#oc: rereha reha

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #1: All Work and No Play

Prompt: envoy || Master Post || On AO3

--

A rapid, staccato knocking on the door to her solar dragged Minfilia back to full awareness. She groaned, quietly, rubbing her face with one hand and shoving the report in front of her off to the side of her desk. Two sennights in Revenant’s Toll and they were still unpacking their new headquarters, but that didn’t mean the usual business of running the Scions of the Seventh Dawn were put on the wayside. The solar currently looked as if Galette had torn through it while channeling a Downburst spell, and that was being kind.

Minfilia had been awake since before dawn, and it was almost noon, now, trudging through the necessary paperwork of keeping her people fed and watered and armed. She was alone today; she had banished Tataru from the Rising Stones since the poor secretary had been working herself even more ragged than Minfilia herself, and most of the rest of the Scions were scattered about Mor Dhona or the rest of Eorzea on various errands. And still so much more work to be done…

…she should probably eat something.

The knocking picked up again, and Minfilia jolted. “Come in!” she called.

The heavy door swung open, and Rereha sashayed inside. The lalafell bard was dressed down today, in cream canvas shorts and a linen top in her favorite shade of sky blue; even her usual stockman’s hat with its jaunty feather was missing, in favor of a pair of sunshades currently pushed up to rest atop her head. Rereha kicked the door closed behind her, and put her hands on her hips. “Girl, what is wrong with you?” she drawled.

Minfilia propped her cheek in her hand. “You know, unlike some ladies,” she said in the same tone, fighting back a smile, “I have a job.”

“Ladies, where?” Rereha made a show of looking around. “Oh! You mean me? Honey bunches, I’m not a lady, I’m a degenerate.”

This time, Minfilia didn’t bother hiding her amusement. “The two are not mutually exclusive.”

The bard made a derisive noise and sauntered across the solar, weaving her way through half-unpacked crates and unsorted furniture and stacks of books waiting for their new homes. She swerved around the desk, coming to stand next to Minfilia’s chair and forcing Minfilia to twist her head around and down to look at her.

Rereha crossed her arms and tsked. “If you’re going to give Tataru time off, you should take it, too.”

Minfilia huffed. “I’m the Antecedent—”

“Nuh-uh!” Rereha stood on tiptoe and shoved her index finger right into Minfilia’s face. “Not today, sugar cube! Today, you are the pretty shining star of the Toll, and you are going to take some time to rest your brain from the nonsense that’s keeping us in the black and have fun. The books won’t suddenly all go to shite because you take one day for yourself. Also, you should eat.”

On cue, Minfilia’s stomach growled, and she sighed heavily and rubbed her face again. Her friend was, shockingly to anyone who knew the bard, actually correct. Minfilia had burned herself out before, years ago, and climbing back from it had been awful, never mind the setbacks it had created for the Scions. She should take a break, even if only for a day.

To the hells with it.

Sighing once more, but this time fond and resigned, she gave Rereha her full attention and a wan grin. “All right, all right,” she said. “I assume you’re the one who volunteered to talk sense into me; what did you have in mind?”

Rereha cheered and clapped. “Nothing strenuous, and you’re already dressed for it,” the bard said.

Minfilia glanced down at herself—a pink blouse, simple trousers, and woven sandals today—and relaxed a hair. Well, that was a relief; Rereha’s idea of fun or a good time wasn’t always tame, after all, but it was probably safe to assume that a bar crawl through Limsa Lominsa wasn’t on the table if she didn’t need to tart herself up.

Her friend held out her hands and Minfilia took them automatically.

“Trust me?” Rereha said, golden eyes shining.

“Always,” Minfilia said.

Blue and white aether gathered around their joined hands, and in a moment, Teleport whisked them away from the Rising Stones.

--

By unspoken accord, the Scions of the Seventh Dawn rarely called on Synnove at her house in Cedarwood, the better to allow the Warriors of Light a modicum of privacy and keep work more segregated from their private lives. Not that some of them hadn’t been invited or visited before, but today most of the Scions had been collected from across the realm by their four meddling Warriors of Light and shoved into Synnove’s yard for a La Noscean clam bake.

(Or the best version of it, when the beach wasn’t available. Synnove’s old advisor from the Arcanists’ Guild was in attendance, overseeing the firepit steaming the bounty of seafood Alakhai and Synnove and Tyr had hauled from the Red Rooster marketplace, and in between her grumbling about proper traditions and shoving Ivar away from trying to nap amongst the hot stones, was arguing with Y’shtola and Urianger about spell theory and the latest journal out of the Studium aetherology department.)

Minfilia propped her chin in her hands and grinned at Thancred across the table in the yard she had claimed as Rereha returned with frothy mugs of ale for all three of them. “And just how did you get convinced to come?” she said, claiming a mug and pulling it close to her chest. “You’re a worse workaholic than I.”

Thancred snorted. “I would think that the answer should be obvious with how I arrived,” he said, voice as dry as the Sagolii. “I was in a meeting with the Sultana when Heron barged in and threw me over her shoulder without even a by-your-leave. I’m fairly certain it was planned, too, the Sultana just waved to me with the most smugly innocent grin I’ve ever seen.”

As Minfilia threw back her head and laughed, Rereha raised her mug in a toast. “Y’all workaholics needed a damned intervention and we were happy to provide,” she said. “When was the last time any of you had a day off?”

“What’s a day off?” Thancred said, deadpan. And then, lips curling in a familiar smirk, “Can you eat it?”

“How dare you, I have that trademarked!”

Minfilia laughed all the harder, half-wheezing, as the two bards cheerfully tore into one another.

This, she decided, should be something they did more often.

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[dragons-bones]

The Squad of Light: Dawntrail Benchmark Edition

#final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #oc: synnove greywolfe #oc: rereha reha #oc: dancing heron #oc: alakhai noykin #dt's screenshots #*sobbing* my girls are all so beautiful #HOW DID HERON GET EVEN /HOTTER/ #god the skin the eyes the shadows #even the LIPSTICK looks so much better #no more of that awful high sheen gloss effect #*sobs* i can't wait for dawntrail!!! #i'm gonna uninstall reshade before the 48 maintenance because I WON'T NEED IT ANYMORE

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #20: The Art of the Booby Trap

Prompt: hamper || Master Post || On AO3

--

“Cid, honeybuns,” Rereha said, impressed despite herself, “what the fuck.”

She hung suspended by one ankle from one of the rafters in the ceiling, swinging slightly from side to side from slowly reducing momentum. Her arms and pigtail braids dangled and her stockman’s hat had ended up on the floor and like, honestly. This was kind of doing some really nice things to her spine.

Cid had flailed and fallen out of his chair at her ungodly shriek when the booby trap had sprung, and he was pushing himself off the floor now. “Seven fucking hells, Rereha, knock!” he said, scowling.

“I’ve never had to before!” she said, waving her hands, and cursing when all it did was start to spin her around. “Fuck’s sake, I expect this kind of bullshit from Nero!”

The engineer grumbled something too low for her to pick up the words, but Rereha’s ears perked anyway. “Oh, my fucking gods,” she cackled. “Cidolfus Garlond, did you get this idea from Nero? Did you get strung up like a dodo because you didn’t knock and you wanted to return the favor?”

“We are in a war of attrition over correcting one another’s blueprints,” Cid said, wading through the detritus of his lab—multiple drafting tables, boxes of spare parts, the half-built prototype of a new airship engine—to where the cable holding her up was tied off. “And so far, the bloody bastard’s winning.”

“Well, no shite, gumdrop,” Rereha said. Now that she knew to look for traps… Good gods, this was actually kind of sad. One, two, three, four, five, six… “You are a smart, creative man, Cid, but you don’t have a couple decades of experience as a fucking Frumentarium commander.”

Cid snarled something particularly foul in Garlean. Rereha yanked at her Echo to keep it from translating.

“Cid.”

A grunt.

“Ciiiiid.”

Another grunt.

“Cid. Cid Cid Cid Ciddy Cid. Ciiiiiiiiiid. Sugarplum. Buttercup. Hot stuff.”

Cid turned to glare at her, hands on his hips. She hadn’t seen him in this foul of a mood in a long, long time.

Awww. He really wasn’t used to being shown up so thoroughly by Nero, was he? A little humility was good for him, gods only knew he was ridiculously overdue for it, but it was definitely time to level the playing field. Especially before Nero’s ego raged out of control.

Rereha stuck out her arms. “M’ere.”

Cid sighed heavily, shoulders slumping, but he obeyed, weaving back across the lab to stand in front of her. She was short enough that even strung up like this, she was at eye level with him, and points to him for that, it would mean Nero would be just above the floor, and she could appreciate that kind of pettiness. But, focus!

She reached out and held his face in her hands. Gods, this was a little weird doing it upside down, but whatever. Needs must and all that. “Snookums, what is my day job?”

He cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “You have a day job?”

“Cidolfus fucking Garlond, I swear to Nald’thal. Day job, full rank, I am making a point, go.”

“All right, all right! Scout-Captain for the Gods’ Quiver assigned to the Yellow Serpents Division of the Order of the Twin Adders. And then some logistics headache that means you’re also on permanent retainer to the Scions, even though that’s no longer official.”

“Correct! Which means that this kind of thing? Spotting traps, setting traps, and so on? Kind of what I get paid for.”

Cid furrowed his brows at her and wow, his eyebrows had gotten bushy. God, he should shave, go back to being baby-faced for a while to remind everyone he was just shy of forty and not seventy. “Offering to help?” he said, only a little skeptical.

(Which, fair, she wasn’t even mad, she had more recently been on the Nero side of the engineering war. But Nero kept coming up with upgrades for her monster turret bow, and she couldn’t say no to that.)

“Of course!” She batted her eyelashes. “Nero needs taking down a peg, and I’m always up for a little industrious chaos. Get Synnove on the linkpearl, too, she probably has a few tricks with aether-locks she’d be willing to dole out if she knows it’s for a good cause.”

“You are,” Cid said, finally starting to smile, a real, proper smile, “a very ridiculous creature.”

“It’s why you love me,” Rereha said with her most winning smile, and gave his cheeks a pat.

Cid snorted and said, "Jessie is going to kill us, but I suppose in your book, that just adds spice to things, doesn't it?" She cackled as her only response, and he was still smiling as he stepped away in the direction of the shelf where he kept his linkpearl.

Rereha blinked, and huffed.

“Cid?”

“Yeah?”

“Get me down.”

“Oh, shite, right, sorry, sorry—”

“Gently! Gently, you son of a biiIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAA!”

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[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #30: Denouement

Prompt: amity || Master Post || On AO3

A/N: I'm a little sad I have to break my streak of "tear out my readers' hearts" with my last prompt fill of the challenge, but alas, the prompt just did not at all work with the idea seed I had on the backburner. Ah well, always next year! Instead, we come full circle. :)

--

Were he still a wet-behind-the-ears sixteen-year-old, Alphinaud imagined he would probably be crediting himself for the sight before him.

Synnove’s yard was crammed with tables and chairs dragged from her house or hurriedly purchased from the carpenters at Red Rooster Stead, arranged in such a way as to ensure the riot of color that was her garden remained relatively unscathed. The core of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn were all present—himself, Alisaie, Thancred, Y’shtola, Urianger, Estinien, Krile, Tataru, G’raha, and the four Warriors of Light—and not for the first time, he stifled a giggle at the sight of half their number all bearing white hair. Rereha had a point that they seemed to collect them, particularly after they practically bullied Estinien into joining.

(A pang throbbed in his heart; he missed the acerbic wit of Papalymo, and wondered how the thaumaturge would have gotten along with their newer members.)

There were Hoary Boulder and Coultenet, and Ochre Boulder and the Cockburne sisters, and Riol and F’lhaminn. There were former Scions, too—Lyse, of course, currently engaged in a three-way push-up competition with his sister and Dancing Heron, but also Arenvald and J’moldva and V’mah, cheering them on.

It was the ones who had never been Scions that were the most astounding guests.

Ser Aymeric was the least surprising, though at one point in time he might have been the most shocking one to see, considering Ishgard’s self-imposed isolation. He sat next to Synnove, the pair of them each with a carbunclet on their lap, the both of them deep in discussion with Thancred, Lucia (on a brief leave from the Ilsabard Contingent), Hilda, and Raubahn Aldynn. Nearby, Synnove’s aetherophysics advisor from her student days, Mhaslona, and Admiral Merlwyb presided over the large pit in which the food for the clam bake was cooking, the Admiral not hesitating to shove Ivar away with her foot whenever the ruby carbuncle came over to try to burrow into the coals.

At another table, Nanamo Ul Namo, Kan-E-Senna, and Rereha were introducing Lord Hien to Tonk; Alphinaud wasn’t sure who looked stranger to his eye in such casual dress, the Sultana or the Elder Seedseer. Perhaps the Seedseer; Kan-E wasn’t quite as focused on the cardgame, half her attention given over to a discussion with the Scion mages and Y’shtola keeping her wineglass topped off. And it looked like Nanamo and Rereha were using Kan-E’s distraction surreptitiously teaching Hien either how to count cards or how to quickly reshuffle the draw deck, with the Doman king’s shoulders shaking with laughter.

Alakhai, Estinien, and Yugiri in a knife-throwing competition was probably the least strange sight today.

From his place perched on the fence surrounding the yard, Alphinaud smiled and shook his head. Once, he had thought he had all the knowledge and answers to solve Eorzea’s problems; surely all the city-states needed was to be led in the right direction. His direction.

The arrogance of it.

“What’s got you so maudlin?”

He glanced over and smiled at his twin, who smiled back even as she easily hauled herself up onto the fence next to him.

“The arrogance of youth,” he drawled.

Alisaie snorted, and looked out over the yard. As always, he didn’t need to explain further for her to grasp what he meant; he dearly wished she would give herself more credit for her perceptiveness. “Well, it’s not like we played no part in the fate of the star,” she said.

“True,” Alphinaud said. Without thinking about it, he began tapping out a rhythm against the fence board with his heels. Alisaie joined in a moment later. “And it certainly it turned out far better than we ever dreamed.”

“I can’t believe the Sultana cheats at cards,” Alisaie muttered.

Alphinaud stifled a giggle. “I can,” he said. “She’s always had a bit of a devious streak.”

“And Rereha and the Admiral carefully cultivated it like an orchid in a hothouse.”

There was no stopping his laughter at that.

It wasn’t correct to say that everyone here was the dearest of friends, but the ease with which they all let down their barriers spoke of their mutual respect, that this time was an opportunity to rest and enjoy the fruits of all their labors. It had taken work to get here: Eorzea united, truly united, for the first time in their history, Ala Mhigo and Doma freed from the Garlean yoke, the Ascians gone with Zodiark and Hydaelyn and the Final Days.

And what better way to celebrate than with an old Scion tradition of gathering for food and drink and good company? The Final Days were averted and, most importantly, all four of the Warriors of Light were now declared fully hale and whole, no longer under the baleful eyes of the Sharlayan healer corps.

They were the true lynchpin to this wondrous gathering, the Warriors of Light. Everyone here had played some role in where they all were today, but without the four women around whom they orbited, would they have done it at all? Would they have defeated Gaius van Baelsar, or ended the Dragonsong War, or freed Doma and Ala Mhigo, saved the First, saved all of existence from the grief and loneliness of the Ancients echoing through time?

Alphinaud didn’t think so. It was their tenacity, their compassion, their utter ridiculousness, that truly brought all these people together and gave their star hope for a better future. Not that he’d be able to convince the four of them of that.

Well. Maybe one of them, though even she was more likely to merely play it up for humor rather than actually believe it.

“Oi, Alisaie! Bunny!”

Speak of the devil.

“Not that name,” Alphinaud groaned. It had been years since that accursed nickname had been leveled on him.

Rereha cackled as she bounded over to them. “Baby bunny,” she said, sing-song, “your hair is the same color as the loporrits’ fur. Your favorite color scheme for clothing is the same as theirs. You are ‘bunny’ forever!”

Alisaie threw back her head and laughed as he dropped his face into his hands. He took it all back, at least about Rereha Reha. She was a menace to society and it was a miracle she hadn’t incited an international incident by sleeping with the wrong person.

The pink-haired lalafell reached out with both hands, grinning. Alisaie took her right hand with a matching grin, and Alphinaud let out a put upon sigh—feigned, of course—but took Rereha’s left. Rereha tugged gently, and the twins hopped off the fence, letting her drag them across the yard as she skipped backwards.

“We’re putting a handicap on Heron for the push-up contest,” she said, “and we need both of you for it!”

“Why not just use Tyr?” Alphinaud said.

“Heron still has some limits right now, and Healingway will kill her if she exceeds them.”

Alisaie snorted a laugh, though Alphinaud was certain Rereha wasn’t exaggerating.

As they traversed the length of the yard to the corner where Heron and Lyse were, a flash of iridescent blue caught Alphinaud’s eye. He turned his head to follow it.

A small flock of bluebirds, each with a pair of long, graceful tailfeathers, were flitting above the yard, one with a sunflower bloom in its beak, and if he didn’t know better, he would have assumed they were playing a game of keep-away. The birds twirled and danced through the air before winging their way to perch on the lowest hanging branch of the oak tree in Synnove’s yard, from which hung a swing that currently played host to a napping Galette. The bluebird with the sunflower was in the middle of the flock, and even from here, Alphinaud could see her sharing the seeds with her sisters, as birdsong joined the chorus of chatter and laughter in the yard.

Alphinaud grinned as he followed his sister and their friend, and wondered what new adventures—and new friends—awaited them all on the morrow.

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[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #16: Allspice or Nothing

Prompt: jerk || Master Post || On AO3

A/N: Listen, I see the word "jerk," I automatically think of the jerk chicken from my favorite Jamaican restaurant, and I get hungry, and I write some minor food porn with character interactions. You're welcome.

--

It was a warm day in Sharlayan, almost unusually so, and so G’raha decided to walk to the harbor from the Baldesion Annex rather than take the aetheryte. He had offered to pick up from Customs a crate of artifacts that the Students of Baldesion had been waiting to receive, since Krile was running herd on Dancing Heron and Alakhai during their treatments and Ojika was neck deep in cataloging an earlier shipment. And taking a detour for lunch at the Last Stand was a happy bonus.

The joys of no longer being limited by a student’s stipend.

A flash of familiar pink caught his eye as he turned onto the Last Stand’s open patio, and G’raha turned his head to see Rereha, Synnove, and Urianger clustered around one of the tables. Curious; Rereha and Synnove were supposed to be on limited bedrest, though they had greater freedom of movement than Heron and Alakhai. Of course, things could change day to day, and the healers must have decided the pair were physically hale enough for an excursion out into the city, especially a relatively short to the Last Stand considering the hospital’s proximity to the harbor.

“Hello, my friends!” G’raha called out as he approached. The trio turned, all three smiling, and Rereha waved him over, patting the spot in front of the empty fourth chair at their table. He pulled out the chair and sat, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the table. “It’s wonderful to see you in the sunlight again. What’s the occasion?”

“Today,” Rereha said reverently, “is the first day we are allowed flavor once again.”

G’raha blinked. Sharlayan hospital food wasn’t that bad, as the nutritionists were well aware that palatable, even tasty, food made long-term convalescence less of a struggle to endure for patients. He turned to Synnove, bewildered, for a translation.

“We’re being allowed to eat spicy things,” Synnove said with equal relish.

“Oh!” G’raha smiled, then said to Urianger. “I suppose that means you’re the adult supervision.”

Urianger inclined his head with a smile, ignoring Rereha and Synnove’s grumbling. “Just so,” he said. “And to provide succor should today’s meal proveth too much for their constitutions.” He rolled a gently glowing light between his fingers for emphasis.

“Also he is a fellow spice demon and wants in on the goods,” Rereha said.

Urianger merely smiled as G’raha laughed.

“You want in, too?” Synnove said.

“I wouldn’t say no to lunch,” he said with a smile. “What are you having?”

“A spiced chicken dish!” Rereha said cheerfully. “We’re getting a big platter to split, should be plenty for four.”

“The recipe’s from one of the island nations northeast of Yok Tural,” Synnove said, “at least per Dickon, which was per the trader he got the recipe from.”

G’raha’s tail flicked with interest. “I think I’ve heard of this dish,” he said slowly. “Didn’t Dickon build a new grill just to smoke it correctly?”

“Aye,” Urianger said. “Master Dickon hath always gone above and beyond to ensure as much authenticity as is feasible for his menu. Though he hath also created a milder blend for those of Sharlayan without the…experienced palates for a full dose of bonnet pepper.”

“Which we are not having, thanks,” Rereha was quick to interject.

Ooooh, Turali bonnet peppers. Those didn’t often make it from Tural to the Old World markets, similar as they were to only-slightly-easier to acquire Meracydian bonnet peppers, but the Turali variety were much hotter. G’raha suspected that the physicians back at the hospital had no idea what Rereha and Synnove were about to subject their tastebuds to. Not that he could blame them; the Crystarium’s botanists did not have hot peppers high on their list of cultivars to breed back into existence, and he had perhaps been a bit unwise himself in indulging in heavily spiced foods when he had returned to the Source.

It had been well worth it, and Rereha and Synnove would likely the same about their escapades today.

Soon enough, a heaping platter arrived with large platers of the spiced chicken, steaming rice, and fried sweet plantains. The waitress quickly fetched G’raha dishware and utensils, plus a tall glass of raspberry shrub, and soon enough the four Scions had filled their plates with plenty still to eat as their appetites allowed.

G’raha hummed with delight at his first bite of the chicken. Perfectly tender and juicy, the skin charred and smokey in contrast. The spice itself was exquisitely blended; he could pick out allspice and nutmeg and garlic, and the heat from the peppers deepened the taste. The peppers themselves weren’t an immediate explosion of pained heat, either, rather slowly building up with every bite. He was careful to alternate bites of the chicken with rice and plantains, or a sip of the shrub.

Synnove and Rereha, however, were attacking the chicken with gusto, and quite frankly didn’t seem to give a single damn about the heat, heedless of the tears that were streaking down their cheeks. Urianger kept an eye on them even as he sedately worked through his own plate.

“I am,” Rereha said after swallowing, “in so much pain right now, and I am so happy about it.”

Synnove made a noise of agreement, then swallowed and said, “Heron and Alakhai are going to be furious.”

“Well it’s not our faults we didn’t get disemboweled or had our ribs caved in.”

G’raha winced at the reminders of the extent of Heron and Alakhai’s physical injuries from the Final Day and last battle with Zenos. “Perhaps we could sneak them in a bite or two of the chicken?” he said around his current mouthful. “And the plantains won’t be too harsh on their digestive systems, either.”

Rereha, Synnove, and Urianger all looked at him.

He resisted the urge to flatten his ears, and merely raised an eyebrow instead.

But then all three smiled, and he relaxed.

“Gonna turn you into a rebel yet,” Rereha said cheerfully, then glanced over at Urianger.

“I hath heard nothing,” the elezen said primly. “Certainly, I knoweth nothing of the extra take-away containers you inquired of with the waitress whilst I claimed our table.”

“Fucking ears,” she hissed, as if her own long pair weren’t twitching to catch every stray bit of gossip around them from other patrons. Urianger merely hummed his amusement.

Synnove and G’raha exchanged looks, and burst into laughter.

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[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #13: Post-Op

Prompt: check || Master Post || On AO3

A/N: And yet more follow ups to "The Long Road Home" from last year's FFXIV Write!

--

“Hands,” Healingway said.

Rereha obediently stuck out her hands, spreading her fingers. The loporrit gently grasped one, then the other, feeling the bones, testing the range of motion in her fingers. She nodded, then said, “Wiggle.”

Rereha wiggled each of her fingers, then flapped her thumbs. Always so weird she couldn’t get her thumbs to move as quickly at the same time as her fingers.

“Rotate.”

Wrists next, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, then up and down to stretch out the tendons. Then elbows, and shoulders, the range of motion of her neck, slowing working down her body to her legs and feets and toes. Healingway watched critically, sharp eyes looking for any twinges or hitches or stiffness, tiny arms crossed and nose twitching furiously.

“Heeeeeeaaaaaad and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,” Rereha sang under her breath as she stretched and twisted and wiggled and bent.

Healingway snorted.

Finally, Rereha stood upright again, and Healingway nodded in approval. “Any tingling or numbness?” the loporrit said, reaching over to the desk to grab her tablet.

“Nope!” Rereha said. “Only discomfort has been soreness from physical therapy. The Sharlayans are worse slavedrivers than you.”

Healingway snickered as she made a notation on her tablet. “Well, congratulations, you may very well be the first person on record to have a full recovery from being fucking paralyzed from the neck down.” Her next snort was only mildly derisive. “Fucking Warriors of Light. Headaches?”

“Does Heron count?”

The loporrit snarled. Rereha cackled.

“Can’t believe of the four of you, it’s you being the best behaved about all this,” Healingway growled. Unspoken was the comment that Heron was being the biggest pain in the ass to the entire healers corps. “Even Synnove’s gotten surly and bitchy during her appointments.”

Rereha smiled beatifically. “I delight in undermining expectations,” she said sweetly, “and also confusing everyone by being the well-behaved one.”

“It’s because it makes everyone nervous, isn’t it?”

“They’re waiting for a second shoe to drop that never will and it is hilarious.”

Healingway smiled toothily, only a tiny bit mean, and said, “All right, off with you, and if anything starts to feel strange then you fucking say something immediately.”

“Yes’m!” Rereha saluted, spun on the ball of her foot with a leg raised like an ice dancer, and literally skipped from the examination room. Time to go keep her fingers limber with her violin.

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[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #30: The Long Road Home

Prompt: sojourn || Master Post || On AO3

A/N: Here we are, at the last. Spoilers for Endwalker. Warnings for blood, discussions of injury and pseudo-fantastical medical procedures. Immediate followup to “At the End of All Things.”

--

The Ragnarok dropped from hyperspace without even a shudder, and Livingway couldn’t help the grudging respect for the Sharlayan engineers who had built her. While teeny-tiny toy boat, it was a well-made teeny-tiny toy boat, that had withstood the forces exerted on it as it had hurtled to the edge of the universe and back.

Etheirys hung like a brilliant blue jewel against the black of space now, growing closer as Mappingway input their return trajectory. At this speed, the Ragnarok needed to do almost a full orbit before she was slow enough to land safely in Old Sharlayan.

Just slow enough. Any slower and…

“Godsdamned fucking ribcage, I can’t fucking reach—”

“I can, Healingway, move your hand now and—yes, I have it.”

“Someone crack open another aether syrup bottle! No, two, Alisaie one of those is for you—”

“I need more gauze!”

“Here, Thancred—”

Livingway resolutely did not look behind her, staring straight ahead at the viewscreen and ignoring every twitch and jerk of Mappingway and Sleepingway’s ears as the Scions and Healingway’s triage team frantically worked to save the Warriors of Light. Any slower and Hydaelyn’s chosen champions might lose precious seconds they desperately needed.

(Healingway was going to be absolutely intolerable later, when the danger was past, because she had been the one to bully her way onboard with her team right behind her carrying crates of supplies, despite Livingway’s huffing.)

“Ragnarok to Thaumazein, Ragnarok to Thaumazein,” Mappingway called over the comms.

A crackle of the aether-radio: “This is Thaumazein, we read you loud and clear, Ragnarok. Welcome home!”

“Thaumazein, transmitting our return trajectory now; ETA in Scholar’s Harbor is 1300 local time. Requesting immediate medical assistance upon arrival. I repeat, requesting immediate medical assistance upon arrival.”

--

Krile was at the head of the crowd with Tataru, the pair of lalafell sprinting forward with a tiny carbunclet each hanging from a shoulder, as the Ragnarok smoothly sliced through the waters of Scholar’s Harbor and towards the largest of the berths at the far end of the docks. Giddy relief surged through her; the strange double-sight of Sharlayan’s clear skies and the overlay of the burning heavens of the Final Days had faded to leave only blue behind, and she had dared not hope until linkpearl reports came in of the Ragnarok flying over Othard and Ilsabard and Eorzea. But hope now she did.

She and Tataru came to a stop at the edge of the pier, the Ragnarok gliding sedately into place. As they did, Amandina dropped from her shoulder all of a sudden, and Roksana from Tataru’s, the pearl carbunclets tumbling into one another and vanishing with a pop! of displaced air. Krile felt their pearls tingle on her wrist—Synnove had given the twins into hers and Tataru’s safe-keeping, foci stones and all, with strict instructions to head to Ishgard should the worst come to pass—and then the two returned. With a passenger.

Ser Aymeric, lacking his formal Lord Commander’s armor in favor of simple boots and breeches and a linen shirt beneath a doublet, stumbled a pace forward, dropping to one knee as he cradled the twin carbunclets in his arm. “Girls, we have had words with you about sudden teleportation,” he wheezed.

Sorry, Papa, Amandina squeaked.

It’s an emergency, Roksana added.

His head shot up, and Tataru and Krile’s both whipped around.

We gotta go, Amandina warbled, reaching up to press a carbuncle-kiss to Ser Aymeric’s cheek.

But we’ll be back! Roksana chittered, doing the same.

Take care of Mommy! they chorused, and then in a flash of blue-and-purple aether, they demanifested.

Ser Aymeric stared at where they had been in his arms just a moment ago. Tataru was slowly losing color in her face, and Krile felt the same, as her hands began to shake.

“Make way, make way! Healers coming through!”

Krile raised her head as a full company of city-guard pushed through the crowd, escorting a full complement of sages and conjurers and chirugeons, each wearing the sigil of the Sharlayan Medical Corp; a group of loporrits bull-rushed their way through just after them, pushing four long carts—mobile cots?—with multiple medkits and other boxes of supplies balanced on top of them. With the healers safely arrived, the guards turned towards herding back the crowd, calling for an order and creating a corridor back down the dock. Ameliance and Fourchenault ducked by them, but the guards gave them no notice; the Leveilleurs were beginning to look as worried as Krile felt.

She sprinted to the healers. “Master Healer,” she called to their leader; she didn’t recognize her, unfortunately. “What’s happening?”

“Ragnarok requested immediate medical attention upon arrival,” the Roegadyn woman said grimly. “I can confirm everyone is alive, but the Warriors of Light are in critical condition.” Krile closed her eyes, terror lancing through her even as Ser Aymeric gasped wetly behind her and Tataru cut off her horrified shriek. The healer continued, “Mistress Baldesion, I loathe having to ask, but I must request your assistance, in particular due to your familiarity with the medical histories of the Warriors of Light.”

Krile clasped her hands together in an attempt to stop their shaking. Oh, gods be good, please let this not be because of the decision she had made in allowing Zenos viator Galvus the chance to follow the Scions to Ultima Thule. “You need not ask, Master Healer,” she said. “Though I am glad I will not have to fight through your healers to assist my family.”

The Roegadyn nodded, and then both their heads whipped around as a hatch on the Ragnarok hissed, and swung open. Thancred hung out, grim-faced and blood-stained as he kicked a gangplank into place down to the dock, and Krile and the healers surged forward.

“We’ve got them stable, barely,” he said once they were close enough, ducking aside to let them through, and then leading them towards the bridge. “Alisaie nearly drained herself into her own case of aethershock, Y’shtola had to cast Repose on her to get her to stop. We’re all in minor cases of aethershock, but Synnove is the worst off, and that’s before the physical injuries.”

Krile felt herself go grey as Thancred rattled off the extent of the injuries suffered by the Warriors of Light and Scions both. It was a miracle they had even made it back to the ship and the Scions weren’t sure what had happened between the assumed defeat of the Endsinger and their arrival back on the Ragnarok, but Krile knew. She knew how those injuries had happened.

The floor of the Ragnarok’s bridge was covered in blood. The Scions and Healingway’s team of loporrit healers huddled around the Warriors of Light; even Alisaie, who had apparently bucked Repose, to Thancred’s exasperated sigh.

Krile immediately went to Dancing Heron, shooing an exhausted Alphinaud out of the way so that she and one of the Medical Corp healers could take over. A diagnostic spell told her the Hellsguard’s innards were essentially held together by prayer and fine silk thread; it was another miracle her blood wasn’t poisoned by the toxins from her perforated intestines, or what remained of them. As she settled to the task of blasting infection before it could take hold, Heron’s eyes fluttered open.

“Hi, Krile,” she croaked.

(“Oh, fuck you,” Healingway raged from where she was putting Alakhai’s chest back together. “Stop throwing off Sleep you fucking idiot! I hate paladins!”

“This is the first paladin you’ve worked with,” one of the loporrits muttered.

“Shut the fuck up!”)

“Oh, Heron,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Hey, none of tha’ now,” Heron said, slurring. Her eyes closed, her chest rising with the deep breath she took. “Hate to say it, but th’ bastard made ‘isself useful. An’ then we ended ‘im good ‘n proper.”

“You shouldn’t have fought him at all,” Krile said, reaching up to brush blood-crusted hair from Heron’s face.

“Was in—ugh. Was in-ev-it-a-ble,” Heron said slowly, deliberately. She reached up and gently patted Krile’s hands, her dark red skin too cool to the touch. “Better at th’ edge of th’ universe tha’ where someone could get hurt.”

“And you and your sisters count very much as someones getting hurt.”

“Nah, s’our job,” Heron said, nodding, as if that made it better. “M’gonna sleep now. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Heron,” Krile said, patting the paladin’s cheek, but Heron was already out cold.

Tension filled the bridge; Krile glanced up and saw Ser Aymeric kneeling next to Tataru, holding the young woman close as she cried onto his shoulder, his own eyes focused with horrible intensity on Synnove. Ameliance crouched on Ser Aymeric’s other side, one hand on his free shoulder and the other clutching tight to her husband’s as Fourchenault spoke quietly but firmly into a linkpearl. From the snatches she could catch during lulls in the orders and requests of the healers filling the space, the Leveilleur patriarch was throwing around the full might of the Forum to ready the emergency ward at the hospital.

She lost track of how long they worked, but eventually the loporrits brought over the mobile cots—stretchers, they were apparently called—and carefully they loaded a Warrior of Light onto each. Krile was small and light enough that she stayed crouched over Heron, modulating her conjury to keep her friend stable as they were wheeled out of the Ragnarok and towards the chocobo carts waiting to carry the whole of the Scions to the hospital. Two other lalafell healers did the same with Alakhai and Synnove, and Healingway knelt next to Rereha, frowning thoughtfully at the device she carried in one hand even as the other held the stasis spell steady.

Ser Aymeric followed along next to Synnove’s stretcher, one hand resting on her uninjured arm. The other Scions staggered after them; Estinien had Alphinaud slung over one shoulder, the young man passed out from exhaustion, with Alisaie hiked up under one arm and being fussed over by Ameliance, while Raha, Y’shtola, and Urianger leaned against one another with a pair of Sharlayan sages hovering next to them. Thancred carried a still weeping Tataru, smiling faintly as the coinkeeper scolded him between her tears.

A flash of blue overheard caught her attention, and Krile lifted her head to see a bluebird wing its way above the harbor.

--

The first sennight was the worst. For all that the four Warriors of Light were stable, any of their conditions could take a sudden turn for the worse, and more than one Scion took up a silent vigil at the side of one of their friends to ensure she made it through the night.

Kan-E-Senna, A-Ruhn-Senna, plus a number of Gridanian conjurers and Ul’dahn alchemists (among them Rerenasu Kukunasu, looking as if he had aged ten years before he even got to his daughter’s bedside), arrived by Ironworks airship the day after the Ragnarok’s return. The Elder Seedseer was immediately whisked into hushed talks with Healingway and the Sharlayan chirugeons who researched experimental treatments. And then they descended upon Rereha’s rooms to begin their attempts to repair the bard’s shattered spine, as the other healers were quickly put into the rotation to treat the others.

Aymeric spent those first days refusing to leave Synnove’s side, to the point the Master Healer, Tyrngeim, sighed heavily and ordered a cot brought to the arcanist’s room on which he could sleep. Not that he truly gained any rest, jerking awake almost as soon as he dropped off for fear something might happen to his lady in so fragile a state. The one time he managed a full night’s sleep was because Y’shtola had marched into the room, Urianger on her heels, and forced a sleeping draught into his hand while saying, “You’ll be no good to her dead yourself. Urianger and I will take the watch tonight.”

Synnove was so awfully still, as were her sisters; the healers were using a combination of thaumaturgical Sleep, conjuration Repose, and a cocktail of potions to keep them in comas. While everyone had returned from Ultima Thule in some state of aethershock—Estinien had been introduced to the disgusting horrors of aether syrup, and his brother had spent a solid two bells growling like a drake as he had kept otherwise silent vigil with Aymeric next to Synnove, grimacing with every tentative sip—Synnove was by far the worst off on that front. Her cheeks were sunken, her skin tight across her bones; any time the Warriors of Light were called to duty, Synnove dropped weight, the demands of her magic eating her body’s reserves, and the Scions had careened from the towers to Garlemald to Ultima Thule in mere moons, with Synnove (as well as the other mages) becoming almost frightfully lean before their journey to the stars. Now his lady was skeletal, and per the healers, her internal organs were badly damaged, particularly her kidneys and liver.

It took Aymeric two days to notice the arcanima sleeve tattoos were gone, and he stared, gaping, until Alisaie arrived.

“It was all the healing,” she said quietly, taking the brush from the bedside table to begin tending to Synnove’s now-brittle hair. “We had to practically shove aether into her and her body just gobbled it up, trying to keep itself functioning. At one point it was like a floodwater, so much magic at once it spilled over, pushed the ink right out of her skin. On her back, too, we had an awful fright when the colors seeped out onto the floor.”

“N’dhovaka is going to be furious,” Aymeric muttered, thinking of the Sun Seeker matron who had done all of Synnove’s tattoo work.

Alisaie snorted a laugh. “Synnove told me she had been wondering about some sort of alteration to the sleeves, refine the arrays. Suppose this is as good an opportunity as any.”

They both spoke in whens, not ifs, as if to do otherwise would invite ill fortune.

For now, all they could do for Synnove was keep getting aether syrup into her, trying to get her ravaged internal reserves to some sort of equilibrium, with healing sessions where the healers guided her own energies to focus on maintaining her brain and heart and lungs. Aymeric listened with trepidation as Tyrngeim and Healingway explained to him on the fifth day what they hoped to do once Synnove was stable enough that they could perform surgery.

“Her left kidney is completely shot,” the Master Healer said. “Now, an adult hyur can live with only one kidney, but given the state of her right kidney, she’s looking at potential failure in the future.”

“Fury preserve me,” he said, dropping his head into hands and pulling at his hair.

“Her best chance is essentially to perform a transplant surgery,” Healingway said succinctly, her small arms crossed. “There’s Allagan tech us loporrits have salvaged, plus what the Eorzean Alliance and Sharlayans have recovered over the years and studied, and there’s some genuinely useful medical uses for their cloning technology. Fuckers used it for some disgusting things—”

“—but my colleagues have had success with using it to grow new organs for badly injured individuals,” Tyrngeim interrupted before Healingway could get going. “Normally organ growth on the scale we need takes moons to ensure everything is viable with the power restraints we operate under—the original Allagan machines had power requirements we won’t be able to match for a couple generations as we reverse-engineer everything—but Healingway thinks since there is some healthy tissue remaining, we can use it as a base and jumpstart the process with loporrit creation magic. And since it’s Synnove’s own flesh, her body won’t reject it.”

“The liver won’t take much,” Healingway said. “Absolutely wonderful organ, the liver, it’s perfectly capable of regenerating itself over a period of time, but Synnove’s is at the point it’ll need some help. And far easier than the lung transplants we’re going to have to do for Alakhai. Honestly, I think the only reason we even have a chance right now is that there seems to be dynamis still lingering around all four of them, though even my tools are shite at judging how much. We’re going to have to do all the gross organ stuff right at their bedsides to harness it, we are literally fueling all this shite with high octane hope.”

Aymeric could not even begin to parse through what the two healers were discussing and the implications of it all. He rubbed his face tiredly and said, “Whatever it is you need me to sign, I’ll do it,” he said. “Whatever it takes to see her through.”

He still didn’t know if Synnove was better off than Alakhai and Heron, their bodies so badly wounded that the healers were still struggling to align bones and fish out stray shards and make sure the right pieces of meat were sewn together. It likely wasn’t wise to compare. It would take a long, long time for any of them to be back at full strength.

“This is going to be moons of recovery, once they’re out of danger,” Y’shtola said at the end of the first sennight, gathered with all the Scions, Aymeric, Rereha’s father, Heron’s mother, and a Lominsan in green by the name of V’kebbe, newly arrived that morning and “representing Alakhai’s family among the Upright, if you please.” They were huddled in the empty room in the same wing that their four family members were being kept that had become the communal space for them. A spread of coffee and juice and sandwiches from the Last Stand was laid out on the center table that they half-heartedly picked at.

Krile cleared her throat, and Y’shtola scowled, ears pinned flat to her head even as she obediently lifted her bottle of aether syrup and took a sip of the concoction.

“We do not ask any of ye to merely return to thy homes and await whatever sporadic crumb of news we can provide,” Urianger said. The other elezen was the most dressed down Aymeric had ever seen him, in soft pants and a thick sweater and knit fingerless gloves on his hand; his own aethershock lingered now in a persistent chill. “But ye will need to make the necessary plans if ye intend to stay in Sharlayan for long.”

“Considering the poor luck many of us have in multiple responsibilities, we’ll need to switch off as needed,” Rerenasu sighed. “As a note, Shushuha and I will cover all transport costs for everyone, airship and teleportation, and please do not argue with me about this, Opal.” Heron’s mother, Radiant Opal, rolled her eyes. “Ser Aymeric, no doubt Angharad will try to do the same, tell her she can argue with Shushu about it until they’re both blue in the face. Miss V’kebbe—”

The miqo’te rogue snorted. “Like Jacke’ll complain about one less thing t’ worry about with our coffers,” she said. “And thank you.”

“We’ve already got rooms set aside for everyone in the Baldesion Annex,” Krile said. “And no doubt Ameliance will do her best to send lunches for us all, no matter the time of day.”

Thancred sighed heavily and slouched in his chair. “Consider this the official first meeting of the Warriors of Light Family Support Group,” he snarked, ducking the swipe Alphinaud took at him and shifting to avoid the pinch from Alisaie.

“Likely not the last,” Alphinaud said with a sigh. But then he smiled, faint and hopeful. “But so far the signs are pointing to a positive outcome, and we must needs contain to have faith in our friends and the healers alike.”

--

It was the end of the third sennight, and Aymeric was startled awake by a hissing noise. He had fallen asleep in the chair next to Synnove, her limp hand gently grasped in his own, and now he snapped his eyes open, searching for the danger—

“—stupid fucking stubborn gods-be-damned older sisters I swear to Hydaelyn I will beat you bloody—”

That was the familiar tirade of a certain loporrit trauma specialist. Aymeric turned his head, and he stared.

Dancing Heron grinned back at him. She had huge bags under her eyes, and her skin hung lank on her frame, and she was slouching, one arm gingerly cradling her stomach, but it was Heron.

“Heron, what in the name of—” he gasped, scrambling to standing. “You came out of your third surgery yesterday, you’re supposed to be in a bloody coma—” He gently wrapped his lady’s elder sister in a hug, and she hugged him back with one arm.

Healingway raged at their feet. “This fucking stupid two-legger threw off the most potent cocktail of drugs I have ever had to mix and two layers of spellcraft because she had to check on her sisters. For fuck’s sake.”

“I was tired of sleeping,” Heron said mildly.

Healingway spat a curse that had Aymeric’s inner soldier blushing.

“Alakhai gave me a thumbs up,” Heron said as he drew back and pulled over a chair for her. “Then she dropped back to sleep. Rereha stole her mom’s knitting and is doing a cat’s cradle to test her range of motion in her fingers.”

Aymeric laughed as he helped ease the Hellsguard down onto the chair, the only reaction he had in his disbelief. Not even a few days ago, Kan-E-Senna had been fretting about the extent of any paralysis for Rereha, as she was still being kept in a coma, and Alakhai had had her own second surgery earlier today to begin fixing the disaster that was her torso.

“And it looks like Synnove’s doing better, too,” Heron rasped, a grin on her face as Healingway pulled out that strange scanning device of hers to go over the Hellsguard.

He turned, puzzled—and stared.

On Synnove’s other side, her aetheric glow dimmed to converse as much aether as possible, was Galette, tucked under her mama’s arm with her chin on Synnove’s shoulder. The carbuncle was nearly transparent, but she was there. And for the first time in three sennights, Synnove’s breathing was slow and deep, rather than the reedy wheeze that haunted Aymeric’s dreams, her chest rising and falling in steady beats with Galette in tandem.

The best, surest sign that her aether had finally begun to stabilize.

Aymeric collapsed into his chair, put his head on his lady’s shoulder even as he gripped her hand anew, and wept. In her sleep, Synnove’s hand twitched, and gripped back.

(On the tree outside the window, a bluebird began to sing.)

PREVIOUS PROMPT || FIN

#ffxivwrite2022 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #endwalker #endwalker spoilers #livingway #mappingway #krile baldesion #aymeric de borel #tataru taru #thancred waters #estinien wyrmblood #alisaie leveilleur #alphinaud leveilleur #urianger augurelt #oc: synnove greywolfe #oc: rereha reha #oc: alakhai noykin #oc: dancing heron #aymeric x wol #aymeric x synnove #dt's writing

[dragons-bones]

*slides you some monopoly money* Please would you tell us if you have any headcanons for how Rereha dealt with the Disaster Gay Couple (Sanson and Guydelot) during the Bard questline?

So Rereha knows you cannot force things when it comes to romance and/or sexual tension. You can poke and prod and nudge and encourage, but you cannot be forceful. It spooks the idiots morons individuals involved.

Sanson and Guydelot drove her fucking spare. Worse than Synnove and Aymeric, because that was a when and not an if.

Guydelot, like Rere, is a ho, but he's the kind of ho who doesn't immediately pick up on anything less than blatant attraction from the other party. Sanson I see as a flavor of demi with a hefty dose of hyperfixated on his goals, so he wouldn't recognize having a crush if it punched him in the stomach. Put these two together and you have constant sniping and growling and teasing and incredible amounts of sexual tension that neither are aware of.

Rere spent a number of nights flopped on the ground in Grandpa Jehantel's camp, staring up at the canopy while Jehantel strummed his harp or tuned her violin for her, and whined incessantly about how fucking stupid the pair were with zero indication either of them understood what hints she kept dropping. Jehantel just laughed at her.

She definitely screeched "FINALLY" at full volume when they finally got a clue and had their first sloppy makeout after defeating the Siren.

#anonymous #dt answers things #final fantasy xiv #oc: rereha reha #sanson smyth #guydelot thildonnet #sanson x guydelot #one day i will get through my inbox backlog /playdead

[dragons-bones]

*slides into your inbox to tell you that I love the fact that Rereha and Ivar are Chaos Buddie---errrr, friends*

🥰 Thank you, anon! They do not collaborate often (Ivar is a bit standoffish with anyone not his Ma or siblings, even his "aunties" after all these years), but when they do...

...listen, Rere has little impulse control when it doesn't matter (and she would argue it doesn't matter most of the time). Put her and the pyromaniac together and it's a recipe for disaster. Only reason they didn't get found out about their meddling in Elpis is because the critters weren't all fire or exploding, that would have tipped off Synnove and Heron immediately. (Alakhai, if she knew, would probably just be watching in the background all, "You are going to get in so much trouble but I'm not stopping you because it is going to be fucking hilarious.")

#anonymous #dt answers things #final fantasy xiv #synnove's carbuncles #oc: rereha reha

[dragons-bones]

i am taking that reblogged post as an invitation to ask you about behind the scenes fic facts, so: in the bloodshore cabin, obviously synnove and aymeric were in the master bedroom, but what are the sleeping arrangements like on squad vacations? how many bedrooms are there, actually? do they deathmatch rock-paper-scissors for their favorite rooms? sleepover cuddle puddle on one massive bed? (i mean it DID comfortably sleep an elezen and a highlander, i'm sure all the ladies could fit if they didn't mind getting cozy.) who in the squad is generally responsible for meals on vacation, or do they "order in" from local food vendors? who tries to hog all the hot water, if such a thing is possible?

OKAY SO :D :D :D :D

the Bloodshore cabin has a total of five bedrooms: the master bedroom on the third floor and then four more on the second floor. for Squad vacations when they were younger, Heron and Synnove were typically invited along with Rere's family, and the girls would all just bunk up together and sprawl over one another, though as a note this was mostly pre-Alakhai. (Rerenasu and Shushua would have the master, Rere's younger sisters had a room, Rere's grandma had a room, and Rere's grandma's nurse had the last room). when they get Alakhai (and Galette and Tyr and Ivar) and when they were older and Rere was allowed to rent out the cabin for herself, the Squad rotated who got the master bedroom, though inevitable there'd be another sleeping pile when gossip and card games went late.

Synnove and Heron generally handle meals on Bloodshore vacations, though Alakhai and even Rere help with food prep (they joke Rere could burn water, but she can feed herself out on Twelveswood patrols just fine, she just doesn't like cooking). the cabin's too isolated to make "take out" feasible, and the nearest village, Salt Grove, really isn't cosmopolitan enough for something like that anyway. occasionally they'll head up to Costa del Sol if they want something really fancy to eat, but that's usually part of a day trip.

Rere and Alakhai are probably the top contenders for Most Likely To Try To Wipe Out The Fire Crystals That Heat The Cabin Water. Rere's just a hedonist like that, and Alakhai doesn't admit it, but hot water is her favorite luxury. Aymeric, however, beats them both quite handily. :D

#blackestnight #dt answers things #final fantasty xiv #oc: synnove greywolfe #oc: rereha reha #oc: dancing heron #oc: alakhai noykin #THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME BLAB ABOUT SQUADVERSE LORE CYAN <3 <3 <3

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #22: Second Verse, Same as the First

Prompt: veracity || Master Post || On AO3

It wasn’t often that Synnove worked herself up into a good and proper lather, but her teeth-grinding had been audible when Alakhai and Rereha had collected her from Mealvaan’s Gate. The Xaela and the Dunesfolk had exchanged a quick glance and by silent agreement, once they had ordered their food, settled back and just let Synnove rant.

“—absolute bass ackwards logic,” the Highlander growled, stopping only to shove her arepa into her mouth and tear off a large bite of cornmeal cake, this one stuffed with black beans, cheese, and braised buffalo meat, and chewed angrily.

Alakhai refilled her glass of tizana from the communal pitcher the waitress had brought them and took a sip of the fruit punch concoction, slurping up a free-floating piece of mango, too. This little café started up by a family from the southern continent of the New World had quickly become a favorite in Limsa Lominsa, and every table inside and out on the boardwalk was packed. The din was incredible, and was about the only reason Synnove wasn’t attracting attention with her vitriol.

Rereha plucked an arepa filled with pear alligator, fried plaintains, and stewed dodo meat from the platter—her third one of the meal, the lalafell delicately devouring the arepa with the long practice of someone used to eating potentially messy food without spilling anything—and said, with faux innocence, “What about it is so bass ackwards?”

Alakhai rolled her eyes; Synnove had her head down and couldn’t see her, but Rere did, and the bard shot her a winning smile, teeth sparkling white against her dark brown skin.

Their sister snarled, choked, and stopped to finish chewing and then swallowed. Alakhai and Rere refrained pointing and laughing. Barely.

Mouth no longer full, Synnove said, “He doesn’t want to continue with the project because he thinks there’s enough data, which boggles my mind because more data is always useful, and I’ve been happily signing off on the funding for the aetherophysics portion since they kicked me upstairs. Fucking Ul’dahns, the University is just pure trash outside the literature and architecture departments, not sorry, Rere.”

The lalafell shrugged. “You aren’t wrong.”

Alakhai blinked. “The corrupted aether project?” she said slowly.

“The one studying the long-term effects of the Calamity?” Rereha added, just as baffled.

“The one that’s only been collecting data for five years?”

“Because it took five years just to build all the equipment?”

“Yes,” Synnove hissed, malevolence coating the word so thickly it nearly had tangible weight.

Alakhai and Rereha exchanged looks.

“Which is the stupidest shite I’ve ever heard,” Synnove said, green eyes flashing with rage. “This is the kind of project that’s going to take decades before we can make any kind of statement about environmental effects, never mind the ones on people, and what data we do have is pointing to there being no neat and tidy equitable range of factors.”

The Highlander began ticking off on her fingers: “The East Shroud was fairly annihilated by the Calamity, but Stillglade Fane’s reports over the years is showing stabilizing and reversal, there’s a chance they might be able to jumpstart replanting the forest within the next few years.

“The Agelyss Wise outcroppings don’t seem to be doing anything; current hypothesis is that the fragment of Dalamud lodged in there may be why, but the East Shroud is littered with them. The huge corrupted spikes in Pharos Sirius seem to be corroding, and there’s a huge expanse on the north slope of U’Ghamaro that the kobolds report has shrunk considerably since the Calamity.”

A third finger: “Thalana’s a mess. The Burning Wall may be something we have to actively dismantle, there’s a population of quartz doblyns where we’re beginning to see mutations every generation, that’s up from every third generation in the Calamity’s immediate aftermath, and the flora’s crystallizing. And that isn’t taking into account some of the illnesses being reported out of the nearby villages.”

A frown had crossed Rere’s face at that, and she set down her arepa to tug at her pink-and-white braids in her typical I’m thinking really hard right now pose.

Synnove ticked out a fourth finger: “Dalamud’s Talons in Northern Thanalan? Expanding. I don’t need to tell you two what an encouragement like that could do to the ceruleum fields, we need to know how fast it’s happening in order to start the clean up.”

Rereha’s frown deepened, and Alakhai nudged her sister’s ankle with her foot. Synnove snapped her mouth closed and glanced at Alakhai, then at Rere when Alakhai gestured to the lalafell.

“What’s this guy’s family name again?” Rereha said.

“Allond.”

“And just when did you get those latest reports from Eastern and Northern Thanalan?”

Synnove stared at her sister, her expression fading into the terrifyingly blank mask that once had Gaius Baelsar cautiously ease out of her line of sight during the Werlyt mess, and currently had Alakhai scooching her chair further away from her. Finally, the arcanist said, “They were the last reports the project received, a fortnight ago.”

“The Allonds intermarry quite a bit with the Whites,” Rereha said slowly, “and the Whites are—”

“—notoriously stingy and in possession of a reputation of wringing every last drop of gil from their lands they can and damn everyone else,” Synnove finished, voice deathly quiet, hands clutching the edge of the table.

Alakhai wondered whose head would roll first.

“And guess who owns a nice chunk of land out in Eastern Thanalan on which a number of tenant farmers reside, and recently purchased stock in the Amajina & Sons ceruleum operation?”

The wood beneath Synnove’s hands creaked ominously, and then Synnove shoved her chair back and stood up. “I need to go raise hell with Thubyrgeim and the Admiral,” she said.

“Have fun!” Rereha said, beaming a very evil smile. “I’ll give Lilira a warning ping you’re going to be descending on her.”

“She enjoys ripping up the Monetarists anyway,” Alakhai murmured.

Synnove grunted an agreement, dropped a handful of gil on the table to cover her third of the bill, and grabbed an arepa on her way out of the café. She must have put her murder face on once her back was turned, because the crowd cleared a path for her immediately.

“Truth over solace in lies,” the bard said cheerfully, stuffing her face anew with her arepa.

Alakhai raised her eyebrow at her. “What?”

“Eh, nothing,” Rere said around her mouthful. “Just the bard brain making pretty phrases. Pour me a refill on the tizana, please?”

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[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #21: After Action Report

Prompt: solution || Master Post || On AO3

A/N: Thank you to @blackestnight for reminding me of “alcohol as a solution.” :D

--

Thancred braced his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. “An Ascian,” he moaned, voice half-muffled. “He woke her up as an Ascian. Don’t they need those memory stones to pull off that sort of nonsense?”

“The forbidden rock candies? Yeah, normally.”

“Rereha, I beseech thee,” Urianger sighed in the tone of the long-suffering, pouring more whiskey into his coffee, “in language thou art capable of comprehending: stop calling them that.”

“They are brightly colored like the fruit-flavored hard candies the confectioners on Quartz Avenue sell,” Rereha said haughtily with her nose in the air , clutching her pint of ale close, “and it makes my brain go ‘sweet and crunchy, put in mouth and chew.’ Therefore, they are forbidden rock candies, fight me.”

“Thou art a menace, and I will do as Synnove oft threaten, and toss thee into Silvertear from the highest tower of the Toll.”

“Not if I bite your ankles off first!”

“Tangent,” Thancred said tiredly. “Stop making me be the Heron and let me wallow, you degenerates.”

Both Urianger and Rereha harrumphed and took long swigs of their respective drinks.

“So, yeah,” Rereha continued after lowering her pint, “Synnove theorizes that the combination of the sheer amount of power Mitron had access to as Eden and the depth of his relationship-obsession-whatever with Loghrif is probably what triggered a partial ascension.”

“And with a fraction of power already available to her as the Oracle of Darkness, Mitron’s manipulations further primed Gaia for transformation,” Urianger mused, and shook his head slowly. “Always, with the Ascians, the inability to let go of the past driveth much, if not all, of their choices. I begin to wonder if such was a requirement when the Unsundered sought replacements for empty seats.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Thancred muttered. “But both Ryne and Gaia are all right?”

“Yup!” Rereha said, “Right as rain—well, except for the damage Mitron did to Gaia’s memories. We had a bit of a scare with Gaia; after the battle, her consciousness had been yanked…somewhere. All Gaia remembers is just walking through endless darkness. But Ryne used your gunblade as a focus and was able to bring her back.”

Thancred laughed, fond and soft. “That’s my girl,” he said, then dropped his hands and shoved his empty mug towards Urianger. The elezen poured him a generous serving of whiskey, and the two clacked their cups together.

“Nice big flash of released aether came along with it, too, finished revitalizing that pocket of the Empty,” Rereha chirped as Thancred took a deep pull of fine La Noscean booze. “The girls don’t do things by halves. Synnove’s doing survey work with the Crystarium environmental teams still to assess the other nodes, but the prelim reports are showing that the effect is spreading.”

“A successful endeavour, then,” Urianger said, a proud smile on the face. “The restoration of the Empty begineth properly, and will continue apace with the care and attention of the people of the First.”

“It just took primals and possessions and bloody Ascians to get it done,” Thancred said, taking a sip of whiskey and then dropping his head to the table. “I’m feeling oddly sympathetic to Ran’jit right now and I bloody hate it.”

“The fox kit is very good at attracting trouble,” Rereha said with a nod.

“A skill unique to any who beareth the Echo,” Urianger drawled.

“Rude! I resemble that remark.”

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[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #4: With Ice Cold Hands

Prompt: defile (free write!) || Master Post || On AO3

A/N: My goal this FFXIV Write is that for free write Sundays, I’m going to specifically write scenes from Endwalker as they occurred in Squadverse, which is unusual because I normally prefer to write the bits between canon. So naturally, I started here.

I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.

WARNINGS: Spoilers for Endwalker. Body horror, dysphoria, Fandaniel, Zenos. Mentioned alcohol and drug use, blood, violence, gore, panic attacks, close calls with vomiting.

----

Rereha isn’t a stranger to not knowing where she wis when she wakes up, and trying to blink herself awake now, she certainly doesn’t recognize the table before her. No design she’s ever seen, and ugly as shite to boot, which is impressive to someone who grew up in Ul’dah and has seen all the “fashionable” trends come and go. But that isn’t what seemed different.

The headache isn’t the throbbing behind her eyes that was indicative of her having drunk to excess the night before, nor was there the sour taste in her mouth that accompanied a hangover, either. No particular tingle or burn in her sinuses or the back of her throat, either, that would suggest she’d been very stupid indeed and backslid into bad habits from her days as a bored heiress. Her limbs, however, feel oddly heavy, like they were too long, and even sitting down, her sense of balance feels off.

Her vision isn’t quite right. Is there something on her head? Gods, where even is she, the last thing she remembers is…

Is…

…Oh no.

A voice, familiar in a way that sent ice down her spine:

“The experiment was a success, but I fear our time is short.”

Rereha blacks out again, but she isn’t sure for how long. In the next blink of consciousness, there is a full dinner service in front of her, but any appetite she might have vanishes when she raises her head further and sees fucking Zenos sitting on the opposite end of a banquet table from herself, eating baked salmon as if nothing is out of the ordinary.

Fandaniel’s grating voice draws her attention, and she whips her head to the side to stare at the Ascian, only half-aware of what he is saying until: “Take a moment, too, to familiarize yourself with that borrowed flesh.”

Ice runs through her whole body, except it isn’t her body, is it, as she looks down, at fingers too long attached to palms too wide attached to wrists too thick attached to arms too no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no—

Fandaniel is monologuing, fucking monologuing, what is it with Ascians and Garleans and monologuing, and Rereha is only idly aware of what the bastard is going on about. If she gets out of this—when she gets out of this—she will be able to recall everything verbatim; it’s a handy trick her grandmama taught her, useful for any Ul’dahn socialite to acquire gossip and blackmail, and it’s served her well as both bard and intelligencer for the Scions. Who expects the hedonist deep in her cups to be paying attention, after all? Even with panic choking her, she knows with a certainty deep in her bones she won’t lose a single drop of information the Ascian is feeding her.

Aulus, though. Son of a fucking bitch. Alakhai and Thancred and Tataru had been worried they couldn’t confirm whether any of that bastard’s research had made it out of Ala Mhigo. Here’s the answer, too little, too late.

She wants to be pithy, to be snide, but all that escapes her mouth is, “Give me back my body!” in a voice that isn’t hers. Not high enough, not smooth enough, not female enough, distorted further by the helmet’s vocoder, the words rumbling in someone else’s throat oh gods oh gods oh gods whose skin did they put her in, did they rip out some poor tempered boy’s soul and shove hers in, or was this a shell—

Zenos watches without speaking, with his cold, dead eyes. Somehow, that’s worse than Fandaniel’s manic gloating.

The roar that echoes the room sends a different kind of shiver down her spine, and there’s the skinstealer going off on another tangent and—oh.

Oh.

No one deserves that.

Not even Varis zos Galvus.

And then his accursed son finally deigns to speak.

Revulsion mixes with the horror that already lurks on the back of her—this body’s—tongue, and she swallows back bile. Vomiting in a helmet would just make an already shitty day even worse. Gods, but she loathes what this monster in a man’s skin assumes about her and her sisters, that they are exactly like him, deriving pleasure and meaning from bloodshed and violence just because they managed to give him a fucking challenge.

Rereha remembers her arm dangling by tendon and a strip of muscle, her heart pumping her life’s blood onto the sands of Rhalgr’s Reach as she screamed and screamed and screamed. Rereha remembers Alisaie’s hands on her tying a tourniquet and shoving what little conjury she knew into her traumatized body. Rereha remembers intimately finding out what it feels like to have her brachial artery forcibly knit itself together bit by bit by bit, until the blessed relief of oblivion finally claimed her.

Her arm twinges with the memory and bile rises anew in her throat because that is not her arm.

It’s not until he gets up and begins strolling away, still spewing his bullshite even as Fandaniel stands prim and proper in his tailed suit with a bottle of wine ready to serve (the vintage is one whose even she would wheeze at, where she not trying not to have a hysterical fit of terror), that she sees the chair.

(Helmets are fucking stupid, especially Garlean ones with their absolute shite peripheral vision.)

That is her body, slumped over like she’s merely fallen asleep on an airship ride. Even her hat is still in place.

Adrenaline is the only reason she doesn’t fall flat on her—his—this face as she attempts to race towards Zenos, her center of gravity too far off the fucking ground and fuck being tall this is fucking awful and for the first time tonight Zenos is emoting, that disgusting feral smile on his face GET AWAY FROM M—

Too late. Zenos’s body drops like a marionette with its strings cuts, and he—she—he raises her head and she just barely keeps from retching because that look. That expression.

That doesn’t belong on her face.

If she lives through this, she knows that will haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.

And then he’s fucking gone, of course, he’s in a godsdamn body, HER godsdamn body, which is capable of using aether which means he can teleport which means oh god oh god oh god he can teleport he can teleport her friends what about her friends—

“Oh dear!” Fandaniel’s gleeful malice draws her attention. “Whatever would happen if my lord were to greet your friends as you? I shudder to imagine what carnage he would wreak!”

She can’t decide if she wants to scream or to punch that faux innocence off Fandaniel’s stupid stolen punchable face maybe she can do both shut up you rat shut up shut up shut up not her friends not her sisters not her family no no no no no—

Rereha doesn’t have time to panic or punch his stupid stolen punchable face only because Fandaniel yanks her across space-time or however the fuck it is Ascians teleport and makes her the star of his newest little game.

It is hell.

Her legs are too damn long and so are her arms and her center of gravity is utterly fucked because while she is in her proper body, she has the arms and shoulders of a god from all her archery work, she’s still bottom heavy. Her ass is amazing, thank you. And this poor damn dead victim she’s been summarily stuffed into like cream filling into an éclair has no fucking ass and no fucking hips and his shoulders and chest are fucking huge and all of his armor is on his head and chest and what the fuck. What the actual fuck.

And of course, because the body is Garlean infantry, that means sword and board. The soldier before her might be tempered, but he hasn’t last any of his skill, and she has none; this is Heron’s realm. She stumbles over her feet, is barely able to bring her dinky little round shield up in time to prevent her-his-this head from being knocked off her-his-this shoulders.

She can’t subdue him. There are no waiting squads of Contingent soldiers ready to swoop in with restraints and bring him back to camp to reverse his tempering. Fandaniel is right there, providing color commentary because he is a raging dick, and there’s zero doubt in her mind he wouldn’t do something to get the soldier back on his feet. The killing blow she lands is lucky, and the blood that steams out into the frigid air is red, red, red.

Rereha isn’t a stranger to killing; she’s Twin Adders, for gods’ sake, and while she likes to think she’s better than her Gridania-born compatriots in trying to give Keepers and Duskwights the benefit of the doubt, she has still had to put down poachers or bandits who threatened innocent lives, or her own. She’s had to kill tempered before. She’s had to kill before period, and she doesn’t like it, not a bit, no matter what Zenos thinks is true in his deluded, blood-addled mind, but that’s the world she lives in, though she’s trying to make it a better place so that it isn’t such a world.

But she hasn’t had to kill in a long while now.

She’s at least pathetically grateful that the sight of a man run through and bleeding out still makes her want to be sick. Her soul might not be in the right place at the moment, but she isn’t what Zenos claims she is.

She isn’t his fucking mirror.

“Not bad at all, given your diminished capacity!” Fandaniel laughs and claps from his perch. The urge to throw her sword at him is so high right now. “Nevertheless, ‘twould perhaps be prudent to keep to the shadows, scurrying about like a rodent!”

He vanishes into void again, thinking he’s being cute. Yeah, well, fuck you, Fanny-boy, one of her sisters is a rogue, like Alakhai’s never taught her to be a sneaky bitch, she just doesn’t usually want to be a sneaky bitch.

Rereha knows she’s under a time crunch, so she pushes down her panic and hysteria in favor of moving as quickly and as softly as she can, ducking behind broken walls or climbing over piles of debris, sometimes staying as still as possible while waiting for tempered soldiers to turn a corner. She scavenges medical kits from the dead, tending to her wounds as she walks because fuck fuck fuck she can’t even draw on ambient aether to speed up her healing, a trick anyone who signs up with the Adventurers’ Guild is taught.

She stumbles across a crossroad full of magitek, but of course it’s the most direct route she needs; there’s no telling how long it’ll take her to find a less dangerous path going around. But there’s a reaper close enough with its weapons intact, even though the leg is damaged; it can’t walk but it sure as fuck can shoot. All right, there’s her way through.

The pilot is nearby and by some miracle, both still alive and untempered. She shares some of her medical kits with him as he explains what happened, quickly helps him set his hand so the bones don’t heal wrong and makes mental note of all the surrounding landmarks as he presses the reaper’s keycard into her palm. The least she can do is send him help once she’s back at Broken Glass.

Of course she can’t find an undamaged, somewhat full ceruleum fuel tank close by, though. Of fucking course. Her fucking luck, she wants a word with the manager. She wastes precious time tracking one down, and then hauling it back, but for a moment she is grateful the body she’s in has the upper body strength to carry the fuel tank.

Fuck but she misses her tits, though. She really, really wants her tits back.

It is…deeply satisfying using the reaper to tear through the waves of magitek guarding her path home. The explosions rock the Region Urbanissma, and at one point, out of the corner of her eye, she sees the pilot peering over a hole in the wall of his hideaway, cheering her on.

The magitek stop coming, eventually, and she hops down and continues on, her success giving her a burst of energy as she sneaks behind more tempered soldiers.

But then there are civilians.

“You there, please! Help us!”

Pragmatism says she should continue on her way. Idealism dictates she doesn’t.

Rereha is a Warrior of Light. Even in the depths of her terror, she won’t forget that. Fandaniel and Zenos won’t take that from her.

Now, she sets aside Alakhai, and draws on Dancing Heron, her literal and figurative big sister. She has watched Heron dance with a sword for decades, listened to her lecture students about form and stance and footwork, and when she bends her mind to recalling those details, this unwanted body responds. Whoever he was, he was a fine warrior before Fanny-boy dug his claws into his soul, and his muscle memory is smooth.

She just hopes it doesn’t become her own, too.

She channels Heron further, rallying the civilians, taking the attention of the wildlife, as hungry and desperate as the people, letting the civvies attack from the back and flanks while she harasses from the front. They’re smart, capable, and holy hells, one of them found a working reaper.

But that’s when a platoon of tempered, led by a soldier so corrupted that Anima’s influence has warped them into a hulking brute identifiable only as a former person because they walk on two legs, arrive. There are many, and they keep coming. There are not enough medkits to go around.

The corrupted soldier begins channeling his aether, and Rereha recognizes a suicide tactic. So does one of the civvies, who calls out to them to duck back behind the magitek reaper—

—and that’s how they find out the tanks littering the area aren’t empty.

The explosion sends her and the civvies into the air. She hits the ground first, and likely the only thing that saves her life is this stupid, cumbersome, blinding, heavy armor. The civvies finish falling next, with sickening crunches.

There are wet, choked gasps around her. And then there is silence.

Does she lose consciousness? She doesn’t know. She’s aware of the blackness of her vision. Maybe she took a hit to the head that blinded her. Blinded this body.

There’s a heartbeat in her ears.

If there’s a heartbeat, there’s hope.

Rereha forces herself awake, forces the eyes of this body open. This body is broken. She has lost all sense of time.

She cannot give up.

She reaches forward, hooks the body’s fingers into the ground, pulls as she pushes off with the knee. A sob hitches in her-his-this chest, and tears pour down her stolen face. Reaches forward with the other arm, hooks that hand into the ground, pulls as she pushes off with the other knee. And again.

And again.

And again.

She chokes on her sobs, shattered ribs protesting and shattering further, and she crawls.

She crawls, because she cannot give up.

At some point, she’s able to force herself up on both legs, limping, sword dangling almost uselessly in the body’s hand. She stumbles through snow, somehow manages to avoid the hungry wildlife. She thinks she’s getting closer to Camp Broken Glass; she doesn’t see any patrols, but there aren’t any tempered, either.

She hears her name.

Rereha looks up.

She’s wandered off the path, but managed to still stumble mostly in the right direction. There are G’raha and Alisaie.

They are not looking at her, in this broken body.

They are looking at Zenos, in her body.

She runs. Every step is agony but she runs because she can’t do anything else, and there’s some creature rising into the air above her stolen head and it’s going to attack her friends and NO.

NO.

The creature’s sickle is knocked aside by the sword she’s just thrown, and heads turn in her direction as she keeps stumbling forward.

“Get away from them, you FUCKING BASTARD!” she howls, ramming into her body.

Oblivion.

--

Rereha isn’t a stranger to not knowing where she wis when she wakes up, but trying to blink herself awake now, she thinks she has a vague inkling of where that rug belongs. A design she’s only seen in this frozen shithole, and ugly as shite to boot, which is impressive to someone who grew up in Ul’dah and has seen all the “fashionable” trends come and go. But hey, she doesn’t feel too tall anymore.

“Thank goodness. She’s awake!”

Memory rushes back, and her eyes snap open.

The Scions and her sisters and Lucia and Maxima are clustering around her; they’re in the room she shares with her sisters in Camp Broken Glass. It was Alphinaud who spoke, and the naked relief on his face is a stark contrast to the cheerful madness of Fandaniel.

She looks down at her hands: the right size. She pats at her face, down her body, stops perhaps a moment too long on her tits because oh thank fuck she has her tits back before going further down to stomach and hips and legs, wonderful short legs.

Her hat is on her head. Her hat is on her head.

She looks around frantically, at her friends, at her family, looking for wounds or injury or anger, something rising hot and sour in her throat. “Is everyone all right?” she says in her voice. Her voice, high-pitched with a lilting Ul’dahn drawl hiding in the vowels.

It’s G’raha who answers, saying soft and soothing, “Perfectly fine, yes. I hope the same can be said of you.”

He’s a good boy, but oh. Oh, that was the wrong thing to say.

She stares at him for a long moment, and then that hot-sour feeling bubbles over, and she is sobbing. Deep, huge, heaving, retching sobs, and she hurriedly buries her face in her hands and keens.

It’s Thancred who gathers her up into a hug, humming an Ul’dahn lullaby. Rereha clutches his shoulders and bawls into his coat, breathing in the familiar scent of sword oil and his favorite shitty cologne as she fights to breathe. There’s someone pressing up behind her—Synnove, definitely, and the way she’s being smooshed forward into Thancred, Heron’s right behind Synnove. A snuffling sound, and Tyr’s shoving his head into the pile, face pressing into her stomach, and his big boof rattles her teeth in her head and every bone in her body and she never knew how much she loved that feeling.

There’s a big Scion group hug forming around her, she can sense the weight of so many bodies. Even Estinien, though he’s less cuddling and more placing his hand atop her head, the heat of him evident even through her hat.

Thancred keeps humming in her ear, her dumbass bar crawl buddy who wusses out over cactus liquor but can still beat her at darts even when he’s downed a bottle and a half of goblin motor oil masquerading as brandy, and doesn’t tell her she’ll be all right. It isn’t what she wants to hear right now. He’d know almost better ‘n anybody, wouldn’t he?

Eventually, she’ll get her shit together. She’s a Warrior of Light, and she has a job to do.

But right now, Rereha sobs.

It helps.

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[dragons-bones]

how many named NPCs has Rereha slept with?

Surprisingly few--for all that Rere is a shameless hedonist who flirts as easily as she breathes, has ogled many good-looking men and women across Eorzea, and whose usual qualifications for a bedmate are only "an adult and able to verbally consent," she does have a sense of propriety of when it's actually appropriate to try to sleep with someone. This is further compounded by the fact that not everyone she finds attractive is someone she necessarily wants to bang (personality clashes, yo) and not everyone she'd be DTF is interested in her in turn.

Of the various MSQ and side quest characters she has in fact slept with:

Thancred (once, and it was weird; they work better as the Scions' pair of shameless flirts tag-teaming off one another)

Moenbryda (very athletic, very awesome, Rere was walking funny for three days)

Leofard (regular FWB)

Radlia (only once, a shame, Rere would be down for more assignations)

Nero (very sporadically, usually only when they're both Bored and Nero's got a new "invention" to test)

Reyna Breakhook (Rere has zero idea about how she funds her fishing expeditions, they've merely run into one another in various taverns over the years; sometimes they bang, sometimes they just drink and swap traveling stories)

Cyella (before and after "Shadow Walk with Me")

Radovan and Sophie (separately and together, 10/10 highly recommended experience)

As a note: Rereha is aromatic, and all of her sexual encounters are precluded by a brief discussion to make it clear that Rere is here for a fun time and a fun time only.

#anonymous #dt answers things #final fantasy xiv #oc: rereha reha #ty for the ask! #i really had to think hard about this #because rere definitely finds EVERYONE attractive #but for her that doesn't necessarily translate into her actually /sleeping/ with them #and like #they are so many npcs out there she would find personally off-putting and vice versa #or if she found them hot there's generally a fairly good reason she's mentally classified them as 'off-limits' or 'hard no'

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #25: At the End of All Things

Prompt: eschatology (free write!) || Master Post || On AO3

A/N: Spoilers for Endwalker, and warnings for blood and violence at the end of the piece.

Here we go.

--

It is a fundamental truth of combat that no battleplan survives first contact with the enemy.

Even with that in mind, as she falls unconscious from lack of air, Dancing Heron can’t help but think the Scions set a brand-new record for the plan going straight to shite even before they met their enemy. Just their damned luck.

The edge of existence is awful, desolate in both terrain and spirit. Heron and her sisters are quiet, where normally they would banter, attempting to fill the silence of the group as they traversed the landscape; even Rereha is subdued, the weight of Meteion’s dynamis and Thancred’s disappearance a pall over them all. Normally, Heron and Thancred would switch off who takes point and who guards the rear, but today Heron must stay in the lead.

And then Meteion taunts with what she did to Thancred, and what Thancred did in his last moments.

Heron is…she is not surprised.

Stay standing, despite all thought or reason, attempt to disable the enemy, and when that fails—give his everything for his family, to use Meteion’s own weapon against her and give them a chance to continue on, however slim it is. That’s Thancred. That he, somehow, was also able to give Y’shtola true sight in this broken hell, isn’t a surprise either; even when he played at the roguish cad, he always displayed a keen thoughtfulness for those he loved.

(She’s reminded, too, her lips quirking as the memory flits behind her eyes, of a sly comment Thancred made years ago, just before he and Lyse and her sisters and herself dove into the salty depths of Loch Seld to infiltrate Ala Mhigo in the lead up to the liberation, about being able to hold his breath. Rereha had taken the obvious bait, both bards falling into an innuendo exchange that had had the rest of them groaning.

Later, she promises herself, she’s going to beat Rereha to the obvious ribald joke when she lifts a tankard in memory.)

And then Estinien is next. And Y’shtola and Urianger. Finding the path forward, no matter what.

Heron cannot let herself break. She cannot. She’s the shield, the bulwark against danger, and she cannot falter. Thancred and Estinien and Y’shtola and Urianger have acknowledge more than once the willingness to lay down their lives to see this last journey through, have placed their faith in Heron and her sisters, and she will not insult them by mourning. Not now.

Later.

It’s G’raha’s sacrifice of all of them that causes the first real cracks.

Heron is the cool, calm adult of the Warriors of Light; Synnove gets mistaken for one only because she is very good at pretending to be one at the Arcanists’ Guild. Heron is reason and sense and the strong arm to dunk one of her sisters in the nearest body of water when they’re being gremlins.

And she holds a grudge worse than any of them.

The Crystal Exarch’s plan to save the First and avert the Eighth Umbral Calamity was, to put it mildly, fucking terrible. And as the most highly attuned to her aether and how to manipulate it, Synnove had been the best choice to contain the Lightwardens’ essences. Her little sister was a brilliant aetherologist, if the Exarch had taken the time to explain his theories before throwing them at the Lightwarden of Lakeland, or sat down with her at any point after instead of leaving Synnove to muddle through it on her own with the assumption there was no further information to be had—

Synnove had nearly paid for that willful negligence with her life. And when it came to the well-being of her sisters, Dancing Heron of Ul’dah did not forget, and she did not forgive.

G’raha Tia was not the Crystal Exarch—not entirely, the blending of selves effectively creating a new individual with the memories of the old. But while Synnove had been willing to allow a fresh start, with Rereha and Alakhai following her lead, Heron had not. Had it been fair? Perhaps not. G’raha, at least, had respected her simmering anger and left her be, and she had done the same.

It's the cheerful young man, so certain they’ll succeed and have the chance to adventure somewhere new, even in the face of Y’shtola’s warning that they can’t use the Azem stone to restore the lost Scions. He believes in them, enough to counter the despair of the omicrons, powerful enough to forge yet another path forward.

(She’s going to have to buy him at least one drink. Honor demands it.)

But if G’raha is the crack, the twins are the dam breaking.

“Please,” Heron breathes, falling to her knees before Alisaie and Alphinaud, “please not you, too.”

Alisaie throws herself into a hug, and Heron clings to her, tears pouring down her cheeks.

“Alphinaud’s plans have a way of working out, in the end,” Alisaie says, though her voice is suspiciously watery.

Alphinaud butts his way in, and Heron enfolds him into the hug, too, as her other siblings crowd around them; Rereha clings to Alphinaud’s waist, and Alakhai is hugging Alisaie from behind.

“Given the nature of this realm,” her little brother says, hesitantly, “it may be possible to do more than unbar your path. We might also pave you a new one. One where you find happiness at journey’s end.”

Heron squeezes her eyes shut and tightens her hold on the twins further. Her heart hurts, she should be the one doing this, it’s her job to put herself in the line of danger, to take the blows for them all—

“This much, I think we can believe with the utmost conviction.” Alphinaud’s voice is stronger now, giving truth to his claim. “No matter how deep our despair.

“So please, believe in us too. And press on.”

Oh, damn him, her brilliant little brother. But he’s right. She owes him the courtesy of that belief, when so often he has believed in her, in them.

Heron breathes out. “All right,” she says. “All right. Let’s see this through.”

--

The final walk is the hardest thing she has ever done.

Heron has Synnove talked under one arm, and Alakhai under the other, and Rereha is sitting on her shoulders with Heron’s shield supporting her back. Synnove and Alakhai are nearly mirrored, an arm each around Heron’s waist with their hands grasping at their other sister; Galette is tucked into Synnove’s free arm, warbling sadly. Rereha clings to Heron’s head.

They are each of them crying.

“I swear to any god listening that if one of you throw yourself on the metaphorical sword to make a new path,” Heron says through her tears, “I will resurrect you solely to beat you to death with my shield.���

“And if you do the same, I’m beating you with my grimoire,” Synnove sniffles.

“Please tell me one of you has thought of something,” Alakhai rasps.

“Yeah,” Rereha says. “Gonna need the orange rock candy.”

Heron can’t stop the sputtering laugh that escapes her as Synnove growls out, “Stop calling them that,” even as she reaches into her hip ouch to draw out Azem’s stone.

Rereha takes it, and Heron feels her lalafell sister prop it on the top of her head.

In this place of dynamis, of emotion given tangibility, Heron can hear echoes from the past, and it steadies her stance, firms her grip on her sisters. But it’s the last that gives her the will to take that final step:

Let’s finish this.

Heron helps Rereha down as Meteion taunts them; this messenger of the Meteia isn’t worth listening to. For all that she quails in the face of the task before her and her sisters, Heron won’t give up.

She owes it to her family not to.

Rereha steps forward, clutching the Azem stone in her hands. She rocks back and forth on her heels, and then looks over her shoulder at Synnove. “You aren’t going to like this,” she says.

“What are you—oh for fuck’s sake.” Synnove’s sigh is deep and weary. “He’s going to be an insufferable prick.”

“Isn’t he always?” Rereha says. For the first time since they arrived here, she’s cheerful, and Heron sighs herself as she realizes what Rereha is about to do.

She has always been exceptionally good at finding loopholes.

Turning back to Meteion, her grin still in place, Heron’s tiny sister says, as the Azem stone begins to glow, “All right, boys! Time to join the show!”

--

“Endsinger,” Synnove names the creature that rises from the flock of black-winged Meteia.

A single, tiny bluebird flits before the herald of the Final Days. Stop! their Meteion cries out to her sisters. Calm yourself! Please, stop!

The Scions try, oh, but they try, but in the face of ichor of the Endsinger’s despair and fury, and the echoes of dead stars, they fall before her, their magicks shattered, their weapons broken. Meteion pleads and pleads, but the Endsinger is deaf to her.

A single beat of the Endsinger’s wings sends nearly all the Scions airborne, leaving just Heron and her own sisters, and she watches in horror as the Endsinger gathers the means to destroy her family once and for all. For a moment, there is rage in her heart, and hatred, that despite all the Endsinger’s claims of the gift of oblivion, she would resort to such cruelty as to make them watch her family die.

Too bad for the Endsinger that Bloewyda and Wilfsunn are brilliant aetherologists.

“Girls,” Heron says, “it’s our show now.”

She knows they understand. They always do.

As one, they push themselves to their feet, and reach into pouches or pockets. Rereha’s teleportation device flies from her hand first. Synnove’s is next, then Alakhai’s.

Heron lifts her head; even from this distance she can see Alisaie reaching out, hear her call out, desperate and afraid: “Stop!”

If they make it back from this, she will deserve the ire of her youngest sister, and she will let the elezen maid rage at her for as long as she desires. And if they don’t, she hopes Alisaie will rage at her regardless. She is at peace with what must be done. This is her job.

Dancing Heron blows Alisaie a kiss, pushes the button, and lets go.

--

CRACK!

The walls of the dead suns, of the Meteia’s nest, shake, huge cracks now glinting across the starscape of eternity. Endsinger and Warriors of Light alike turn, all five of them stunned.

“My Ultimatum,” the Endsinger says, truly dumbfounded. “What is happening?”

Heron is briefly reminded of another time a being broke through the spaces between worlds to reach them, it’s Rere who puts into a single, hopeful word what each of the sisters are thinking: “Dad?”

Reality breaks.

It is not Midgardsormr.

A bluebird flutters to perch on Heron’s shoulder, bunching close to her cheek with her feathers floofed up in alarm. What is that?

Heron reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose, sighing gustily. “A headache,” she mutters.

Synnove is now beating her forehead on the shoulder opposite little Meteion, a rhythmic thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

“A concussion isn’t going to help,” Heron says over Rereha and Alakhai’s very loud, very colorful swearing. It’s always a fun day when Alakhai is reduced to using spoken words.

“No, but it makes me feel better,” Synnove says.

Well. The son of a bitch is offering a ride. This might as well happen.

--

“What do you think?” Heron says. “Four, or eight?”

“Eight’s always a good number,” Synnove says. Alakhai grunts her agreement.

On the back of a dragon, Rereha hands Heron the Azem stone. She holds it to her chest, breathes out, and puts all her will and hope into the stone, all of the love she has for her sisters and her chosen family and her star. The stone awakens once more, the summoning spell spilling forth bright and warm as the sun, painting golden beams around her and her sisters’ feet, creating a platform and Heron calls out:

Will you come?

A beat of her heart, two, three, four—and four more Warriors of Light, from across space and time, answer.

And now for tradition:

Heron grins ferociously and settles her shield on her arm, drawing her sword in the same motion. “Give us the beat,” she says.

Synnove begins to whistle, and drums her grimoire against her thigh; even in a realm of dynamis, the aethersong must be thick in Synnove’s mind with how quickly she settles into the rhythm. Alakhai picks it up after her, stomping a foot, knives in hand, and then Rereha’s voice, a soprano clear as a crystal bell, rises like a clarion call.

This is what Dancing Heron and Synnove Greywolfe and Rereha Reha and Alakhai Noykin do best:

Save the world.

--

Heron coughs, blood pouring from her mouth, and stares up blankly at infinity.

Zenos viator Galvus has rattled his last accursed breath, and good riddance. She feels filthy, giving him the fight that he has craved for so long, but it is over. He won’t haunt her or her sisters’ steps ever again.

But just as they gave it their all, so did he, and he hadn’t fought the living embodiment of oblivion beforehand.

She rolls over, coughing again, her arm holding her intestines inside her stomach, and crawls to where her sisters lay to gather them close.

Alakhai is wheezing, deep and heavy and desperate: collapsed lung. Just one, which is a small miracle, with how caved in her chest is. Her face is a ruin and she might be blind in one eye now.

Synnove’s right arm is broken in at least two places, her hand crushed, and she is deep in aethershock, her skin the same grey pallor as a corpse; Heron distantly recalls seeing another mage, after the Sacking of Rhalgr’s Reach, in the same state, who died of organ failure.

Rereha can’t move at all, her spine possibly broken. Her palms are torn down to the bone, and she is covered in blood. Most of it isn’t hers. The killing blow against Zenos, after all, was Rereha’s. The lalafell had used a moment of distraction while he was gutting Heron to launch herself off Synnove’s collapsing body and straight at the Garlean, a feral scream tearing her throat. She had driven the broken remains of her bow into his throat, over and over and over and over, until he had thrown her off himself with a gurgling roar and her body had impacted the ground with a sickening crunch.

They’re bleeding out. If fate is kind, they’ll breath their last at the same time.

Heron collapses onto her back, blood thick in her throat and mouth, but she’s got her sisters now and she stares up at the end of the universe once more. Synnove lolls her head onto Heron’s broken shoulder, and Alakhai tucks herself into Heron’s ruined side, and Rereha buries her face in Heron’s blood-soaked hair.

“I love you,” Heron croaks.

“Love you, too,” Rereha whispers.

“I’m glad I picked you three,” Synnove says, more of a sigh. “I’m glad you picked me back.”

“See you on the other side,” Alakhai murmurs.

The only sound now is their uneven, crackling breaths.

In the starscape above them, Heron sees a pair of blue tailfeathers wheel, and a glint of something…metallic?

There’s a clatter, suddenly, just next to her head, opposite of Rereha. An eerie, familiar beeping croons in her ear, and slowly, horribly, despite the pain that infuses every cell of her being, Heron laughs.

They taught her well, the little hopesinger.

“Thank you,” she mouths.

The world goes black.

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[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #9: On the Rift’s Doorstep

Prompt: yawn || Master Post || On AO3

The Ironworks engineers and Warriors of Light stood at the edge of the gaping hole that marred the foothills of the Gyr Abanian Fringes, staring down in various stages of bewilderment, since where once an empty hollow lay, its distant nadir lost in the shadows of the earth, now was a veritable sea of aether.

Galette had taken one sniff and promptly de-manifested, her face twisted in revulsion. Tyr had pancaked next to his mama, peering over the rim of the hollow and down into the murky depths, deep suspicion on his own face. And Ivar had draped himself on his mama’s head, hind legs resting on her shoulders as if he was sitting on them, thrumming with anticipation for violence.

Synnove herself was crouched down, leaning against her thighs, one elbow propped on her knee and head resting in her hand as she stared down. Her eyes were heavy-lidded; to anyone unfamiliar with the arcanist, she would appear sleepy and uninterested, at stark contrast from Tyr’s tension and Ivar’s high-strung glee. She didn’t even twitch at Nero’s waxing eloquent over how Our precious had been busy, when normally she would have tried to wring his neck for such a statement.

Rereha glanced over at her sister, blinked, and scowled. “Stop doing doom-math,” she snapped, “that’s how you get grey hairs, you dork.”

Synnove used her free hand to swat at the bard without looking, but Rereha just danced out of the way with the ease of long practice. Ivar’s tails lashed at the jostling.

“What sort of doom—” Cid started, then stopped, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh. “Oh, fuck you, Greywolfe, now you’ve got me doing it.”

“Aw, damnit, Synnove,” Wedge whined quietly, head in his hands, now doing the doom-math in his head himself. Biggs rubbed his temples, muttering curses under his breath.

“Just because it’s a sea of condensed aether does not mean it’s going to explode, Synnove,” Dancing Heron said with a heavy sigh, arms crossed across her chest.

Synnove slid her gaze over to the Hellsguard, eyebrow ticking up.

“…Yes, I grant you our luck is in fact that terrible.”

Synnove’s eyes focused back on the miniature aetherial sea.

“My, but you’re bitchy today,” Heron said mildly.

Nero glanced at the sight anew himself, a thoughtful frown on his face. “This much condensed aether would provide an excellent opportunity to experiment with fuel for high-yield ordinance,” he mused, rubbing his chin.

Synnove flicked her pinky, the one on the hand keeping her head propped, expression unchanged except for a slight narrowing of her eyes. Alakhai took a bite of the pork bun she had brought with her from Kugane, and snapped her foot out to kick Nero in the back of his knee.

The former tribunus went down with an angry yell. “Fuck you, too, Greywolfe!”

Heron held out her hand. Alakhai smacked it in a victorious low five. Ivar cackled. Tyr sighed.

“I should sell tickets,” Rereha muttered, causing Heron to snort. “This shitshow could make me money.”

Hmmm… What villainy is this?

“Great,” Heron drawled, “Dad’s here.”

“Maybe this day’ll get better. Can’t get worse.”

Alakhai glared at Rereha. Synnove sighed, and finally spoke real words: “You jinxed it.”

It did, in fact, get worse.

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