, in their hearts, every one of those who I watched die felt the same thing. None of them would have been where they were if they hadn’t. It’s selfish of me to deny them the agency of making that choice because I want to feel guilty about the result.” He shook his head, tail twitching unhappily against the stone. “If knowing that made the pain go away, the wounds wouldn’t still be raw.” He smiled ruefully at that. “Not a good answer, I know.” Venat smiled, and it was kind.

“Most answers worth having are complex ones,” she replied. “Anyone who seeks simplicity in the infinite is a fool.” She grimaced. “Now I sound like Lahabrea.” Ar’telan held back the flinch. 

“I just… I want you to know that I- in context, I am sorry for hating you. Hating Hydaelyn,” he said. “And I know now, having met you, that it will hurt you as much as it hurts the rest of us. But it was so hard to know at the time.”

“I will let my heart break a thousand times if I can see you and yours live,” Venat replied. “...Easy to say now, I know, but I will try and hold it close, if that much of me remains in Hydaelyn’s presence.”

“It will,” Ar’telan said, almost without thinking. “...I feel it is selfish of me to ask, but will you- will you promise me something?” His fingers trembled over the words, and he watched as Venat nodded in silence. “What is left of Elidibus - will you bring it home?” He saw the acceptance turn to surprise. “I have- I hoped- we fought on the First, like I said. I don’t know… how much of him was trapped in the tower. How much of him was lost before that happened. And I know that the Elidibus you know was all but consumed for Zodiark, but if there is anything drifting… please, bring him home.”

“A duty that would normally be reserved for Emet-Selch, but I suspect he will be a little busy,” Venat remarked, a little of the humour back in her eyes. “I shall do what I can, if I can. Elidibus is… dear to many of us. I am both gladdened and deeply sorry to know he is dear to you, as well.” Ar’telan closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the soul vessel at his side. He did not know if he had succeeded. If it was possible to succeed. If what was left to pull from the Tower with all he had left was even enough to be called Elidibus. But he clung to hope nonetheless. Eventually it would pay off.

“Thank you,” he said. “I know… that you have been told a great many horrible things today, and I am sorry. If we had the time, I would share some kinder stories.” Venat smiled at that, a reassuring hand finding his shoulder.

“I will have time enough to watch them, it seems,” she said. “Perhaps it will do us both some good.”

Ar’telan hoped she was right.

#ffxivwrite2023 #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ew spoilers #mentions of canonical character death #(which we will later mostly ignore) #(but for now it's relevant) #I'm due at least three meme fills about fishing after all of this and I expect my brain to comply promptly

[ofdragonsdeep]

5: Barbarous

Ar'telan and Riennaut consider the difference between the spoken and unspoken.

There were not many things that would draw Ar’telan back to Garlemald. It was not the cold which bothered him, though the chill bit at skin more used to the heat of Meracydia. It was not even the people, even though most of them still looked at him with the word ‘savage’ lingering behind their tongues, held only because they felt they had to, to stay warm and fed. It was the memories.

“You’re an odd choice to send, if they want the Garleans to actually agree to anything,” Riennaut remarked. The not-quite-padjal had come with the Contingent on their first visit, along with the exceptionally grumpy lancer that always accompanied him, and had not yet left. Ar’telan had asked him about it, once, and he had gruffly responded that the Garleans were marginally less racist than some of the Gridanians he had to put up with back home. 

“I don’t think I’m here to do the talking,” Ar’telan replied. Riennaut scoffed at that, his breath misting in the cold air.

“Do they want you to loom threateningly? I don’t think you know how,” he said. Ar’telan sighed. He wasn’t wrong, but some of them had spun his shadow into a monster regardless. What else could the Warrior of Light possibly be?

“I will talk to Jullus about it,” he said, then rubbed his hands together to get the blood flowing back into his fingers. A unique pitfall of Garlemald, for him, that he could not wear the warmest gloves and still talk with any level of depth. “To be honest, I… I do not much like looking at it either.”

Riennaut glanced northward, towards the great shadow that still cast a pall over the city. The Tower of Babil, the contingent knew it as, but it was the Imperial Palace to most of the Garleans. Ar’telan hoped that the desperation Vrtra held for getting to the moon did not outweigh his compassion for those suffering here, no matter how much Garlemald as a whole had hurt Eorzea.

“It’s been talked about once or twice,” Riennaut remarked. “Among the refugees, anyway, the Contingent doesn’t touch it. They want to… Well.” He waved a hand towards it, as if it could encompass the depth of the hurt it represented. “That’s the problem. Some of them want it demolished. Some of them want to recover the Palace from the grotesque mockery, if such is possible. Some of them never want to see it again.”

“I’m sure they’d be glad to know we have that in common,” Ar’telan said, a wry smile on his face. Riennaut grimaced, the skin on his nose wrinkling with his distaste.

“If only they would acknowledge it, we might make some progress,” he muttered. “I’ll admit, it reminds me of Gelmorra.”

“Infested with horrors and controlled by bureaucrats?” Ar’telan said. 

“The Tower is at least free of crawling horrors now,” Riennaut replied, though he did not exactly disagree. “At the end of the day, the opinion of the average Garlean won’t matter. It’ll be up to the toffs in the fancy converted train station.”

“There’s a difference?”

“A surprisingly big one, as much as we try to avoid it.” Riennaut made an unhappy noise. “I doubt you’ll need me for this… void fishing expedition. But I’ll be here if you do. Certainly A-Towa would enjoy the trip.”

“I’ll ask Vrtra. If we manage to get access to the tower at all,” Ar’telan offered. A continuation sat unsaid behind his fingers, better than sitting here in the cold. Better than hiding the urge to treat them as less-than for their lack of a third eye. Better than looking at the horns on Riennaut’s head that marked him as Padjal of a kind, and thinking him Voidsent.

Especially when a true Voidsent travelled with them, and none of the Garleans had known.

“We go where we’re needed,” Riennaut said, a dismissive air to his voice. “If there isn’t a glut of Voidsent to stab violently, Foulques will prefer the rich pickings of the insane machina roaming the streets regardless.” He shrugged. “Don’t let me keep you. Jullus has been eager for news of you, although he tries to hide it.” The elezen pursed his lips at that. “Poorly.”

“I will talk to him,” Ar’telan assured him. “I hope your day is a little better from here on out.”

“The Twelve have worked miracles before, I suppose,” Riennaut offered in reply.

#warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #ffxivwrite2023 #Riennaut #I'm sure I gave him a tag last year but I don't remember it #EW spoilers #technically there's spoilers for like... 6.4 in here if you squint #but not really #Foulques is busy stabbing robots for this fill don't question it

[ofdragonsdeep]

4: Off the Hook

A reflection on promises kept, after the portal to the Thirteenth is destroyed.

The sound of the ocean swell and the hum of alchemical equipment were the only sounds to be heard near the Great Work. Ar’telan, stood out on the beach away from the alchemists at work, considered it a pleasant change from the background roar of the Final Days, or the horrible hum that had beset his ears before they had destroyed the Tower of Zot.

He came out here fairly often, these days. There was a market for some of the fish that were found where the ocean really set in, fish that would be hard to catch without the Kojin’s blessing, and the island itself was the closest place he had to his old home. Not just the climate, warm and welcoming, but Vrtra sitting as mediator. It was a far cry from Eorzea, bereft of draconic influence save for the wound of Ishgard that was still barely healed, and he knew that his people trusted Thavnair. He wondered if they knew why, if Vrtra’s presence had been a secret even from those of Tiamat’s brood, but dwelling on it for too long only made him miss his home all the more.

So often are you beset by longing.

Ar’telan sighed. He did not often hold the Reaper’s scythe, but the bond in his head resonated all the same, despite its freshness. Rubicante was a far more chatty tenant than Lily or his carbuncle had proven to be.

A similarity we share, he signed, though he knew he had but to think it for his words to carry to the voidsent. He felt uneasy in it, in even holding a pact like the lemures did when Zero was still so raw from the chains of her own binding. She had not said anything, not yet. He had not mentioned it, but she had to know, he thought.

I had not expected to see it in a mortal creature.

Ar’telan had not asked him about Azdaja, though surely the Archfiend knew more of her than any of Vrtra’s rescue party did. They had achieved their strength through her aether, and Ar’telan could feel the traces of the draconic in every void-infused swing of his blade. Did she sleep? Did she suffer? Had her timeless nature infused any of those strange immortals-but-not, trapped in their endless cycle of death and rebirth?

Did she, too, miss home?

I get that a lot, Ar’telan replied. The broad strokes of his feelings were likely felt through their bond, as he felt the edges of Rubicante’s most fervent emotions, but they still had the most of their secrets. He had considered asking Drusilla if this was normal, but thought he already knew the answer. Zero had been all but subsumed by Zenos while in his ‘service’, and while Drusilla’s Avatar had sacrificed itself to save her, none of the other lemures had spoken much of knowing their voidsent. 

Ar’telan was in many ways a walking sin, these days.

It is strange to me, how deeply you care. For a people not your own, and a pain you have no cause to bear. I saw the strength of your convictions, but not the depth of them, on the mount. 

Ar’telan shrugged at that, sinking down into a sitting position on the warm sand. His tail carved an arc through the loose grains, and in the distance the Valras shuffled and bellowed. He remembered helping a little boy escort a nanka to the water, before everything had turned to fire and brimstone. He hoped the boy had survived it all.

Someone must care. And if I have been given the power to change things, it might as well be me. 

Lily alighted upon his head with a glimmer of aether, making his ears twitch in response to her flickering wings. 

And when you are too tired to fight, and it is brought to your doorstep regardless?

The pain in Rubicante’s voice was raw, despite how long ago the Flood had consumed his home. Had time truly had meaning, in that dark-steeped abyss? Had they known for how long they had stayed mired in the hubris of so few, that had damned so many?

Ar’telan wondered if it was better to be damned or to be subsumed, when no solution beckoned on the horizon.

I will answer until I no longer can, he said. So many times he had been asked when he hadn’t the strength to answer, and it wore heavy on the soul. But he had sworn, long ago, before the reasons behind it all had been made clear, that he would bear it. If only to save the one who would have to bear it after him even a moment of the pain.

I am glad that, when the moment comes, it will not continue regardless.

A funny way to say you’re happy I can die, Ar’telan replied, a small smile tugging at the edge of his face. 

It comes for both of us, now.

I suppose it does, Ar’telan agreed, casting his eyes out over the sea. The sun was tilting towards the horizon, but there were many more hours in the day left yet. A strange gift for me to promise your people, too. A fitting payment for what your kind did to mine, once.

A moment of silence met the proclamation. Of course Rubicante had been alive, or what passed for it, during Allag’s war on Meracydia, but if he recalled it - if he had even been involved - was impossible to say. He had not even been Rubicante, Archfiend of Fire, then. Azdaja had flown against the voidsent horde until the very final moment, before the quakes had torn Allag’s power from the land and swallowed the armies that fought tooth and nail for the land they stood on. Meracydia’s dragons still sang of it, every note tinged with mourning. The Calamity had not discriminated, after all.

We shall see if it is your side that keeps their promise yet, mortal.

I can still answer. We shall. A half of it lingered unsaid in the back of his mind - that if they restored the Void, or at least provided some measure of relief to even a part of it, that Rubicante would be free. His people would no longer be trapped in a cycle of torment, and his self-imposed duty would be done. But the world would ask more of Ar’telan - if nothing else had stuck through the Final Days, that had made itself so painfully clear. He would not keep Rubicante on a leash the way that Zenos had thought to use Zero. Would the Archfiend want to continue to lend his strength, fragile though their temporary alliance was?

One lapse in judgement, and Rubicante had sworn to his nature, after all. And Ar’telan would be just another voidsent puppet. It was the nature of the dance.

He would ask when the day came, when they could stand witness to their success, and not a moment before.

The proof of it is yet to be seen. For either of our sides.

With that, at least, he could hardly argue.

#feels weird that the first thing I write about this ISN'T the part where he actually makes the pact #but whatever we ball #ffxivwrite2023 #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #yes I took the cool screenshot on the lawn of my house don't @ me #6.4 spoilers

[ofdragonsdeep]

1: Envoy

At the very start of his journey, Ar'telan reflects on the strange reality of being selected as Limsa's representative.

It was a quiet afternoon in the Drowning Wench - as much as it was ever quiet in the main meeting point for Limsa Lominsa’s adventurers. Ar’telan huddled in one corner, trying to tune out the worst of the noise despite his twitching ears, and wondered at where he had found himself.

He had been dragged into it by accident, really. Wandering around Summerford, doing odd jobs while trying to bury the fear of the sky yawning above him. Learning how to command the carbuncle at his side that he had thought nothing more than a comfort when he had first summoned it. He couldn’t not have helped the people in Halfstone, could he?

And it had put him in front of the Admiral, it had summoned those strange visions to his aching head, and now he was set to travel on Limsa’s behalf across the entire realm.

Eorzea was smaller than Meracydia, Baderon had assured him. Four regions comprised it, and one of them did not speak to the other three. La Noscea itself was a small island, Gridania encompassed but the forest, and Thanalan was mostly uninhabited desert. But the idea of getting on an airship - the pass still sat in his pack, as if taunting him with the knowledge of its presence - was utterly terrifying.

He knew he had little choice. The anniversary events were by their nature held on the same day, and he could not cross even the relatively small span of Eorzea even on chocobo back within 24 hours. But the idea of sitting upon an airship…

He had seen them. They had rails, admittedly. Not high enough, in Ar���telan’s estimation, and certainly not enough straps or buckles. The hold was primarily for cargo, and the ships were small as to avoid being preyed upon by the huge Garlean war vessels, but perhaps he could sneak into a gap between the boxes to hide away the journey?

At his feet, the carbuncle squeaked, pattering its tiny feet upon his sandals. Ar’telan shook his head, pulled from his spiral and back to reality. Another indignant squeak made him pick the carbuncle up and put it on his lap, where it reached out one paw and smacked it upon the table, to the untouched beverage that lay in front of him - probably the only non-alcoholic drink being enjoyed in the establishment, assuming you could call the ale an alcohol with how diluted the patrons accused it of being. He did not fit in here, this he knew well enough, and this was just another outward proof of it.

He sipped at the drink, carbuncle curling up on his lap in satisfaction. Why him? He wasn’t Limsan, but perhaps that was the point. He wasn’t Eorzean, but perhaps that was the point. He didn’t need to see the mourners of a war-torn land, when his people had lived in a perpetual mourning war since Allag had descended upon them.

Perhaps it would do him some good to see a country that could heal.

He finished his drink, got to his feet with a shuffle and a squeak from the carbuncle. Most of the patrons left their empty flagons on the tables, but Ar’telan took his back to the bar.

“‘Ave a good evenin’, lad,” Baderon said, tipping him a friendly nod. Ar’telan managed a smile in return, as good as thankyou in his nervous state. It was but three rides, and no doubt the pilots would be understanding of his unique condition. 

If there was one thing he could say of Eorzea, it was that it had been his friend, so far.

#we got started eventually ok don't look at me like that #ffxivwrite2023 #warrior of light (solo story) #ff14 #no banners for now because my brain is constantly screaming ok good talk