#FFXIVWrite2022

[makiokuta]

A makeup prize for FFXIV Write of @eva-cybele ( @dawnslight-aegis )'s beautiful Au ra, Kaede.

Thank you to @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast all your hard work on this event!

[nyanyandraws]

Volunteered to do a makeup prize for last year's ffxivwrite2022 since I finished early so here's a participation prize for Ruenis.

Congrats again and thank you for waiting.

[mealvaan]

Solution

Each time Vahri’a’s head topples to the wall beside, the bombination of the upper level floods into a roar of chatter and clanking about. Whether it detracts from his concentration or enhances it, who’s to say?

The brief of the assignment is written in brilliant bold letters at the top of his workbook — decidedly kept separate to his grimoire, in preservation of his immaculate handwriting. Aim: To transpose Ruin into an orb of 5 ilm diameter and reduce channeling time to 50%. It should be simple. In theory.

Yet underneath, the contents is shy and ashamed, hiding behind scribbled ink. Attempts to transpose the sigil come across more as abstract art than a workable geometry. 

He has been here for two bells now.

The lichyard of the basement is all he has to bounce off of. A vacuum of thought. There are a couple of skilled casters taking the opportunity to practice reps in the arena, but this is a relatively quiet and private affair he easily tunes to muffled phonetics. Other arcanists often work at home, but his is a hole in the wall. 

Way off to the other side of the circular expanse, however, is another he hadn’t noticed on his first sweep of the room. She’s a short and wiry Seeker of the Sun, all ankles and wrist bones, in a set of suspenders and rolled trousers. Rendered in autumn colours, with auburn hair and patches of brown skin woven with burgundy burns. She adjusts her glasses every so often and squinting through them as she makes her way through one of the guild’s many tomes. She’s got piles of books set off to the side of her, none opened. Sprawled onto her desk of discarded crates are a number of parchment pieces, each playing with the same sigil that’s been etched into his mind for the evening.

As if alerted by the Twelve, her gaze darts up.

He catches it, lips thinning and stretching — not into a smile, but rather a sheepish impulse.

She grins proper, the tips of her ears and the corners of her lips stretched upwards.

He raises a hand in a bare wave.

She gets up. Gathers her materials. Strides over to him.

He isn’t going to get any work done.

“I didn’t realise you spent your studying time in the Gate, Vahri’a. Thought you’d be the type to skitter home after every class.” He doesn’t know her name, but she talks with the lilt of someone who’s known him for ages and has the right to affectionately resent his withdrawn tendencies.

“Don’t you do that?” he asks, returning his gaze to his work. An ear remains lofted in attendance of his fellow arcanist, who assails it with laughter.

He supposes ‘assail’ isn’t the right word. There’s a distinct flutter to it that makes it a bubbly, digestible affair…

“I can never concentrate in here. There’s too many people milling about usually. But I needed the research, and the Navigator heard my prayers, wheeling everyone away from the Gate for once. Save our quietest classmate. But no, I study at the Docks. The noise doesn’t bounce around on the open sea.”

“Did you have much luck, then?” Vahri’a asks curiously, looking over her papers.

Given the dissonance between his workstation and hers, he expected her penmanship to be equally dissonant. It’s not quite the steady hand he uses to draw all his glyphs, but hers is neat by certainty. A single, quick stroke marks a circle, a line, and a poke of the pen for the dots. She doesn’t waste time, and her work is all the cleaner for it.

For that, she’s gotten farther than him. She doesn’t conceal her mistakes in a big, black box. All of her experimental failures — even the ones that are excessively silly, like deconstructing the core of the glyph and dispersing it to its arms — are on full display, their page remaining their own domain, with notes scribbled into the margins.

“Working on it still, but I’m stumped,” she admits, showing off a particular sheet. The heart of the spell is circled with great aplomb. The margins scream in all capital letters, which he can only just make out for its colloquialism and alternative spelling: WERE TH FUCK DO I PUT THEES? 

“I would assume you keep it where it is,” Vahri’a says, frowning.

“But should you? See here—”

She grabs one of her books from under her arm, setting the rest down beside her — decidedly parking in his study space — and flips through the pages until she reaches a dog eared entry. Gods, did she dog ear a book from the archives? The page falls to a spell of a similar casting time to the one they’re attempting, Bio. She points to the top of the sigil, furthest from where her palm connects to the tome’s spine.

“This largest push is at the end,” she says, circling a more complex set of large circles with her digit. “It’s ‘cause you want to have your aether, let’s say, ‘valves’ opened proper by these little bits so they’re all oiled up to let go of bigger amounts. It makes the spell imbalanced, which isn’t a problem for this one ‘cause it’s all about volatility in the first place. But Ruin’s got to have that trajectory, and let you channel more quicker…”

Vahri’a blinks. He holds the book’s other end to get a proper look, eyes flitting between his grimoire’s open page and her book’s example.

“Now, let me see what you’ve done?” she asks, side-stepping to get a better look at his workbook. Her brow furrows as she sees his work — redacted clouds of meaningless scribble. “Well, you’re no help. Did you just draw a bunch of tits?”

“No,” he says flatly, shaking his head in disbelief. “None of those were correct, so don’t worry for them.”

“But maybe parts of them were. Better to be able to use the scraps than tossing out the whole boar. Walk me through what you tried, then. Or we’re both hopeless.”

She has a point. He hasn’t made any progress thus far, and she has. He may as well take her help rather than spurn it and flunk the coursework.

The work had proceeded for bells, but those bells went by at a ship’s pace. Time speeds to a brisk walk as he explains his theory to her, and she posits some rightful critique — and he does the same for her when they eventually wheel a chalkboard out of the classroom and work that way, each with an eraser and piece of chalk to parry the others’ suggestions aside. But it’s a spar, not a duel — a collaborative effort to better the other.

By the end of it, they’re tired messes fighting off the concentrated La Noscean heat, but they’ve got a working prototype that their tutor might actually accept. 

The two fall to a natural silence as they copy the geometry down into their respective books.

“Hey, Vahri’a.”

“Mm?”

“You don’t remember my name, do you?”

Air skids to a halt in his throat. 

“Ah…”

There’s that laughter again. Gradated and effervescent. Like a glass of champagne. 

“Gods, you’re the worst.”

“I’m sorry.” He realises just how much he’s pied off his classmates. 

“It’s fine. Remember it this time.” She extends a hand to him. “H’nemti. But you can call me Nem.”

“Are you sure?”

“… About my name?”

“About the nickname.”

“If it means you’ll remember it, then I’ll take what I can get.”

The rest of the eve is little, but precious. Their work is preserved in ink, its dust dissipated. He says his formal goodbyes after checking his bag twice over, and she waits for him without poking at his habit. They ascend the steps in a close file.

Every so often, she turns back to chat with him, her merriment skewing her glasses one way. By the end of it, he manages the littlest of smiles, and hers carves dimples into her cheeks.

[yzeltia]

Febhyurary Day K.13 - Strength

"I'll work on my body, and you can work on your mind! A couple that trains together, gains together! Though if you read aloud I could work on my mind and body! Maybe then Krile won't play tricks on me as easily...no doubt she's teaching Khenna how to outwit me as we speak."

[michelleartbear]

FFxivWrite2022 Participation Prize

always love getting to draw an elezen :)

Rossignol Martinez for @escherstrange-ffxiv​

Thanks, as ever, to @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast​ for organizing the event.

[gaelic-ffxiv-oc-loving]

Day 30: Sojourn

In the twilight of his days, Peeta writes a letter to a man long dead. Hythlodaeus/m!WoL

Peeta is hurting me again. Thinking about him outliving everyone cause he’s a viera while his soulmates wait for him to join them in the Aetherial sea.

[winddragonart]

FFXIV Write 2022 #1: Cross

Title: Stepping onto the Steppe

The party stood outside Reunion’s gate, wide eyed, and mouths open.

“It’s…so…WIDE!” Rikichi explained.

“A sea of grass!” K’ome added.

“And we need to find one man…Like finding a needle in a haystack,” Ashe retorted, crossing her arms. She glanced over to Kade, “You ok? You look a bit worried.”

“Yeah…Well…I didn’t expect my homecoming to be like this…Much less how am I to explain…this…?” He motions to himself, the aspects of Diabolo’s corruption that glamor couldn’t hide.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ashe said, taking his hand.

“Yeah, first we have to cross THIS!” K’ome said, waving out over the steppe.

“It’s a good thing we have our chocobos,” Rikichi said, patting his bird’s plumage.

“You really are a city Lalafell,” Rosa snorted. “We’ve wandered all over Eorzea, and you still balk at the concept of walking ‘corss anything bigger than the next stall over.”

“Maybe if I was in the company of Tataru or Papalimo…” Rikichi started to retort, though they all fell silent at the mention of their lost companion.

“Still, Rikichi is right. We have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time. We need to move fast and our chocobos are faster than walking,” Ashe said, breaking the silence and mounting her own bird.

“It’ll be odd, crossing the steppe on birdback, but I’ll take the lead,” said Kaden. “I’ll keep out of some of the more aggressive tribe’s land…”

Once everyone was mounted, he lead the group into the sea of grass.

[writeraven]

NOT A DYING GASP

After a tearful reunion with Ardbert, and before the final showdown with Emet-Selch, the Warrior of Darkness learns that the grumpy old man used to have a beautiful wife… Who looks like her mentor and not-so-secret crush.

TAGS: [ isorawrites. » Chronogenesis » A Collection of Tales ]

LINKS: [ Tumblr » Collection, Project | AO3 » Work, Collection, Series ]

FANDOM: Final Fantasy XIV.

VERSE: Shadowbringers.

STATUS: Complete; 1 chapter.

GENRES: Flash Fiction, Humor.

SHIPS: Murderomantiques, Netheromantiques.

MUSES: Sora Amariyo, Persephone; (mentions only) Yiuno Reine, Azem.

NPC: (all mentions only) Emet-Selch, Ardbert, Crystal Exarch.

FFXIVWrite: 2022 — 16.

deiform /ˈdeɪɪfɔːm,ˈdiːɪfɔːm/ adjective godlike in form or character.

WARNING — crossdressing (mentioned).

In a moment’s respite prior to the final showdown between the Warrior of Darkness and Emet-Selch, Sora Amariyo contemplated her next move. Well, not like she could go anywhere, really, when the Crystal Exarch’s summoning circle had made sure she must go through with the trial—or die trying.

Thanks to Ardbert’s timely appearance, fusing with his soul did help to stabilize the overabundance of light-aspected aether inside her. She was no longer spewing disgusting white blood on the ground, but that didn’t stop some red liquid trickling down the corner of her mouth.

“Hey…”

This hurts like hell. Sora knew that time would wait for no one—not even her, the very hero of the Fourteen Realms (or whatever’s left after multiple Rejoinings). Emet-Selch couldn’t care less to give her a break—he was hellbent to destroy the First. When the fate of this star rested in her hands, and none would take no for an answer.

“…Hey, wake up, I say! You’re not dead yet, so stop pretending that you are.”

Shaking her head, Sora pushed the pain to the back of her mind and opened her eyes. She gaped in surprise upon realizing who the speaker was.

“…Yiuno? Wait, that’s impossible! How in seven hells did you even get down here?”

Sora would recognize Yiuno in a heartbeat: a male Veena Viera with a youthful appearance many eons younger than his actual age, and a master of disguise who made full use of his natural androgynous features. Even when he was acting as a beautiful and seductive lady, there was no way Sora would mistaken him for anyone else. He was that special someone to her, after all.

“Who, come again?” The person blinked at Sora in confusion. He—or she, screw the pronouns—sounded just like Yiuno if he’d used a wind crystal to alter his voice. However, this stranger was dressed rather boldly, showing quite a fair bit of skin in all the right places—something that would seem out of character for Sora’s normally reserved partner. “I don’t know how you get down here, and frankly that’s unimportant. I can return you to where you should be, but only if you stop playing dead and get up.”

“Who… are you, then?”

“‘Who am I,’ you ask?” The mysterious lady let out a short laugh, throwing back her long raven locks with a graceful hand. “I’m a daughter of Demeter, the wife of Hades—ah, that makes me the queen of the underworld.”

“You what?” Sora spluttered, not quite believing what she’d just heard. “You’re married to Emet-Selch—that Hades?”

“Oh, did he cheat behind my back again?” The lady in black rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Not his first time, and it certainly won’t be the last. At least he crawls back to me every time I threaten to leave him for Azem.”

Giving an outstretched hand to Sora, she smiled. “My name is Persephone. Just get up already, or you’d be dead for real. Time is running short, and you’ve got a hot-blooded date with my oh-so-angsty husband beyond this rift.”

Support me on Ko-fi — https://ko-fi.com/whyraven. Thank you very much for your continuous support☕

[charlottedabookworm]

Chapters: 16/43 Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light, Hythlodaeus/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV) Characters: Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Ardbert (Final Fantasy XIV), Hythlodaeus (Final Fantasy XIV), Lahabrea (Final Fantasy XIV), Original Final Fantasy XIV Characters Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2022, Pandaemonium Questline (Final Fantasy XIV) Spoilers, Post-Patch 6.0: Endwalker, Male Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Nonbinary Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Au Ra Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Viera Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV) Series: Part 7 of i am shadow, i am the light Summary:

time comes together like a tidal wave, coalescing. lives flicker behind closed eyes. children laugh as they run through fields of flowers. across multiple worlds, the Warriors of Light live

or: cleaned up versions of this year's ffxivwrite, originally posted on my tumblr. my aim is to post at least one of these on here a day until they're all up

days 7, 8, and 9 are all cleaned up and posted! i swear i’m gonna finish cleaning them all up before September if it kills me

[rkgk-emy]

Participating prize artwork of DesertRaven's warrior of light Rhela! Thank you  @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast for organizing this year's event.

[mealvaan]

Sojourn

TW. Suicidal ideation.

The last traveller in line evaporates to dust.

Emerging from the outskirts of the plaza, Signe traces the footsteps of the adventurer that once was. Their terminal is unknown to her. Funny, how travelling via aetheryte can make even a destination a deeply personal thing. Most opt for a hands-off journey, being chauffeured from their beginning to end without a care — without control. 

People often speak of one’s constitution and aptitude in manipulating aether as necessities for aetheryte travel, but neither concerns her. No, it’s the unspoken requisite of setting intent — the reliance on one’s will as the sole compass — that roots her in her place.

Signe’s mind is the source of her power. The Scholar’s blessing and the Spinner’s curse. From her fingertips, trickling streams flow into the well of the crystal, releasing a floodgate of conscious and subconscious thought that merges into a confluence.

The potency of her reason cannot be tamed; no matter how much she wills it to silence, her thoughts prise their maws open with gnashing teeth and desperate winges. She knows what they say even in echoes. 

The aetherial sea is devoid of tactile feeling. The ocean is her own liquid skin, the lot of it familiar and folding in on her. Kneading dough that serves to nudge her along, but only just, as other presences — presences that feel like her, but also adamantly individual — flit past with great ease. She floats along the lazy river. How comfortable. How modest. 

Would it not be nice to stay a while?

She wonders how long one can rest here before they are cast out, how long before the corporeal realm gets tired of her too. Is there a place in this realm where one can indulge forever and a day, shielded from the current in a pocket of blissful nothingness? Bathed in dim light. Pickled in it.

Her thoughts recognise what she’s done as the unpleasant, broiled word passes her psyche. 

Do you remember where you had meant to go?

She doesn’t remember the name of any place in this state. They’re all blurs and backdrops to her. Set dressing for another rotation of events, the palette of meaningless filler. She doesn’t know where she was meant to go despite how routine it is. Why would she leave, for that matter, when the Lifestream cradles her so?

Temptation beckons to bask in the warmth of her blood — to fall into deep slumber.

If she had eyes, they would glide shut.

Filtering through her faux lids, there is a bright light — the sliver of Thanalan sun through a drawn curtain. It slices through her sleep, carving a warm yellow glow into her cheek and nose and mouth, all of which she can’t move, she can’t feel. The light is incessant and impossible to ignore. The light is belligerent and demands her attention. The light needs to be addressed. 

Now.

Her physique coalesces with unreasonable conviction, each part of her falling into place and tied together with the slab of obsidian she calls a greatsword. A perfectly wrapped parcel, delivered right to her apartment tower’s doorstep. She has the gait of a groggy child woken from a nap, yet she drives herself forward as if she’d been awake the whole time.

Nothing happened. 

You can’t get rid of me that easy, says Brand, lounging in her peripheral. You won’t get rid of us. 

You don’t want to.

[yzeltia]

MiqoMarch U-11 Spring

"It's kind of fun sneaking around like this, stealing kisses and stuff."

"Acknowledged."

Featuring @driftward 's Nyx Blackmoon

[meximango]

Day 27 - Memory - Altani - G

Summary: Altani’s echo manifested differently than her fellow warriors of light.

Ok so this one is basically just a summary so I don’t forget an idea I’ve had for a while, lol. Just like Krile’s echo gives her fancy empathy powers, I tweaked most of my WoLs’ echoes to give them a bit of extra flavor. Luvon’s was touched on/implied a bit in ‘tempest’ this year, and Cahsi’s was in ffxivwrite2022 I believe, I can’t remember the prompt, but it’s on ao3. So it’s time for Altani! 

--

Altani first saw The Starshower in her dreams around the time she met Mogren, almost got her brother killed, and that the entire village determined she was destined to be their next priestess and medium. It was a lively few weeks for sure, everything interconnected. She wasn’t even ten summers old yet, but even so, she understood deep in her bones that it was a turning point in her life. The gate was locked behind her, and whatever had awoken inside her was there to stay. Her life from then on would be full of deceit–lies she had to tell to others, and lies she kept all for herself. 

She had no idea what her dreams meant. That they were a memory. That they would provide her an advantage on her path to greatness. The dreams were scary, and far too real, and instead of offering her comfort as she woke crying and screaming, the elders would praise her for unlocking the ability to see into death itself. They’d ruffle her hair and pat her on the back, telling her to keep training so she could convene with her ancestors and grant them wisdom. She kept up the farce for the sake of Mogren, who’d been mistaken as a spirit Altani regularly spoke to, but it was so much less and more than that. 

In Altani’s head, The Starshower was always Capitalized, because it was very Important. She didn’t know why, but it was a feeling in her tummy she refused to ignore. 

Sometimes she’d wake and remember in perfect clarity as the sky rained fire and desperate screams reverberated all around her. Never was she able to tear her gaze from the sky above, to witness who was with her, what the landscape looked like. It was just the dark red night full of smoke and embers, blazing bright trails falling toward her. It had to be stars. What else could be falling? What could cause such a thing to happen? What if the dream was an omen of things to come? What if it sucked her inside, and she became one of those falling stars, burning up before she could even hit the ground? 

Other times, Altani would wake with a sense of unease, far more tired than was reasonable, completely tangled in her sheets as sweat coated her brow, and she just Knew that she had dreamt of The Starshower. 

It would only make sense years later, after speaking with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, that she wasn’t alone. There were others who witnessed The Starshower, and it granted them special gifts. That her nightmares were actually a boon, a gift from the goddess of the star herself. But it would be many years before that point, and not even Mogren could understand her plight as a child. 

She turned it into a game, pretending The Starshower really was giving her the ability to delve into the lifestream and pluck stories and messages from long-dead tribe members. Each star that fell was just another of her ancestors coming by to say hello. They were already dead, so they couldn’t feel pain! The screams were actually high-pitched laughs. Her ancestors sure were silly, weren’t they, pulling a prank like that on her. It made lying to everyone easier, and sleeping became a little bit easier too. She was brave, and no way was The Starshower going to overpower her! The dreams became less frequent as she got older, and instead a few other types of visions manifested in her. It wasn’t often, but it did help with her priestess duties. 

Every so often, when someone talked to her–most often when reminiscing about something from their past–she’d suddenly be swept away and forced to bear witness to the moment they were talking about. It was as though she were there with them, as though she could alter reality if she just reached out and tried (she couldn’t, of course. She was an invisible entity able only to watch, but in the beginning she had wanted to find out. Thank Hydaelyn it was just a memory; to warp reality would have been too much power for a child who wished to have control over something in her life to have.) She got to witness the truth, even if the teller couldn’t remember it correctly themself or were lying for one reason or another. The downside was appearing as though she had been spaced out for a few minutes, followed by a wicked headache, but it was easy enough to write that one to the villagers as ‘divine communication’. She often used this to her advantage later, recalling the collected memories to help give merit to her own lies that she wove for the villagers about their dead loved ones and advice for their future. The best lies had a grain of truth to them, after all. Rarer, by quite a margin, were visions Altani had no idea how to explain or what they even were. It wouldn’t be until her trip to Norvrandt, well into her adventuring career, that she would begin to understand. Once in a blue moon, something would trigger her to view whoever she was looking at or speaking to in a different light. It started like a memory, with her surroundings fading out and transporting her somewhere else, but instead of seeing the person the vision was about, she saw someone else. Altani didn’t have the gift of aethersight, but she had a feeling, an instinct, that she learned to accept. The vision was about a different version of the person. Sometimes they looked very similar to nearly identical to the person in question, while other times, their race, gender, skin or fur color–everything about them was different. Except the eyes. That was the one factor that didn’t seem to change. Whatever eye color the present person who triggered the vision had, there would be at least a hint of that same color in there for the person in the vision. Even if they changed into a creature with limited eye colors! As much as she’d hoped this was perhaps the key to unlocking real medium powers so she could talk to her ancestors, it wasn’t meant to be. She never met any of her ancestors that way, as most of visions she saw weren’t of au ra, nor did they take place in the Azim Steppe. The second type of vision was far more confusing and far less useful to her, so Altani didn’t much care for them, waiting for them to pass and observing only with a passing interest, for the most part. It was strange, being privy to other versions of people she met, when those same people had no idea about or access to those alternate realities. She tried not to dwell too much on those. 

Some part of her wished she could have seen another Altani, though. Would they share her same gifts, her same curses? Would they be strong or weak, a natural crafter or a clumsy disaster? Were they a hunter, or a fisher, or a teacher? Would they become a parent, a merchant, a leader? Was their life a lie, forced to pretend they’re something they’re not to keep their village happy and their friend safe? Maybe they led a normal, mundane life, and would grow up to be nobody of import. Altani’s visions didn’t work on herself, so she’d never know what any other Altani was doing except herself. Maybe it was better that way, so she couldn’t become jealous of a life she couldn’t have. 

When she became an adventurer, met her fellow Warriors of Light, and discovered they had similar experiences with The Starshower and being forced into people’s memories, she hid her relief behind false bravado and a strong clap on the back. It was like the weight of Hydaelyn had been lifted from her shoulders, learning her affliction had such a tiny, unassuming name as the echo. That there was an entire group of people studying it, and that this thing she’d been confused and frightened about and taking advantage of for so long already was considering a blessing from the goddess Hydaelyn herself. Hear, Feel, Think, indeed.This gift was shared among a select few, and they were often destined for greatness, which was all she strived for these days. She wanted to be strong enough to protect everyone without the power to do it themselves. She knew what it felt like to be powerless and scared, and so she would ensure to keep others from those awful feelings as much as she could.

While the others shared in most of the same echo traits, none of them ever saw those other versions of people or at least made no mention of it, so Altani kept that close to her chest. Only Mogren knew about that little trait, and they’d probably forgotten about it by now, since she only mentioned it a few times when she was younger and never again. 

Luckily, she’d never had to deal with seeing other versions of her family of friends, but of course that changed when she started adventuring with those others who shared in the gift. Maybe it just triggered more easily for those who’d also seen The Starshower? 

During one of her travels with Luvon, she’d had a vision that couldn’t have been of his past, as it took place in a gigantic forest unlike anything that existed on the mainland. Small streams of unnatural, sickly white light passed through the foliage and dappled the ground. She saw a young qiqirn and an older one carving tablets together. The younger had a yellow-green glint of excitement in their eyes as they speculated about what lay in the ruins, and what their home had been like before a flood of some kind. A fear years later is when that ‘memory’ clicked into place. Her moment of breakthrough came through after she was transported to the First. When all major threats were done being taken care of with Cahsi and Luvon, she was helping the Qitari unearth their history. Among the group in Hopl's Stopple, she noticed the pair she’d seen in her vision. Huh. So the person she’d seen in that vision was not a qiqirn at all, but their equivalent on the First, a qitari. Someone from a completely different shard… She observed them from afar, not wanting to barge in with nonsensical questions, but seeing how the little qitari acted and interacted with others, she could definitely see the similarities between them and Luvon. It was incredibly strange, but she’d come to realize by now that nothing was too strange for this universe. 

Despite having fragments of the same soul, they were still their own people. She’d accepted that already with all the visions she’d seen throughout the years. Nobody acted exactly like their other version’s self, even if there were similarities. Ardbert was pretty different from Cahsi, for example. Altani could have smacked herself realizing one of her echo visions of either Cahsi or Ardbert were not about the memory of their meeting and showdown, but rather showing her that they were apparently versions of one another. That news sure might have come in handy before they had to defeat Emet-Selch–but then again, maybe not. Maybe it would have been even harder or weirder for Cahsi to let go. She’d made a close friend of the warrior in her time on the first, and had taken it hard when he had to leave. Altani had finally been able to meet him a few times before the end, thanks to some ingenious spellwork and alchemy on Cahsi’s part. It was sad that he had to rejoin Cahsi, but it was his own choice, and Ardbert had already been dead for so long, so that’s probably why he was able to do so in the first place. Altani wasn’t about to subscribe to the now-dead ascian’s idea that rejoining all shards of the soul into one was the only way to truly exist and lead a worthwhile life. From what she’d seen, other shards were doing just fine for themselves–independently! 

That said, she was pretty sure if she introduced Luvon to his qitari counterpart, that nothing would happen unless one of them were to die. Maybe. She certainly didn’t want to test that, it was a horrifying thought. They’d probably stay two separate entities, none the wiser of their status as parts of one larger, more powerful soul at one point.

Really, this was all a lot to take in and think about, and nobody she wanted to discuss it with. It gave her a headache. One day, she’d figure this out with her friends. Maybe it was selfish to keep this from them, but she’d seen the heartbreak Cahsi went through with Ardbert, and she just felt it was best at this time. They had enough worries on their plate as it was. 

[soulshards]

Call me Souls! This is my main blog for my many characters and the many more I will likely make in the future. A place to post screenies, writing and asks etc. I have a blog for my boy, Ezie, over on @bloodredhands. OOC blog is @soulshards-ooc, for more general FFXIV content and relbogs.

All OCs Carrd Dossier

General OC Screenshot Tag

FFXIVWrite2022 Master Post

FFXIVWrite2024 Master Post

OC List Below the Cut!

Awinita, The Blazing Gun: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd (WIP)

Daichi, The Glitch: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd

Deeza, The Fiend of Earth: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd Fida, The Hopeful Heart: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd

Gansu, The Shrieking Tide: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd (WIP) Kintaro, The Golden Sun: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd

Kiros, The Rune Knight: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd (WIP) Kura, The Jade Spirit: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd

Lee, The Thunderous Strike: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd Maeva, The Nightmare: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd

Miahka, The Witch: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd Nanako, The Calming Bell: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd

Rhulvam, The Desert Sapphire: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd Takemi, The Flame Viper: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd

The Twins, The Nameless Ones: Asks || Screenshots || Carrd

[rihlltalk]

Cross

Gen audiences. 3.4k words. Found family and character backstory. Pre-ARR.

Summary:

He doesn't have a plan. Maybe he should. He knows what fate he is bringing into himself in doing this. He will likely never be welcomed back. Other Seekers of the Sun would hear his name and judge him for his decision, for choosing to renounce his family and being foolish enough to think he could make it on his own. He would make a pariah of himself, irreversibly, and for the rest of his life. So be it, Rihll thinks to himself as he straps his weapons to his back. If he cared what people thought about him, he wouldn't be leaving his tribe to begin with.

A reupload of my first fic from FFXIVWrite2022. Serves as introduction and some backstory for my Warrior of Light, Zha’senah, her brother, X’chai, and their tribe of origin!

[sharlayandropout]

Bolt

SFW, Gen, Fluff.

wc. 4433 (some wee edits after the title card was finished)

Read it here!

Originally written for Ffxivwrite2022.

A little fluff piece following Zef and G'raha in the first few days of their relationship.