#Laury Kir Nivalis | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

heirsofdiscord · 1 year ago

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Menphina

FFXIVwrite prompt #18: A Fish Out of Water | 2000 words A person in unfamiliar and often uncomfortable surroundings

Garlemald was still fucking cold. Yorick’s Lalafellan ancestors had come from islands known for their scorching heat and humidity. Yorick couldn’t stand warm temperatures though. He much preferred it when there was a chill in the air and he could wear a half dozen sweaters or curl up in a cozy place for a nap. Chalk that up to his Keeper blood. Still, if one discounted his probable Seeker grandfather and Yorick always did, his people were from jungles and forests. The cold in Garlemald wasn’t like it was in Eorzea. Few things were supposed to be able to live here and the things that did were unusually cruel and bitter. Nothing soft was allowed to grow.

Unless you were a particular conjurer whose magic had a predilection toward flowers like the hollow eyed medicus that sat in the train car with him. Laury Kir Nivalis was a man of few words unless they were pointed. Or unless you were another flower aspected mage or young enough to warrant kindness like the ever lovely Illya Skawi who was both. Yorick was neither and didn’t even get a glance from the man who seemed to be intent on being the most miserable he could be on his break.

He wasn’t a pure-blooded Garlean. His citizenship was earned through twenty years of hard conscripted work and then he’d just rejoined the army. Yorick didn’t ask why. Garlemald talked big about citizenship and whatever but it was unlikely they actually treated their new citizens with anything but patronizing approval at best. What was a mage going to do with his healing magic when Garleans were apt to start shrieking the minute they saw he didn’t have a third eye. Laury didn’t have anywhere else to go but the army and only fools who couldn’t let go of hope would be unwise enough to think otherwise. Yorick wasn’t that either. He supposed the medicus had every right to be as sullen and hostile as he damn well pleased.

Yorick had earned his own break. Or at least he supposed so. They were off talking to Garlean citizens and doing diplomatic things which wasn’t Yorick’s strong point. He was smart enough to realize the situation before some of his group at times but he had a particularly bad habit of chiming in at the wrong moment with the very worst thing to say. Partly because he had trouble paying attention to any conversation that didn’t interest him and very few words had any sway with him anymore. So no one was going to complain if he sat in a car for the rest of their tangent in Garlemald.

He was intent on getting his hat off. It was warm and he needed that warmth but it was also very stifling and he’d take the chance to let his feline ears move while they were near a heater. That also meant he had to very carefully dislodge the one that had the earring attached to it in case it got caught on the fabric. It had happened once or twice and he wasn’t keen on repeating the event. He peeled the dark fabric away and the gentle clatter of blue crystal against silver sounded as the dangling bits were free.

“Careful those things to freeze to your ear,” Laury commented eyeing the glittering earring and it’s crescent moon. It was probably the medic in him and not any actual interest.

“No worries. This thing is like a ilm thick and my ears are fluffier and smaller than your average Miqo’te so I can stuff in extra padding.” Yorick grinned like he’d found a secret no one else knew.

Laury just stared at him with a look that every chirurgen had ever given him when he’d said he’d be fine; unimpressed, disappointed, a little annoyed.

Yorick shrugged and added “,small price to pay to show my devotion.”

“To the moon?”

“Kinda,” Yorick shrugged, flicking his fingers at the dangling bits of his earring “,I’m a Keeper of the Moon. We worship the goddess of the moon.”

The expression on Laury’s face shifted as his gaze drifted back to the ceiling. “I’m supposed to have one of those I guess. Savages and their gods or whatever it is the pure bloods are always ranting about. Not that I know their names or anything besides…”

His face twisted into one of old hurts and the grip on the staff he’d held loosely in his lap tightened. Yorick was wise enough not to ask about it.

“What’s so great about the moon anyway? Didn’t you have one drop on you guys almost a decade ago now?” Laury changed subjects.

“That was Dalamud,” Yorick corrected him. “My goddess Menphina’s loyal hound. And it also turned out to be an ancient allagan prison for a dragon primal. Also it was your people that dropped it on us.”

Laury looked like he might object but shrugged with accession in the end.

“She’s also not just the goddess of the moon but of ice and love,” Yorick added more intent on talking about her than various things that happened during the calamity. That was a no go topic for him.

“Love?” Laury eyed him with a derisive look “,you don’t look like the type to worship something for love.”

“Are you kidding me?” Yorick barked a short cruel laugh “,it’s unloveable bastards like me that need Menphina the most.”

“Is that why you follow her then? To be loved or?”

Yorick sighed deeply and dramatically. “Look, guy, I don’t know! I’m full of it actually. My mom and gran left Keeper traditions and Menphina behind. I don’t know how any of it is supposed to work. I’m a little fucked up. Wrong dude to ask. I just wanted - needed something.”

Yorick, Lalafell without his kin and Keeper without a clan. Even with his family he’d felt like a stranger. A free floating particle that had nowhere to land and no place to belong. He needed something to ground him. Something to make him feel wanted and known. But he was struggling in the dark, too embarrassed to ask any Keeper for help.

Glancing up Yorick found that Laury’s full attention was on him again. Or on his earring. He unhooked the earring from his ear and turned it around in his hand. Limited edition something or whatever. He always liked the idea of something being special to him but in the end they were all just baubles to him without any meaning no matter how hard he tried to append it there. Nothing had any meaning for him. Only people.

“A god is just a reflection of its people’s values I suppose,” Yorick said watching Laury’s face carefully “,Most the ones I’ve had to kill are from desperation. It’s a kind of hope. For salvation, for revenge, for love. A plea for anything to hold unto if even for a moment.”

Recognition, yearning, despair. Laury’s face was always a bit miserable but Yorick knew that feeling all to well. He sighed again and marched over to the man. “Gimme your hand.”

“What?”

“I said give. Me. your. Hand.” Yorick stated indignantly.

Laury stared at him hard but held one of his up as asked “A please wouldn’t kill you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Yorick took the proferred limb and turned it around so he could place the earring in it. Curling Laury’s fingers around it and placing a hand over it to solidify the act of his giving. “Keep it.”

“What happened to showing your devotion?” Laury remarked.

“I can get a half dozen different things for that back home. Savages and our gods, right?” Yorick reminded him. “This is probably one of the only bits of Menphina you’ll find around here. I don’t know. Maybe that’s blasphemous but passing on a bit of something good seems right by her I think.”

Laury took the earring and turned it around in his gloved hand not unlike Yorick had a moment before. “I could get in trouble for having this, you know.”

“What are they going to do? Discharge you? Execution by firing squad? How many medics do you guys even have.” Yorick remarked, folding his arms over his chest. Garlemald was a little too hard up to be upholding their ideals of cultural cleansing.

Laury smiled, still staring at it. He had enough bitterness to drown what remind of Garlemald’s people but enough grace to not do it. Pettiness though? That appealed to him. “I’m a Medicus, not a medic.”

“Words. Who cares.”

Laury began to ask Yorick questions again. Suddenly a little more awake and less dead looking. “What is she like though? Besides that-”

Pain─

Yorick and his cohorts had met some of Eorzea’s pantheon of twelve. They had introduced themselves with a challenge but all malice quickly dissolved with their obvious joy for combat. And even more affection for their mortal combatants. They must have been immensely powerful to summon the great gauntlets they had. Realms with similarities to places Yorick knew but on a grand scale befitting the title of a god.

The lightning aspected gods had fought them on architecture much like that found in Gyr Abania where they worshiped Rhalgr, the destroyer. Nald’thal, twin god patrons of Ul’dah, were fought with Azeyma in a city that looked much like the desert capital. Though Yorick supposed some parts must be inspired by Ul’dah’s forgotten sister city Sil’dih where they worshiped Azeyma; the sun. Ever changing fields and forests like Yorick grew up with where they were met by the goddess of harvest; Nophica. Forests that would be pushed apart and floated by the god of space and time; Althyk where he fought alongside his sister Nymeia of fate. Then came strange tiled pathways of ice and crystalline spires while the ominous moon hung ever closer where they fought Halone, the fury.

In that icy castle, Yorick finally met his goddess. He’d seen her depicted as a buxom and flirtatious woman and found he was much gladdened to see she was not this. Romantic love was of course an important aspect of her worship but there were many facets of love that had nothing to do with romance. Menphina, above all was joyful and amiable. Merciful and understanding. Bright and loved even by her peers.

─Yorick wasn’t exactly sure why he was swimming around in his own memories. Usually when the echo popped off it was to glimpse into someone else’s heart. The fact these were his meant only one thing and that was he was resonating with someone who was swimming around in his. Even if it was a more harmless and joyful memory, Yorick wasn’t keen on that.

There was no one in this cart but Laury whom, now that he looked at him, clutching the Menphina earring dearly. Likely to protect it because at some point he’d fallen out of his seat and crumpled unto the floor. Now wasn’t that curious.

“Bear to me your lover’s heart,” Yorick repeated down at the man. Something Menphina had said to them as their fight had began.

Laury’s head whipped up to look at him. His face confused but the sort of confusion one gets when they recognize something they don’t understand yet. Yorick grinned, not caring enough whether he looked menacing or not. A second later he was bounding out of the train cart into the station proper yelling: “Illya! You’ll never guess what your flower pal just had!”

There was the faint sound of a softer voice questioning and then Yorick’s distant but not less obnoxiously loud voice yelling “,The echo! Your medic pal just had a vision!”

“What? What is that? What are you talking about?” Laury pried himself up, woozy from what he’d later know as aether sickness. He followed after, still tightly clutching the earring. A point of comfort he’d need later as he began to be increasingly pulled into things he simply was not prepared for.

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2023 #cwwrit #CH: Yorick Nelhah #CH:Laury Kir Nivalis #might be obscure how I got here from the prompt but like... I understand

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