#Hey sorry urianger but i had no idea how to insert your Shakespearean shtick here

[whitherliliesbloom]

reflections in crystal

[ ffxivwrite2020 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #30 - splinter ]

[ wol and her found family ]  ★ [ 1,654 words ]  ★ [ post-5.3 ]

all of the shb scions except urianger (sorry urianger i just can’t deal with the way you speak aaaaaa). mentions of ryne, krile and tataru too. 

we may forget ourselves, but we’re ever riding home. and for now and evermore, we will never lose hope.

“I do hope you have a good explanation for dragging all of us out here.” With crossed arms, Y’shtola frowns at the miqo’te as he beckons towards his fellow scions and ushers them out the stairwell and onto the balcony, tail flicking in anticipation.

“It will be worth your while, I promise!” He lets out a boyish grin, the very picture of innocent glee that Y’shtola saw fit not to argue against and merely shrugs. G’raha closes the door behind the party, before moving to the stone railing and gesturing to his lalafellin companion.

“Here, here! A front row seat for our hero of the hour!”

The champion and hero in question flushes, a hue of pink rising up to dust her cheeks and the tips of her ears as she hides her bespangled violet eyes beneath the shadow of pure white bangs. 

“P-please! N-None of that! This isn’t about me right now!” 

But her piss poor attempt to hide her emotions are fruitless - in front of the ones she has spent what feels to be her entire eventful life with, and the lalafellin’s embarrassed state has evidently given the others some amount of amusement, from Alphinaud’s stifled laughter to Alisaie’s smirk - though the latter was quickly wiped away as the feistier of the twins turns her attention to the vista before them. 

“Well whatever it is he dragged us here for, I don’t really mind.” Alisaie’s amiable mood seems to catch the man in question off guard, who widens his eyes at the awestruck expression upon her face. “At least the view’s pretty.”

Pretty would be a sore understatement, really... and there wasn’t a single scion who would think to disagree.

Together, their eyes raised heavensward, where a tower of crystal stood amongst the stars and the full moon in all its radiant glory. 

For a moment there was silence as the scions lined themselves up to look upon that beacon of light - and from within the intense lapis glow of the crystal’s shine they saw glimmers of the past; a past that felt both so distant away, yet vivid in their minds all the same. 

It almost felt like a dream - their adventures in the First, and though they had all just barely recovered from their taxing soul transfer, the scions felt a burst of renewed energy as they reflected upon those memories while their eyes are so nearly blinded by the everlasting light of the crystal tower.

Illya sits herself upon the railing, and from her sling bag she fishes out a jar of oddly familiar cookies, holding them out to Thancred with a smile upon her face. 

“Coffee biscuits baked by Ryne! She said it may taste a little different from the one you’re used to, though. She wanted us to enjoy some while we gathered tonight.” With a raised eyebrow, the man in white takes the jar, eyeing the unevenly browned biscuits through the glass with suspicion, though it wasn’t exactly the biscuits questionable appearance that caused him reservation. 

“Gathered tonight you say? Is this some kind of special occasion?” Thancred asks, and frowns when the lalafell merely shrugs her shoulders, eyes glistening with a well-rehearsed faked expression of ignorance. “So I take that you know what G’raha’s up to.”

She peers up to glance at the miqo’te man beside her who stares down at her in return, and after a moment of contemplative silence, their lips turn upwards into a cheeky grin that causes Thancred’s eyes to almost roll out of his own skull.

“Aha- speaking of what I’m up to.” Vivid red eyes light up at the sight of a distant gleam, and with a raised finger he confidently points up to the shimmering sky. “I believe it’s just begun!”

Upon the darkened night sky, they begin to witness a spectacular shower of lights, falling from the heavens before splaying apart. Like the descent of cosmos, they paint streaks of gold glitters across the backdrop of the cloudless darkness, forming an array of fleeting constellations.  Luminous sheets of blue and purple auroras rise, and their combined radiance fills the hearts of the scions with a veneration and awe that they could not find words to describe. And amidst the astral plane, the crystal tower is right at home, its light shining ever brighter as if taking in the prayers of the hopes and dreams that had been wished upon the falling stars. 

Reflected in their eyes, they momentarily saw fire and ash, and they could almost hear whispers of the past and voices muffled by water. 

It was a star shower not unlike the one they’d witnessed in the First, one that was understandably a sore point of memory for most of the scions present.

“You took us all here.. to see a star shower? After everything that happened?” Thancred asks, tilting his head inquistively, though his eyes never once leaves the spectacle in the sky. 

“I thought it fitting.” With a serene smile, one of an ease that he has not known for the past hundred years, G’raha murmurs, and he takes in a deep breath to calm his hummingbird heart. “So that we’ll remember what we once were.” 

Termination was no pretty sight, and it filled him with no more trepidation than any of the other scions. The sight before them was one of a memory of pain, a reflection of world’s end, and what could have been crippling failure.

But the illusion of no tomorrow was broken, as did the shackles that had kept him prisoner of his own duty. And his heart soars a hundredfold as he closes his eyes for but a moment, and recalls the way he and the Warrior of Darkness fought and cried out against fate with one voice until the very end - until the arrival of another clear blue sky.

And from within crystal, he can finally look back on his reflection with a fondness in his heart, and watch the shower of stars as a symbol of future’s arrival - a future that will ever keep coming so long as they held on to hope. 

“Emet-Selch had once said that we were incomplete - that our souls, sundered and broken as they are, hold no worth in the world.” Alphinaud reflects, leaning forward and resting his arms against the railing with a smile. He lifts a gloved hand, drawing invisible lines across the sky as if connecting the fading trails left behind by the stars. 

“But he forgot that our worth laid not in the weight of our souls, but of the legacy we leave behind. Our souls may splinter and fray.. but they will never truly disappear as long as we fight to live. And through that, the light of a thousand fractured stars is still enough to birth a sun.” 

Like scattered moon dust, the stars continued to hang in the air proudly, and they will ever continue to do so like jewels of the night sky until morning light comes to greet a new day. Their reflection slowly fades into the dark as the falling stars slow and vanish - but as the light of their souls persists, so too will their memories live on, waiting to be relived another day in their dreams.

And upon a mountain of pained memories, there laid a hope for a brighter tomorrow that has not yet died. If even the end of days was not enough to extinguish their light, then what could?

“Ugh.. there he goes again being all pretentious and poetic.” Alisaie groans, folding her arms across her chest as her brother shrugs. “Besides.. isn’t that not fitting at all.. given the Warrior of Darkness and everything..”

“T’was just a metaphor, dear sister. Though I suppose I should be more careful with my vocabulary seeing how some people are too slow to understand.”

The young man’s collar was promptly grabbed, and Alphinaud nearly suffocates helplessly against Alisaie’s death grip as she shakes him violently. Illya lets out a melodic laugh, one that echoes in the air to accompany the soft whispers of the wind. When Alphinaud’s face has been sufficiently paled, Alisaie finally releases him to cough, puffing her chest out with a huff.

“So are we done here? I got places to be, thieves to chase, you know.” 

“I concur, Krile and Tataru have need for my assistance with something and I think I’ve kept them waiting long enough.” Y’shtola, despite the sternness in her tone of voice, flashes an uncharacteristically gentle smile. 

“Well, if everyone’s dispersing I guess I will too.” With a stretch and a grunt, Thancred raises the jar of coffee biscuits up. “I’ll leave these in the Rising Stones for anyone who wants some.” 

If G’raha had been attempting to hide his disappointment, he truly did a poor job at it, as his ears flatten against the top of his head and his lips forms into a pout for but a moment. 

“I had hoped that we’d get to linger a little while longer but-”

The Warrior of Light swivels around, and grabs onto Alphinaud’s hand before hopping off the railing, and from beneath the bangs of her hair that shone with an ever transcending radiance, he catches glimpses in the vibrant lavender hues of her eyes a promise - a promise of an adventure, a future, and a wish he’d kept locked in his heart for so long until recently. 

“Don’t worry. We may scatter now.. but..” Illya’s smile is one of a tranquil, reassuring gentleness, as her long hair sways gently like waves among the starry night breeze. G’raha shivers as the wind howls and blows away any ponze of lingering doubts away for good, and he finds himself mirroring the renewed expression of joy she wore upon her face. 

“We’ll all come home again, no matter how long it takes.”