#Myrina Arcbane

[starswornoaths]

2. Horizon

Myrina never fully learned how to make connections with the people closest to her. Never quite learned how to open up the door to her heart all the way without them having to let themselves in.

It is well that those that love her knock anyway. Would that she could let them know her. When her daughter stumbles upon a piece of Myrina's past, she will have to settle for a half truth as an end result.

word count: 3,628

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Myrina had lived in the Shroud long enough to know that thunderstorms posed a particular threat here—with the tree canopy so dense as to blot out the sun in most places, even the scent of rain on the wind was enough for most villages to begin to prepare for the worst case scenario. 

Local volunteer firefighters and town watchtowers would remain on high alert, ready with countermeasures should lightning strike the treeline. As ever, she would be among them, covering the older trees and thatching rooves even as the storm so often caught them in the middle of their preparations.

On one such afternoon, a particularly brutal storm swept through their little Elmvale. The trees offered little and less protection from the rain pratically pelting the firefighters in horizontal sheets as they wrestled with the howling wind. Visibility was shot: even in the shade of the canopy, the tumultuous clouds overhead made it almost dark as night.

But the day was relatively kind, for all their efforts: but a single lightning bolt struck through the canopy and burned a hole large enough to fit a chocobo through before they had managed to smother the flames but beyond that, the village suffered no lasting damage.

That hole in the canopy line became something of a fascination for Myrina’s children even into the next day, after the smoke had thinned and the skies had begun to clear.

“Bet Rhalgr sent it,” her son, Uthengentle chirped as he hopped from one puddle to the next.

They were making a game of it; from what Myrina could parse, they were avoiding anywhere that wasn’t a puddle.

“The lightning?” asked her daughter, Serella, as she jumped after him.

“Yeah! That’s like his whole thing!” Uthengentle said with a pump of his fist in the air on his next leap. “He sends stuff like that down all the time! That’s what my Pops used to say! I bet it was a message!”

At that, Serella stood still in the next puddle she landed on and turned her head toward the newly formed gap in the treeline. Gray, overcast sky peered in on the village with its cosmic indifference from through the lingering smoke trails.

“Whoa,” she whispered, eyes wide in awe.

Even later that evening, with supper sorted and everyone settled in, Myrina still caught her daughter peering out of the window in the upstairs hallway, staring out toward the burned away boughs. It took little and less to shoo her gently to bed. Thus, Myrina slept soundly, certain that her daughter’s curiosity would be sated ere long.

She didn’t see much of Serella the next morning after breakfast, though the overcast day meant the family settled inside, content in their own spaces with only the sounds of fiddling hands to fill the gentle quiet. 

Eventually, though, she heard the telltale march of little feet down the steps sometime in the late afternoon. She couldn’t help but smile at the sound: she knew it was her daughter in the way she jumped with both feet off the last step. It gave her away every time.

But there was a rustle of paper with each step, something Myrina hadn’t anticipated. Serella must have busy making something up in her room.

Sure enough, her daughter’s beautiful head of hair bounced in just above the kitchen table with her expression the very picture of seriousness and a loose sheet of paper fluttering in her grip.

“Have you seen Da?” she asked.

Myrina had in fact seen Hanvesh. He was in the den, likely reading or whittling if the lack of plucking strings was any indicator. But a small part of her felt hurt that she wasn’t asked regarding whatever little mystery their daughter got into this time.

Setting down her screwdriver and the clock she had been repairing, she said, “He might be in the den. Is there something I can help with?”

Alright, maybe a little more than a little hurt.

Her daughter demured at that, staring down at her own feet and shuffling her weight between them. 

“Pro’bly not.” she mumbled at her own socks.

A far larger part of Myrina hurt at that. She fought a wince.

“I might be, you never know!” she tried again with a shaky smile, even as the words felt awkward and too loud.

But she hadn’t known how to connect with her daughter just yet; poor Uthengentle had been easy to bond with because something horrid and unjust had happened to him, too. Serella had no such loss to grapple with, sweet and earnest and untouched by the world as she was. Myrina felt shame that that was what it took for her to connect with either of her children. She felt shame that it was all she had to connect with anyone.

But her daughter’s eyes had never clouded over in haunted memories. In fighting so hard to shelter her daughter, she had made herself a stranger. She knew not how to engage with the unmarred and the innocent, even when they were her blood.

“...Nah, it’s okay. Got to do with stars and stuff, so, uhh...I’ll go check with him. Thanks, Ma!” Serella chirped, ignorant of her mother’s struggle as she skipped out of the kitchen in search of her father.

But it was a small house, just big enough for their little family. It was impossible not to hear them in the next room as she resumed her fiddling.

“I found a new constellation!” Serella told her father.

“A new constellation? You’re certain?” she heard her husband say with the right amount of awe in his voice for a child with a new discovery.

Because he knew how to connect with their children. With anyone. With everyone. Because that was the sort of person he was. He knew all about all kinds of things because he knew just how to ask. 

Myrina didn’t know how to do that. She knew all the same things of people by silent observation, but never learned how to say things softly.

“I checked all the books in the library and all the star charts you gave me, and I didn’t see anything like this!” Serella declared with the sound of paper being smacked onto a table. “I can see it at night through that hole in the trees! Uthen thinks Rhalgr wanted us to see it!”

Myrina could picture her daughter’s face perfectly: she always got this bright gleam in her mismatched eyes when she had a mystery to solve, with a big smile that showed all her little baby teeth in an expression that dared the gods themselves to tell her she couldn’t find the answer.

Serella was her father’s daughter, after all.

The screwdriver Myrina had in her hand was far too large for the next step in repairs. She busied herself with finding one of her smaller tools in her bag.

“That’s quite the effort—well, now.” Hanvesh mused with the sound of shuffling paper.

In her mind’s eye, Myrina was sat across from her husband in the den, watching the way his brow would quirk the way it always did when something caught his attention. His head would always angle toward the opposite side as the eyebrow that arched, without fail, and she could see the way it tilted in that moment he picked up the paper and examined it.

“I don’t think I’ve seen this star pattern ‘afore in all my life, Little Acorn!” he said, though Myrina had known him long enough to tell when he was hiding something. “Say, do you mind if I keep this to take a look for myself later?”

“‘Kay!” she chirped.

That had been the end of it, apparently. Serella ran off to play, and Hanvesh followed not long after, ambling out with his cane thumping in time with him.

A bad pain day, then. Myrina set the pot on the stove and began to brew his medicinal tea for when he came in.

Except she hadn’t even finished steeping it before she heard him head straight for the kitchen.

She turned just in time to see Hanvesh join her, still holding that paper in his free hand. His expression was a queer one; it hovered somewhere between serious and playful, in that strange liminal space he occupied when he intended to butter her up for something important.

As if he needed to.

“You’ll never guess what our daughter has discovered,” Hanvesh said conversationally. 

“A new constellation, by all accounts.” Myrina answered plainly.

At that, he snorted a laugh and said, “Aye, that’s what she believes. But would you believe me if I told you you’d recognize it better than I?”

As he asked this, he revealed the drawing on the paper: less a sketch and more a series of scribbled stars, one for each light she saw through the treeline.

Far too many to be a constellation; easily over a dozen dots, all arranged in a strange pyramid.

“Says she saw these after that storm the other day. Funny, the angle from the village points north, too far out to be the Shroud—”

Ah. Myrina might have known. Little wonder why she would need “buttering up,” then.

“Not a constellation, then.” she sighed and handed the paper back.

Hanvesh did not take it from her. “It’d be good to hear it from you, you know. What it really is.”

Who you really are, he did not add.

Of course it would be. If she knew how to do that. If she knew how to be a mother and a partner and a person—

“I don’t know, meri jaan,” she said around a heavy sigh.

She hadn’t even finished the exhale before he reached for her hands, gentle and sweet, as he leaned on his good leg to press close.

“Would it be so horrible if she knew her mother, mon cœur?” he asked, not unkindly and half into her cheek before he planted a kiss there.

If anyone would understand why Myrina might insist that yes, it would be so horrible, it would be her husband. That he would ask regardless meant he didn’t intend to let this go.

That it was important enough not to. That it mattered.

“I shan’t say a word,” he promised her, and when he squeezed her hands it became clear she had hidden her panic poorly. “Ultimately, it is your story to tell, mon cher.”

There was never a time he left her side without a kiss to her forehead, and this time was no exception. Cane in hand, he began to make his way back to the study.

Hovering near the window in the den on his way, he said aloud and certainly to no one in particular, “Methinks the sky’ll clear ‘round sunset, give or take a bell or two.”

He left it at that. She hated that he had, just a little, even as she knew he had the right of it.

Hanvesh had made rabbit stew out of her catch that night for dinner, and their little ones had been eager to help her make bread. 

The conversation at the dinner table never veered toward Serella’s “constellation,” lively as ever though it was. It was nice, always, to sit and watch her family happily chatter about their day. To bask in the warmth they exuded, the warmth they folded her into. 

But her thoughts were malms away from the table in that moment. Despite not having set foot there in almost a decade, a massive gate of wrought iron and stone cast a looming shadow over her thoughts. 

Realistically, she knew she could not keep her children from knowing forever—even if she did not tell them, their school would doubtless be covering broader Eorzean maps and history any day now. Though her name would not be there, the shape of the place would be unmistakable, and then the questions would follow; chief among them, the question of the household’s secrecy surrounding it. 

Nay, better to at least try.

There was about a two-bell span in the evening, after the house had gone to sleep, that Myrina knew her daughter would often shove pillows under her blankets and sneak down to the study, where all those star charts and fairytales were within her grasp, with time uninterrupted and free. Doubtless, Serella was eager to be nose-deep in some map or other, still dedicated to her new discovery.

Myrina knew a better mother might try to reign that in, to stamp down a bad habit the moment it was found. But she had been one such child once, scurrying in the shadows of her own home, delighting in the thrill of sneaking without true fear of harm. She could find no good in denying her daughter the chance to befriend the dark.

Tonight, though, she could give her daughter something better: an answer.

As expected, her ears perked at the sound of little feet trying to cling to the sides of the stair steps to reduce their creaking. In an effort to startle her daughter the least, Myrina waited until the footsteps hit the bottom before slipping out .

And, as expected, Serella spun around with such shock that she nearly sent herself to the floor when she met her mother’s eyes from the top of the stairs.

“You’re not in trouble,” she promised her daughter around the lump in her throat, holding up her hands as if to show she was unarmed. “There’s something I wanted to show you.”

Her daughter regarded her with wide eyes, watching her as she closed the distance.

“What do you mean?” Serella asked hesitantly, her whole body already bent in the shape of cornered prey.

Hard not to wince at that, but Myrina managed.

“I heard,” she said, and produced her daughter’s crude star map, “that you found yourself a constellation?”

Serella looked at her own drawing like she was somehow in trouble.

“Well…yeah. I mean,” she said in a halting voice that snagged on her own nerves. “I can’t find it in any of the books or maps I’ve been able to check. It’s up in the sky. What else could it be?”

Before she could talk herself out of it again, Myrina asked, “Would you like to know?”

That got a look of surprise on her daughter’s face, her spine unfurling as the fear left her. 

Then, as though the two of them were conspiring, she leaned in an whispered, “Do you know, Ma?”

At that, Myrina couldn’t help but crack a smile as she motioned with her head toward the front door and said, “Something like that. C’mon— get your shoes, and I’ll show you.”

With that, she led her curious daughter out through the front door and toward the treeline.

When she stopped in front of the tree that had been struck, she peered up through the burned branches.

Had she not known what those little twinkling lights were, she might also have thought they were stars; even with this hole, the trees above hadn’t thinned so much that the sky was in unobscured view.

“This one, right?” she asked, pointing at the gap.

When Serella nodded, Myrina mirrored the gesture, knelt before her daughter, and offered an open arm.

“Here, hang on to me.” Myrina instructed.

When Serella tilted her head in clear confusion, Myrina’s smile returned as she said, “We’re going to fly for just a moment. So hang on tight.”

Gasping and gawking, her daughter scrambled, her little arms wrapping around her shoulders and squeezing. 

For as unfamiliar as she was with laying her heart bare with her children, she knew without conscious thought how to swing her daughter onto her hip, arm wrapped around her like she was a toddler all over again.

It had been a while since Myrina had properly ridden the wind…but dragons never forget how to spread their wings. They who have supped on that selfsame aether were no exception.

Just as well. Short though the trip might have been, it still required a few hops around the dense canopy branches so as to hit the bigger ones, though just before breaking through the treeline, she made sure to wind up her leap as far and as high as she possibly could.

Might as well give her daughter a good view—nay, the best view she could.

Bursting through the treeline felt almost like breaking through the surface of water—for as much as she had come to love Gridania, its dense treeline made it easy to forget the world beyond and above it. It was easy to drown in the leaves. 

Now, though, the whole world stretched out in every direction further than the eye could see. Shaded treetops stretching out as far as they eye could see.

And above that, all, the glittering canopy hung higher than any tree. The stars welcomed her and her daughter into the rest of the world in that moment. The moon fair set the world alight that they might see its splendor.

Dragoons were ever taught to land lightly and hover on the barest of points, and much like their penchant for moments of flight, it was a muscle that never truly fell out of practice.

So it was nothing for her to perch on the natural “net” of the treetops, so dense as to support their weight on one of the highest branches as she settled in and set her daughter on her lap.

For so long as she drew breath, Myrina would never forget the look on Serella’s face, staring straight up at the sky—nowhere near where her newfound “constellation” was, mind, but just staring, unblinking, at the expanse of the universe with tears rolling down her cheeks as she took in the width and breadth of the night sky for the first time in her life.

“Wow…” Serella whispered. “I’ve seen it in pictures, but…”

Her words trailed off in a sniffle, even as she did nothing to wipe her tears away.

Myrina let her process this new discovery, her head on a swivel as if she would never see the sky again and had to commit it to memory. 

With a little lean toward her daughter, she murmured, “Just ahead of us. There’s your constellation—but look closer.”

Following Myrina’s outstretched hand, Serella at last scrubbed her face of tears and looked out, out, out beyond the treeline, on the far edge of the horizon. Dozens of lights twinkled back, all concentrated in the shape of a spire.

Or more accurately, several spires.

“It’s��a building…?” Serella trailed off, squinting at the outline that encased her newly discovered stars and leaning in as though it will help her see.

Eyes widening as she straightened again, she squeaked,  “...No, it’s a castle!”

Oh, how far and near to the truth she was. The truth might well break her heart. 

Despite everything, Myrina couldn’t help but smile as she said, “Something like that. It’s where I’m from.”

Serella’s head had never whipped toward her so fast.

“You came from over there?!” she exclaimed.

“Of a certainty. It’s—”

In her mind, Ishgard was as constant as the Twelveswood itself. Two homes, alike in cruelty, tumultuous as a roiling tide; made of the same waters and always destined to crash together but never unite. 

Myrina could not tell that to her child. Not when she looked up at her with such wide, inquisitive eyes. She could not be the first one to take that away from her.

“The…castle, you called it? It sits on a mountaintop with the surrounding town. It’s called Ishgard.”

Serella repeated the name slowly, as if she were testing its authenticity.

“What’s it like, Ma?” she asked.

Just as Myrina had feared. 

Slowly, she found the words to skirt around the horrid nature of the Theocracy. Staring out at the myriad lights that flickered so far away, her tone almost carried her voice to those windowsills she had so often pressed her nose against.

“The people there—they’re warm and kind. For the most part, that is,” Myrina started slowly, because that was true enough. “But they’re…it’s…”

Swallowing, she tried again, “No one is allowed to be their truest selves, unless they are inherently cruel. No one is able to truly be friends—with one another or with those not from there. It is a place cursed with loneliness and strife.”

As she expected, Serella’s tear-glossed eyes widened in shock and hurt at this revelation. Of course her tender little heart couldn’t bear the thought of such a place.

Rather than a fresh wave of tears, she shifted in her mother’s lap to face her fully as she asked, “Then we can make friends with everyone! Then they won’t be lonely anymore! Oh, can’t we go mom? Please?”

Myrina knew that look on her daughter’s face. That bright gleam in her mismatched eyes with a big smile that showed all her little baby teeth in an expression that dared the gods themselves to tell her she couldn’t fix an entire town with love.

Her sweet, innocent little girl. May she never know the harsh truths of the world—or may she defy them upon discovery.

With that little prayer in the back of her mind, she kissed the crown on her daughter’s head and promised her, “When you’re old enough to hold a sword and draw a bow, sweetheart, we’ll go together.”

Time had a funny way of half-breaking most promises and poorly keeping the rest. Twenty and two summers later, Serella would cross the Arc of the Worthy, driven there by the harshest truths and the cruelest lies of the world and trying not to wonder what her mother might make of it all.

[starswornoaths]

Prompt 19: Where the Heart Is

I’d intended to write something related to current content, then Myrina forcibly scruffed me and said “okay but I’m sad.”

Which, like. Fair.

Word count: 873

It was around that time of year again.

Tailfeather’s perpetually autumnal weather turned balmy, almost comfortable, almost like home, and what crops the settlement had were just beginning to hit their peak time for harvesting. Where the sunlight is just a bit too warm and the chocobos are a bit too far away from the tree canopy to safely track and catch.

And Myrina set out on her yearly pilgrimage again.

She never took long. Never needed to. Tailfeather could do without her for a fortnight or so, besides.

The journey from the Forelands into the Shroud was always a blur. Eventually the high boughs of the protective trees around Tailfeather gave way to lush, open fields, and in time they dipped off into the oppressive weight of the Twelveswood. She had taken it enough times that it had become something of an unofficial path, one that was worn well into the earth for how dutifully she had taken it. The geography of the place shifted under her grief; tall grass giving way to a narrow dirt path, jagged rocks smoothing out to stepping stones. 

Even if the earth hadn’t shifted around her, it wouldn’t have mattered. She would not be denied.

The Shroud engulfed her ere long— really, she was making this journey faster and faster every year— and before long, she was deep enough into the Twelveswood that she began to recognize the twists and turns, the old paths the wood refused to not reclaim for itself.

Obscured and destroyed and buried beneath the flora though it may be, Myrina would know Elmvale anywhere.

This was where the earth stubbornly clung to its greenery, where she could swear that the crushed grass beneath her feet rose up again the moment her foot left the ground. Where the Greenwrath would never forgive them for being kind. Even as she stepped deeper into the clearing, she could feel eyes unseen watching her, bearing down on her. Even now, decades later, the Twelveswood rankled at her return.

Let it. She would not be denied.

Elmvale was gone in all but her memory, but she made that enough. The clearing where the village had once sat was eerily pristine, save for the graves she had marked herself. As she approached, she couldn’t help but purse her lips at the moss that had begun to grow over the faint stones. Again. At least she had started coming prepared for that, too, some years back.

Thus, her ritual began.

A cleaning cloth with some repellant was taken to each of the stones, and they were cleaned with care until they gleamed again in the dappled sunlight streaming through the trees. Until the names Myrina hadn’t spoken since her last visit again could be seen clear as day. With each grave marker cleaned and a few flowers placed in offering, she called their name out into the wood, defiant of it’s will, demanding that they be remembered. They were good people. They had deserved so much more than this, but this was all she could give them.

She always saved her husband’s for last. Another part of her ritual.

Hanvesh rested beneath the tree that had grown behind their house, as he had always said he had wanted on those nights so long ago when they would talk of passing the house down to their children. Rather than only remain kneeled at the graveside long enough to clean it and give flowers like the others, Myrina bent to kiss at his name etched onto the stone and took a seat at her husband’s side.

“Hello, dear one.” She whispered. “I’m sorry it took me so long to visit again.”

The bottle of wine she had brought was small. Only enough for one glass, but it was all she would need. As she brought the lip of the bottle to her lips, she couldn’t help but hear Hanvesh’s chuckle on the breeze, all smoke and campfire warmth, as she had once called it.

“No glass for the high house lass? ‘Fraid I’m a bad influence!” He had told her once, back when they were but humble adventurers on the road, passing a bottle of wine and clandestine kisses between them on a starry night.

She had been told, all her life, by many, many people, that home was where the heart is. It had been such a vague, unhelpful saying in the wake of her family’s deaths, and a cold comfort after she had been taken in by one of the lesser noble houses. By the time her fellow Dragoons had said it in passing as they all shared stories of what they had to look forward to after each mission, it had held about as much meaning as asking about the weather.

Leaning against her husband’s grave marker and taking another pull from that bittersweetly familiar wine, she hated that this was what it took for her to understand what that phrase had truly meant.

Welcome home, Myrina recalled her Hanvesh joyfully greeting her whenever she came home from hunting, or trips into Gridania proper.

“It’s good to be home.” She had always told him, and told him again now, even as he could no longer hear her.

[starswornoaths]

🌹

/dote!

Despite being well into summer, there was an unmistakable chill that settled at the base of the spine and cut through armor down to the marrow. Though the trees swayed in the breeze the world was otherwise still. Lesser beasts had long since taken to hiding, on edge for the encroaching storm. This was as familiar as breathing to Myrina— she knew this was no natural storm. No happenstance of nature.

Dravanians were on the move.

Just as well; she’d begun to itch for a proper hunt. Though they never wanted for skirmishes with lesser dragons, the larger scale wyrms were not as frequent— certainly not at this scale.

[starswornoaths]

Stay.

Over the years, Serella has found herself with many, many members in her little chosen family. Many of whom have already left, whisked away in slumber. There are only a few left to whom she hasn’t said goodbye. On her last night on this star, that changes.

Or:

Absolutely do not, under any circumstances, read this while listening to “Goodbye may seem Forever” from Fox and the Hound 0/10 sobbed while editing.

Word count: 2,836

Ordinarily, Serella loved riding through the Highlands on Ullr’s back. It was liberating, that feeling of the sharp chill of crisp Coerthan air lashing at her face and the howl of the wind in her ears as they raced through the snowy pathways and foothills around Camp Dragonhead. While certainly not so freeing as flying overhead, there was something special about feeling her bird trot against the resistance of several inches of powdery snow that glittered like stardust as he kicked it up in his wake. On another sort of outing on any other picturesque day she would happily hop off to play in the snow with her beloved bird— for how else would they stay young, otherwise?

Today, however, Serella rode from Mor Dhona straight into Camp Dragonhead with a heavy heart and a hard set mask of stoicism. She dismounted and led him to the stables, though yet lingered at her faithful friend’s side: she was waiting for someone, after all. Ullr doubtless sensed her dread, as he trilled in that questioning way that seemed to ask her, Mama, what’s wrong? Her heart squeezed in her chest, even as she forced herself to smile as she gave his side an affectionate pat.

“It’s alright, boy,” she reassured him, even as she knew it was a lie. “It’s alright, this...this shouldn’t take long.”

One of the passing knights recognized her, and reassured her that Lord Emmanelain would be out shortly. She thanked him and busied herself with slowly removing Ullr’s saddlebags one at a time to add to her own backpack. Even as she was mindful of the straps lest they chaffe him as she worked she felt her eyes sting— a stinging that persisted as Ullr reached over and gently nipped at the saddlebag she was now working to fasten to her own pack.

Another softly questioning wark came, as if asking, Mama, what are you doing?

The cold must be drying her eyes, Serella thought, and blinked back her tears as she lifted the second of the saddlebags and strapped it to her own pack as well; they weren’t that much heavier, she had emptied them before they left. 

“Hey there, old girl,” she heard a familiar, boyish voice call to her, “good to see you again.”

She straightened, intent on answering Emmanellain in that calm, collected voice she had been practicing for what felt like a lifetime when a happy bark sounded in the camp’s stone walls. She whipped her head around to see her brave little brother standing just outside of the stable looking at her like he was scared to his wits end, her mother beside him with eyes already haunted for her childrens’ absence, and her sweet, excitable canine bounding over like a bolt of lightning.

That she had not been expecting— and the surprise disarmed her of her staunch stoicism.

“Ma— Vardr—?!” She didn’t even care her voice broke or that her eyes swam with tears as she knelt to catch her sprinting companion.

He nearly barreled her over in his enthusiasm but she managed to keep knelt, even as she was bombarded with licks and tail wags and his happy whines. She attempted to soothe him around her own tears: she hadn’t realized just how much she had missed her pets, and felt Rhalgr’s absence more keenly than she had in recent weeks. She hoped her fuzzy cat was napping by her fireplace malms away in Foundation, keeping nice and warm.

“What are you doing here, boy?” She asked as he calmed down enough to sit in front of her and let his thump excitedly. 

“Brought him from your house— on orders from a bluebird chirping in my ear.” Myrina said from somewhere above her: she must have stepped inside the stable at some point. She couldn’t bring herself to stand just yet when Vardr was so starved for her affection— and she for his, really. “And lest you worry, I’ll be glad to take him home once we’re done here— needed an excuse to stretch my legs, anyroad.”

Though she was wholly and utterly delighted at being able to see Vardr again, her mother’s words gave her pause: a bluebird— Aymeric? He had been one of a few to know that she was travelling to Camp Dragonhead for personal reasons; she’d had to report it to all of the Alliance leaders lest they need her counsel, and never mind the way her stomach churned at the discovery of that particular requirement for the job and the revelation that this was just how Minfilia had lived; she hadn’t the wherewithal to unpack the emotions she felt with that. Much as she adored the other leaders of the Alliance, she doubted very much any of them save for him could contact her mother— or would even know to— in advance. We’re supposed to be neutral, the sweet fool, she thought with infinite fondness even as her heart twisted in her chest.

In the wake of everything that she was going to have to do and everything that was in front of her, Serella had somehow skipped past feeling overwhelmed by her emotions and had numbed herself enough to stand without fear of crying all over again.

“Pray tell your bluebird that I’m so grateful for this—” she thanked Myrina before turning to her brother, “— and thank you as well, of course,” she amended, trying to smile even as it felt like her skin was being pulled too tight from the already fleeting cheer. Like snow in springtime it rapidly evaporated, and she asked in a quieter voice, “how fare you? Are you sure this isn’t too much trouble?”

“Oh come now, old girl, give me some credit!” Emmanelain dismissed, holding a finger up. “I might not be quite so adept as Haurchefant had been in chocobo husbandry, but I know how to care for a full grown bird— who do you think Artoirel foisted all his stable boy duties on when we were children?”

The thought of Artoirel being the one to shove off work in their youth had Serella snorting in laughter; little wonder Emmanelain had been so quick to shirk off his own duties when they had first met.

“I was more worried about overwhelming you— you have so many other duties now.” Serella explained, even as she had continued to pet Ullr and Vardr in turns. 

“If Camp Dragonhead can’t provide for a spare chocobo, then I am already not doing my job.” Emmanellain replied with pursed lips. “And if anything changes to where we cannot, he will be taken care of at the Holy Stables.” He clapped a hand over his heart. “I swear I’ll see to it myself.”

“I never had a doubt in my mind,” Serella reassured him, though with a wince she hesitantly asked the two of them, “...might I finish stabling him? Say my goodbyes?”

“I would have insisted you do regardless,” her younger brother reassured her.

“It’s only right,” Myrina said, a hand coming up to pat at Ullr’s beak. “Poor dear already suspects, most like.” 

With a jerk of his head toward the path leading out of Camp Dragonhead, Emmanellain said, “go on, we can wait outside. Need us to take Vardr?”

“Nah, he can stay— he’ll howl otherwise.” Moving back inside Ullr’s pen, she patted her thigh. “Come on, boy.” 

Pleased as a goobue in mud, Vardr happily flopped down beside her as Emmanellain and Myrina quietly excused himself. Ullr preened his chest tuft nervously as she worked to remove his saddle and bridle. With her chocobo fully freed of his riding gear and her dog faithfully leaning against her leg she took her time carefully brushing out Ullr’s feathers; she had noticed that he had begun to look a bit lathered as they came into the Highlands. 

It was soothing, the back and forth repetition of feeling the brush drift through his feathers. She had always taken great pride in taking care of him herself; even the thought of this being goodbye, even for just a short while, made her insides knot themselves with guilt. Ullr fussed and whined, and he must have realized something was different about this time, she realized with the way he kept turning to look at her, kept trying to nip her hands to stop her from brushing him. To calm him, she began to quietly hum as she often did when brushing him. Though Ullr quieted, he seemed to eye her dubiously as she went about tending to him.

“I won’t be around for a while, boys,” she spoke quietly when her song ended and the brushing stopped. “I have to find all your aunts and uncles— I’ve told you about what happened, haven’t I?”

Vardr made a low, questioning noise and she felt him press his forehead to her thigh to tip his head back and look up at her. She did not meet his stare— she had fallen into a sort of melancholic trance, tending to Ullr as she was.

“They’re all sleeping, and I have to...to wake them up again. So you’ll have to take care for me, alright?” She made to sweep the feathers that had shed naturally off when impulse demanded she take a few of them and carefully tuck them away in her breastplate; Ullr was the only one she could conceivably take a part of with her, she reasoned. “Be on your best behavior, the both of you.” Ullr turned his head and gently bumped his beak against her cheek. She stroked the downy soft feathers between his eyes. “Don’t give Emmanellain a hard time; he’s doing his best. You know the stable hands: they’re good about keeping your hay fresh and your stall clean, so no pecking them if they forget your salt block once or twice, alright?” 

Vardr let out a startled snort when she moved to stand in front of Ullr, the poor dog being jarred from leaning against her leg as she shifted. She leaned down to give him an apologetic pat when he came to sit beside her again. She returned her attention to her horsebird when she heard a stable hand discreetly clear his throat. 

“Time for me to go now.” She pressed her forehead gently against Ullr’s and gave his head one last scritch. “I love you, Ullr. Be a good boy for me, alright?”

When Serella turned Ullr grabbed the hood of her cloak with his beak. When she turned to free herself, a heat already behind her eyes as she took her hood back, Ullr let out a mournful wark, pleading, Mama, stay?

“Now, now,” her chastisements were warbled through her unshed tears, even as she took a step backward out of his reach. “What did I just say? Be good for me, Ullr. I’ll be back.”

She patted her thigh again, and tried to ignore the way Ullr wailed at being held in his pen. The stable hand tried to calm him, but even as she stepped out into the snow, she could hear him butting his side against the door in protest. She quietly apologized to him: she had always been bad at hiding her upset from him.

Vardr fell into step beside Serella as she walked toward the path leading back through to Mor Dhona, where Emmanellain and Myrina waited for her at the edge of the camp. She felt her already lead filled stomach sink to the floor the closer she neared; three more goodbyes, and that would be all that held her to this star. As she came to a stop in front of them, she tried to claw at what remains of her stoicism she could find within her.

“Well, this is it.” Emmanellain said with a heavy sigh. “Suppose you’re heading straight out, then?”

“To linger would just make it more painful.” Serella reasoned. “They...they need me. And I’m faring little better without them.”

Myrina nodded in understanding. “You’re certain you have all you might need on the road?” She asked with a frown.

“It isn’t far,” she replied distantly, though after a pause, she amended, “...to the tower. I...I can’t take much with me past that, or so I’m told.”

The youngest Fortemps nodded grimly. “And...you’re alright with that?”

“No. But I haven’t a choice.” Serella shrugged. Turning to her mother and giving her the biggest hug she could manage, she whispered, “thank you for bringing Vardr with you for me to say goodbye, Ma— it means more than I can say.”

“Seemed only right.” Myrina sniffed. “Wish your brother was here.”

“He...he didn’t want to say goodbye in person.”

“I know. I got his letter. It’s...enough.” The way Myrina squeezed her daughter until her shoulders popped gave away the lie. “I can’t fathom the pain you two suffered in mourning your father and I. Don’t...don’t put me through that.” 

“We’ll be back as soon as we can, Ma.” Serella hoped that what strength she had was enough to hold her mother together for even a few seconds longer. 

“You’d damn well better be.” Myrina reached up on her tip toes and kissed her cheek. “I love you, little Ella.” 

“I love you, too, Ma.” With a sniffle and a kiss to her forehead, Serella let go. When her mother stepped back, her brother hesitantly came forward.

“Serella.” Emmanellain said in a serious tone, all pretense of his own boyhood gone. She looked at him, then— really looked at him, and saw that he was trying just as hard as she was to hold himself together. “This isn’t...do not call it ‘goodbye,’ alright?” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “You adventurer types like those, but I deny your goodbye!” Tears welled in his eyes— and hers. “You will come home, you hear me? I accept naught less!”

“...I promise.” She said, and all pretense of Ishgardian mannerisms went out the window when he launched himself at her for a hug. She squeezed him tight enough that she felt his ribs creak. He only clung to her tighter. “We’ll come back, just you see.”

“You had better!” He sniffled into her collar. “Ullr will never forgive you otherwise— nor will I!”

“I know, brother mine,” she yessed him through her own tears— she had not realized she had so many of them to shed today. “I know. I love the lot of you too damned much to stay gone, you know that.”

“You had better.” He mumbled, going slack as if in defeat.

He was the first to let go and step away, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand. Taking the opportunity for what it was, she knelt down one last time to speak with Vardr.

“You watch over the others for me, yeah?” She asked him, and when he whined, she placed her hand atop his head. “I love you, Vardr.”

It didn’t surprise her when he started to trot along after her when she stood and turned to leave. She had anticipated it, and turned to look down at him over her shoulder. She held out her closed fist— a command she had taught him early.

“Stay.” She ordered him.

Vardr whined, pawing at the snow in front of him. Myrina knelt down and took hold of his collar, nodding at her sternly to go. 

Serella left, and did not look back again. She pretended that Vardr’s mournful howling was just the wind of the encroaching snow storm. Eventually, that was all she heard besides.

By the time she had made her way into Mor Dhona, past the settlement, and into the crystal forest surrounding Syrcus Tower, she had managed to take an old hairpin she had found in Eureka and refashion it with Ullr’s feathers. She had pinned it in her hair out of want for having something there— the dramatic in her demanded she leave her Orthodox hairpin with Aymeric in the infirmary before they parted— again— and she had not realized how familiar its slight weight was on her head until she went without. 

It felt oddly final, when she walked past the first gate to the tower. There was still yet the disabled wards to walk passed, but something about the heavy thud of the doors closing behind her felt...permanent in a way she did not want to dwell on. 

I’ll come back. And I’ll bring everyone with me. She promised herself, and that alone made her legs push her onward. She had someone she needed to meet up ahead, anyroad. No sense in keeping him waiting.

Uthengentle did not comment on the new hairpin when he eyed it upon her arrival to the doors of Syrcus Tower. Instead, he offered her a tired smile and put away his whittling. Not even left home, and it was clear the shadows had already caught up to haunt both their eyes.

“Well, Ellie,” he said in a weary voice, “ready to save the world again?”

“As ever.” She replied, just as exhausted, and felt like she left everything that was home the second they stepped through the doors. 

[starswornoaths]

📑 Favorite part of your muse’s backstory? 📝 Favorite headcanon for your muse?

Mun talks about the muse- Accepting!

📑 Favorite part of your muse’s backstory?

This is going to sound incredibly fucked up, but I love the way Serella got her facial scars. 

I don’t have a mod to show it (RIP PS4 user over here...) and I’ll get better at photoshop for screens...eventually. But what artwork has been done of her so far has beautifully shown off her facial/neck scar.

(Biggest of shoutouts to @aethernoise on this one, she’s made them look incredible and she’s a good friend besides if you’re considering getting character art and you can plz support her here and here)

I haven’t really sat down and explained it, but when she was a little girl, maybe 8 or so? A family of Ala Mhigan refugees managed to make it to her little hamlet in Gridania, but are heavily wounded.

Now Serella’s parents, apart from just being adventurers with no bias besides, have already adopted Uthengentle, another Ala Mhigan refugee, and are staunch advocates for taking the refugees in and treating their injuries. Since this was the early days of the Empire taking over Gyr Abania, sentiment was a bit (though not completely) warmer, and the village agreed to give them aid.

And that was all well and good, until a Hearer comes and warns them all the the Twelveswood has decreed them unwelcome, and the refugees must leave. Now, the villagers are mostly made up of non-native Gridanians, and are aware of how incredible inhumane and cruel it would be to just send mortally wounded people on their way with no help. So they agree to continue treating them until their wounds are better, then load them up with supplies and wish them well. 

The Twelveswood does not compromise, however, and sends fauna to the village to tear it down and send a message to the rest of Gridania: accept our terms in their totality or else. Beasts of all manners of the wood overrun the village, mauling everyone in sight. Uthengentle, at the ripe old age of eleven or so, runs to try and protect the wounded refugees, but is nearly attacked by one of the beasts. Serella throws herself between them without thought, and she gets her face clawed as thanks. 

She likes to call that scar, “Her First Act as a Paladin,” but save for those who are closest to her, she omits how young she was when she got it. It’s as much a part of her now as anything else.

📝 Favorite headcanon for your muse?

This sort of goes for both Arcbane siblings, but I love that they just decide to keep adopting people into their family. Lucia? Sister. Leveilleur twins? Siblings. Estinien? Wandering Goblin Brother. Ryne? Precious gift of a niece who they spoil rotten. All of the Scions in their existence? That’s their family, sorry they don’t make the rules. No one is safe from becoming an honorary Arcbane. Myrina has her hands full with keeping track of them, but dotes on every single one of them as though they’ve always been family to her, too.

“Ma, this is Ryne, our niece.”

“Oh! I don’t believe we’ve met! Hello, darling, would you like a cup of cocoa? Has Thancred told you about the time he and I met? He tried to woo me-” “Yes, and it was very funny for everyone involved, Mistress Myrina, now if you would please.”

[starswornoaths]

In the Pines

All she wanted was her family.

Or: Myrina wakes up alone, and this is a Very Bad Thing.

(side note if you want an extra dose of sad, here’s a song that reminded me of Serella’s childhood after their parents died.)

The first feeling that Myrina was conscious of was her torso feeling as though it had been set on fire.

She had thought to open her eyes but they would not obey her— not even after feeling the odd jostle or shift of movement around her that reignited the agony that had slashed itself across her shoulders, her chest, her abdomen. That she was being moved by vehicle became clearer to her but by whom or to where yet eluded her.

As she mentally negotiated with her eyelids to cooperate, she tested the rest of her limbs. Slowly, painfully, she flexed her every finger, her toes, and though the pain that raced back from the tip of her every appendage to her core was agony, it was also a relief: she yet possessed control of her body. Her worst fears had not yet been realized.

“Hey— hey, I think she’s waking up.” Called a voice, quietly but near where she lie. Her lips parted, though her throat had long since dried, and all she could manage was a raspy sigh. “Easy, easy,” the voice said again— a man’s voice, soft and trying to be comforting. “You took a thrashing back there, but it’s alright, we’ve got you.”

There was a glow— like the early morning sun’s light passing through the bedroom window, and the nostalgic, soothing rush of healing magic splashed across her torso. A chirurgeon, she thought, rapidly becoming more alert.

“Where—” she wheezed, feeling as though her lungs might explode from the effort of speech.

“Shh, shh,” the chirurgeon tried to quiet her. “It’ll be alright, miss.”

“My husband—” Myrina fought the urge to clutch at her side, even as her arm jerked to do so when the pain flared again. “My children—”

Because she needed to know. Even if she ultimately succumbed to her wounds, if she knew her family had made it, it would be fine. The agony of uncertainty threatened to be her ultimate doom. Her heart hammered against her battered ribs and breathing hurt but she clung to consciousness, desperate to know.

“You were the only one we found alive, miss.” The voice reluctantly said. He laid a hand on her head. “I’m so sorry.”

Though the sobs that wracked her body hurt it was nothing to the heartache; she had failed them. She was their spear, their shield, their arbiter of the Fury meant to protect them from harm because she had to be. Because Hanvesh was too injured, and her little ones were yet too little, and she had sworn to herself that she would keep them all under her protection.

And she had lost them.

“Rest now, miss.” The chirurgeon murmured, and she felt something softly pull at the back of her mind. A sleep spell, her mind distantly remembered from her days as a Dragoon. Her resistance, while valiant, was weak, and she felt herself slip into slumber. “We can talk more when you are better.”

Myrina fell asleep praying she would never wake.

So when she opened her eyes sometime later, blinking back the light filtering in through the cloth canopy ahead of her, she added not dying to the list of her failures. She just wanted her family. She just wanted to go home.

The flames that had licked at her every nerve ending had abated somewhat; movement was still agonizing but she could shuffle about without threat of losing consciousness and breathing was no longer a strain on her constitution, and she could consider that progress, miniscule as it was.

Gaining her bearings, she realized that she was in the back of a caravan— by nothing short of divine providence, a travelling healer and his alchemist husband had been making a trek through the Twelveswood on their way down into Thanalan and had passed through where her village had lie in rubble. In speaking with the healer, he explained that he and his husband had searched for more survivors, but had only found her with a pulse.

She provided him, in breathless desperation, a description of her family, of her little Uthen with silver-blonde hair and bright gray eyes and her little Ella with mismatched eyes and dark hair, and of her beloved Hanvesh, he would have long hair carefully groomed into dreadlocks and eyes blue as the sea.

The chirurgeon told her that though he had indeed seen her husband amongst the dead, he had not seen children of her description at all. Speaking with the alchemist, he confirmed that he had only seen her husband, but that he had passed some time before they had arrived. And that had been enough. As she laid there in silent mourning of her beloved she already began to assess how long it would take for the wounds to close; a few hours, perhaps, and they would be mended enough that she could make the journey back to the village. She would bleed, to be sure, and agony was a guarantee but it was kinder than not knowing where her children were.

She left at dawn the next day.

Dissuasion fell of deaf ears as Myrina had simply limped away clutching a walking stick she had found near where the caravan had been parked. They were still in Gridania, on the road that led to Thanalan were she to travel south. She pushed north: she knew this path.

This was the same road that had led her and her sweet Hanvesh to their final adventure together, the same road that he too had limped along to find them a proper place to call home. This road, with its sluggish winding path was as familiar to her as her own heartbeat, and though it took more effort— and time— than she would have liked, she had managed to make it back to the ruins of her home by the time the afternoon sun hung high overhead.

“Halone have mercy on my little ones,” she whispered as she neared the edge of the village. “Guide them home to me. Don’t punish them for my sins. Not my babies.” She felt her throat tighten. “Was my husband not enough?”

She found her spear not far from where she had been flung before she had lost consciousness— still whole, miraculously. It felt heavy in her hand but still she clung to it, abandoning her walking stick to replace it with her favored weapon. Pressing on to the town square, her heart pounded painfully in her chest.

Though she was not near enough to see clearly, she could instantly tell which body was her husband.

He had died near the doorstep of their home, now in shambles and splinters and nothing but a distant memory of hearth and happiness. Lying on his back, his hand outstretched, as though he had been reaching for something at the last. She did not know whether it was better or worse that his eyes were not open. She knew even less what she was feeling other than overwhelming pressure threatening to crush her chest in.

Much as she might have wanted to sink down beside him and wait to join him, she continued her search of the area— anything that could point her in the direction of her children, some inkling as to where they had gone.

Myrina limped around neighbors, friends, loved ones that all lie where they had fallen, their bodies echoes of the horror that had been wrought upon them, unrecognizable from the trauma and blood. Shattered homes and the rubble they made littered the area, impeding her laborious search.

The devastation was too familiar for her to pretend to be fine, though too foreign enough to pretend this was Coerthas and the Dravanians had simply extracted another fine of lives and livelihood for the war effort. There was no fire, no smoke, no smell of burning flesh. Though death surrounded her all she could smell was the life of the forests around her, all she heard was birdsong. The Twelveswood got what it wanted in the end; even as she stood among the dead, the forest lived on with no trace of them or their loss. The wood did not care.

Myrina found nothing— it was as though they had vanished without a trace.

Just as she began to limp back to her husband’s body, her eyes spied a corpse she had not seen before: hiding in the remains of their house, there was a body of an adult she did not recognize, with an arrow protruding from their back.

Jarred from her anguish and fighting against the shock of hope that fueled her movements she made her way into the dilapidated home to more closely inspect the body. A miqo'te male lying face down on what had once been their living room floor— she recognized the leather armor he wore, even through the blood that had long since soaked it through: he had been of the Coeurlclaws.

Turning her eye to the arrow, she inspected the feathers for any significance to their color or their shape; perhaps it was a rival group, or a stray poacher’s arrow, or—

Myrina knew those feathers— Hanvesh had traded with a travelling clan Duskwight that moved through the Twelveswood. He had often commented to her that these arrows were of a particularly high quality, and he always readily traded some of his woodworking for a quiver full for hunting their game. The same Duskwight clan who had a little girl that liked to play with Serella and Uthengentle by the river often, whose family had become fairly close to theirs, insofar as their constant moving allowed them to be. They had come here? After the attack on the village, doubtless interrupting the Coeurlclaws from picking over the corpse of the village.

Now she had to try and divine whether the Coeurlclaws had gotten to her children and either took them or killed them...or whether the clan of Duskwight elezen had taken her babies in. That she did not find them among the dead was encouraging, but left too much unanswered for her to know. All this pain, all this anguish, and still she knew no more than she had before she came.

Her breathing ragged and her heart aching, she hobbled as well as her body allowed outside of the house’s remains. Scanning the forest surrounding the village and straining to hear anything other than the fauna around her she desperately searched for a sign that they were still in the area, that the Duskwight clan had simply taken her babies to safety and they were still close.

“Uthen!” She shouted. Her throat scratch and her body burned but she did not stop. “Ella!” She paused, straining to hear more than her echo and the rustle of the leaves. “Uthengentle!” She screamed. “Serella!” It felt as though her throat was being split open but still she screamed, “I’m here, little ones!”

The only answer she received was her own voice reverberating through the trees.

She continued to scream— her children’s names, screamed that she was there, that she needed to see them, that they were scaring her. She screamed and screamed and screamed until she collapsed beside her sweet, kind Hanvesh’s body. Then she screamed just to scream out her anguish. She sobbed into the earth that had dared to steal everything from them, she shrieked and shrieked and shrieked because her family had not deserved this. She howled because no, actually, the Twelveswood will not pretend her village did not exist. It did. And the wood robbed them of their life. She would remind them all day. She had nothing left to do.

Eventually, her voice left her, too, and she was left weeping beside her husband, her mind trying to figure out where to go after this around the sound of her heart breaking. For how could she find her babies? Who could she even ask- if they were alive, they were taken, and she had no real leads that the Wailers would be able to use- or even want to use, based on past experience. 

For all intents and purposes, she had lost her family all over again.

There was a hand on her back- soft, tentative. A voice speaking in her hear; the alchemist, the husband of the conjurer that had found her. 

“I’m so sorry for your loss, miss.” He said. “We...we had wanted to come back, before your recovery. We wanted to give these people a proper burial.”

“Thank you,” she rasped. “That means much.”

“We’ll still see that they’re laid to rest,” he reassured her. 

She nodded, not knowing what else she could say. In the distance, somewhere beyond the village’s main square, she heard the conjurer saying a blessing- he must have already buried some of her neighbors.

“Have you other family you can reach out to?” The alchemist asked. “We might help, if you do-”

“None,” she whispered. 

Even if her brother was still alive or Ser Alberic would even recognize her, she was still a dead woman in Ishgard. She had no business there any longer. Hadn’t for over a decade at that point. No sense in haunting them, ghost of her former self as she was.

“If you have nowhere to go- we were heading home,” he began to offer, “to Tailfeather. It’s in Dravania, but-”

Tailfeather. If she had even a fraction of her heart left, she would have laughed in bitter nostalgia. Of all the places that she might find a chance at rebuilding from the shambles of the life she lost, it would be Ishgard’s easily forgotten Dravanian outpost. If there was ever anywhere that was not beneath the boughs of the Twelve that a lancer might easily blend in, it would be there.

“I...have some hunting skill as a lancer,” she answered distantly. She could keep her name- ‘Arcbane,’ meant nothing in those parts, and no one would care to ask so long as she earned her keep. “If it would help your outpost, I would offer you my lance.” 

“Outpost-? You know of Tailfeather?” The alchemist asked, surprised. 

“In passing,” she said, her hazy mind offering an easy cover, one she hadn’t needed to use in some years, “I was an adventurer, before I settled down.”

“Ahh,” he gave a nod, but even still she could not lift her gaze from her husband’s shoulder; she could not bring herself to lift her gaze higher, to look at his vacant face in detail. She chose to know him only as he was when he was alive. “Let us take care of the burials, then, and we can be on our way.” 

Myrina wanted to insist that she be the one to bury Hanvesh. She wanted to be the one to take him to the tree they had picked out, to bury him beneath the boughs he chose for himself. She wanted to be the one to carry him, to lay him to rest with a kiss to his forehead and a tearful smile but she knew her wounds would only open and add to her agony.

“There was a place my husband wanted to be buried,” she said quietly instead, shame filling her that she had to ask another to do what should have been her duty by right. “The great oak tree behind our house...” she drifted, craning her neck as much as she could to look behind the remains of their home.

When the alchemist followed her gaze he gave her a nod. “I see it- ‘tis a fine tree, miss.” He carefully laid a hand over hers and implored her with his eyes, “we’ll be respectful, I promise.”

She had no choice but to believe him, though he was kind enough to help her pick flowers from Hanvesh’s garden and lay them over his eyes. Her last kindness to him. She kissed the flowers over his closed eyes and waited in heavy silence in the humid, still air of the caravan while they did what she could not.

They were...kind, these two. It took hours and there was no promise of a reward but the conjurer and alchemist laid to rest the half dozen villagers that had yet remained unburied. They had helped her walk to Hanvesh’s grave- exactly as he had wanted it- and let her say her goodbyes. They were kinder still as they offered her a spot in their caravan to take her to Tailfeather. 

Her life had always been a cyclical routine of times of suffering and times of plenty. Of having a family and losing it again- though this is only her third go around the cycle of loss, she felt as though she had lived longer than she had. Too long, but she couldn’t end it now. Now she had to live for her family. For all those she had lost. No one else could live for them now but she, after all.

And so she let the caravan take her away from the life she had build toward the shadow of the life she had left behind.

[starswornoaths]

Ever a Seneschal, Ne’er a Princess (1/4)

Serella used to be a princess. It used to bother her when she wasn’t anymore. She’s fine now, really- she’s fine.

Or:

Hi I’m having feelings from this year’s event story so have some Tragic Backstory(tm) that I wrote for my own soul.

Serella’s first Little Ladies Day had been nothing short of magical in her eyes.

A girl of just seven summers then, she was enchanted by the way the flowers seemed to bloom brighter than any other time of year, at the perpetually fluttering flower petals and the sweetness and laughter filling the air. The Mih Khetto Amphitheatre was alive today in a way she had never seen it before. She could only gawk in awe of the festivities around her.

It was fortunate that her Da was holding her little hand in his, as she would have otherwise distractedly wandered. His large hand fully encased hers, warm and rough with callouses as he gently guided her through the stalls and people. His pace was easy to match, slow but smooth— a rarity with his bad leg. She could hear the rhythmic thmp of his cane hitting the earth as they walked. She had no idea why they were there— or why Uthen and Ma had split off the moment they made it to the Amphitheatre.

“What’s the festival for, Da?” Serella finally asked when they stopped beneath the shade of a cherry blossom tree.

“This,” her Da said with a grand sweep of his arm. “Is all for Little Ladies Day, Ella.” He smiled at her in that fatherly way that made her feel so warm and happy as he explained, “it’s a day for celebrating springtime, and lets little ladies like yourself,” when he lightly tapped the tip of her nose with a finger, she giggled in delight. “Celebrate their maidenhood by being princesses for the day.” He gestured to the various celebration staff, all in crisp clean suits. “The seneschals attend to the princesses for the day.”

“I’m not a maiden!” Serella insisted, her cheeks puffed out. “Or a princess! I’m your First Mate!”

“That you are, little acorn.” Her Da agreed, his laughter rumbling like thunder. “But a First Mate can also be a princess.” He was slow to lean down to kiss the top of her head, but she beamed like the sun for it all the same. “And you are most certainly a princess.”

“I guess that’s okay, then.” Serella conceded, even as she continued to grin. “So what do we do?”

“Whatever you wish, princess!” Her Da answered with a bow. “I shall be your seneschal for the day.”

“You can’t be a seneschal, Da!” She said with a giggle. “You’re the Captain!”

“That does put us in a pickle!” He laughed. “Then I’ll just have to be Captain Seneschal, just for you, Princess Ella,” he said.

“Okay, Captain!” Serella said, bouncing on the balls on her feet.

They mingled with the crowd, and when her Da was handed a lovely pale pink lily corsage, he gallantly fixed it to Serella’s hair. The day was filled with laughter, the scent of spring all around them, and fingers sticky from the fruit and seasonal treats they partook in. The day had not been long enough, but it was perfect. Serella had never felt like a princess before.

“I can’t promise we’ll come every year,” her Da said quietly, somberly as they waited for Uthen and her Ma to meet with them to make the trip home. “We...we might not make it out that often.”

Because of his leg, in part, she knew— that their village was a few hours cart ride from Gridania proper also made it worse. She nodded in understanding.

“That’s okay!” Serella promised him, this time being the one to reach for his hand. “Today was so cool!” She grinned up at him. “Thank you, Captain Da!”

When he smiled at her, she only hoped he knew that today was enough. If she never got to go to another Little Ladies Day with him, that today was more than enough.

***

**

*

Serella’s second Little Ladies Day was nothing short of a disaster in Uthengentle’s eyes.

With their parents parted from this star for not even a year and the two of them living with the clan of outcast Duskwight that took them in, the two of them were, more or less, allowed to do as they pleased, once their chores were done for the day. As the festivities drew near, Uthengentle promised himself that he would finish up the next day’s chores and duties ahead of time— for the both of them— and take her himself. He wasn’t their Da by a long shot, but he could still be her seneschal.

He’d done as much planning as he could; they didn’t have much in the way of gil, but the clan was in need of supplies, and were sending the kids into town for it anyway. They would still be able to get what they needed from the Ivory and Ebony stalls, make a decent day of the event, and be back before sundown, so long as he was careful about it.

And...and he wanted Ellie to have a good time! She needed it...she’d needed it since their parents...weren’t there anymore. The scars on her face and neck had healed over...but she had been so drawn into herself and quiet for so long it was as if the beast that gave them to her had clawed out her voice. All he wanted was to make her smile. She hadn’t in so long…

So Uthengentle couldn’t help but feel a little like her eyes widening in surprise as he took her hand and steered her away from the path leading to the stalls and guiding them down toward the Amphitheatre a personal victory.

“Uthen?” Serella asked quietly, tugging at his hand to stop.

When he turned back to her again, her eyes asked him, where are we going? He’d gotten better at reading what she didn’t ask in recent months. He was just sorry he had to at all.

“Do you know what today is, Ellie?” He asked her. She shook her head, but reluctantly fell back into step beside him when he started walking again. “It’s Little Ladies Day!”

“But,” she began, though frowned. “We have work to do…”

“We’ll still do it!” Uthengentle promised her. “We’re just doing this first!”

“Why?” She whispered, and when he looked at her again, her head was downcast. He couldn’t see her expression for the way her hair fell in front of her face.

“Because you’re a princess!” He exclaimed. “And I’m your seneschal!”

She looked up at him in surprise, blinking owlishly but he only pressed on, feeling excitement swell in him as they drew near enough to breathe in the sweet scent of flowers in bloom. The wind carried the low din of the festivities, and all that planning leading up to that moment was more than worth it for the way her eyes lit up at the sight of it all.

They took off running and laughing the last stretch of the mossy cobblestone path leading into the Amphitheatre. The attendees and the event runners all seemed happy, with couples and kids keeping to their familiar groups as they took in the festivities. As they eased into walking around, Uthengentle scanned the stalls for what he was looking for.

“I think,” he said almost to himself. Serella looked at him. “The flower stall is over here…”

Sure enough, this year the attendant behind the stall booth was handing out small little flower bracelets. His grin broadened, and he led her over. Encouraged by his gentle prodding, Serella shuffled close to the stall and once it was her turn, looked up at the stall attendant.

“Umm...one bracelet, please?” She asked.

Uthengentle’s first inclination that this day...might not go as intended was the way that the attendant flinched at Serella’s face but tried to cover it with a smile as he handed her a bracelet. Uthengentle hoped she didn’t notice, but the way she immediately looked down as she fidgeted with the bracelet told him that she had.

“Hold on, Ellie!” He said with probably too much enthusiasm as he held out his hand for her. She peered up at him through a part in her fallen hair. “I’m your seneschal! I should put it on for you!”

With reluctance, she handed it over, and he made a show of kneeling and putting the bracelet on her.

“Thanks, Uthen.” She whispered.

“There we go!” He said as he watched her lightly touch the bracelet. “You look so pretty, Princess Ellie!”

She flushed and smiled faintly but said nothing. It was clear to Uthengentle that she was still nervous and uncomfortable. He guided her over to the benches and coaxed her into taking a seat.

“Here, you take a breather, I’ll go get us some fruit!” Uthengentle said brightly. “How’s watermelon sound? Good?”

She nodded, and he ran off back to the stalls in search of the foodstuff. They were close enough that he could keep an eye on her, and he knew she wouldn’t leave without him anyway. The line for the fruit stand wasn’t too long, but there were a few couples, and one of them was taking a while to decide on their selection. Resisting the urge to fidget, Uthengentle looked back over to the benches. His stomach promptly dropped.

There were other girls around Serella’s age had congregated around her— and one of them reached over and ripped her bracelet off.

Fruit be damned, Uthengentle decided as he sprinted back. The cruel laughter of the girls was the first thing he heard.

“You must have stolen it,” was the first thing he heard the girl who ripped the bracelet say. The braided flowers lie on the ground by the bench, their stems snapped. The girl ground it under her heel. “Ugly girls like you don’t get to be princesses. Didn’t you know that? Have you seen your face?”

Uthengentle sprinted faster as the girls closed in on her. Anger the likes of which he hadn’t felt since their parents died burned in his veins.

“Hey!” He shouted, using his momentum to shove the offending girl away with his shoulder.

She stumbled to the ground, and before Uthengentle could really start screaming at her, she began to cry and point at him.

“He hit me!” She screamed.

Uthengentle’s blood ran cold; he was old enough to understand what it would look like, a little Elezen girl in the heart of Gridania pointing at a little Ala Mhigan kid and crying foul. He knew whose side the grown ups would take. Didn’t matter what he or Ellie said. Might as well fight for his principles and his sister both, if he was going to be the bad guy anyway.

“And you hurt my sister!” Uthengentle doubled down, screaming louder than her. The other girls crowded around their little trouble maker friend in fear, but he only squared his shoulders and tried to remember what Ma taught him about throwing punches properly. “Go ahead and cry to the grown ups! I’ll fight ‘em same as you—!”

A sharp tug on the back of his shirt snapped him out of his anger. He looked over his shoulder to see Serella looking up at him with wide, glassy eyes. Fat tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks as she tried not to sob.

“Uthen,” she hiccuped. “Let’s go.”

“But Ellie—” he hesitated when he heard murmurs from the adults to find the girl’s parents.

“C’mon,” Serella insisted, ignoring her tears even as she stood and pulled him back toward the path they came. “We shouldn’t be here.”

When they ran this time, there was no smiling or laughter. There was only Uthengentle looking over their shoulder to see whether anyone was following them or not. There was only Serella’s sniffles and hiccups.

Thankfully, no one followed them.

The stall merchants in the Ivory and Ebony stalls were familiar enough with the children that they were kind and handed over what goods they were sent for without batting an eye at Serella’s puffy, red eyes.

“I’m sorry they were jerks, Ellie.” Uthen said quietly once they were deep in the Shroud, their little packs laden with their required goods. “Is there something else you wanted to do? I’m still your seneschal—”

“I’m not a princess anymore.” Serella whispered with a shake of her head.

Uthengentle’s already churning stomach twisted even harder at that. “Ellie,” he tried to argue. “You don’t honestly believe them, do you?” He frowned deeply. “You’re not ugly, and—”

“I know.” Serella said in a way that told him she didn’t believe him. “It’s okay. Let’s just go.”

She never said ‘home’ anymore.

***

**

*

Serella’s third Little Ladies’ Day, and all the others ever since, have been nothing short of fulfilling in her eyes.

She did not return to the event until adulthood— not until she reunited with Uthengentle, in fact. On a whim, when her mood was good and the winds were fair she chanced attending the festival in Ul’Dah. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised by the familiar scent of cherry blossoms sweetly blowing on the breeze, even here in the center of the Jewel of the Desert.

Uthengentle seemed to be over the moon— and had insisted he go off and find something for her. While that perplexed her, she let him wander off as she meandered toward one of the event seneschals responsible for the event. Before she had even opened her mouth to ask where she might get a corsage, he peered up at her with a grin.

“Why, an adventurer!” He greeted her with a friendly wave of his hand. “Hello there! Here to volunteer as a seneschal for the Little Ladies of the day?” With a flourish he gestured toward a festive food item. “We’re offering these to volunteers for free!”

It didn’t hurt, being presumed to come to him as a volunteer. A correction did not come to sit on her tongue and push against her teeth. Instead, a quiet ah of realization settled calmly in her heart. This was not a rejection, but an acknowledgement of what was true: her days of ever being a princess, even for a day, her silly little flights of fancy and never-could-be, had been put behind her before now. For now, she was not a little lady, not a maiden. She was an adventurer. That’s all she was now. And that’s...that’s what she was. It didn’t matter what she wanted and what she didn’t; she simply understood what she was and what she wasn’t.

With a smile, Serella answered, “you know? That sounds like a plan. Where do you need me?”

By the time Uthengentle found her, she was already a gallant seneschal, helping little ladies with flower pins and dances and offering help and merriment where it was needed. She turned to see him holding a flower pin and blinking owlishly at her.

“Ellie?” He asked, approaching. The little lady she had been escorting waved her farewell and trotted off to find her parents, her own little flower pin tied in her hair. “What are you doing?”

“Volunteering!” She said brightly. “I’m a seneschal now, just like you were!”

Uthengentle flinched, and that struck her as odd. Wasn’t he happy she had found something to like about the holiday again? That she understood what she was and what she wasn’t?

“Not a princess?” He chanced, and that too she found strange.

“Please, Uthen,” she dismissed with a laugh. “I haven’t been one in years— I’m too old for that, silly.”

Her brother looked utterly stricken, and a thought occurred to her that perhaps he just wanted to be a seneschal again? Well, no time like the present, she figured.

“You know, they’re accepting volunteers still.” Serella mentioned. “But I think they already got the best one when they got me, so maybe you can volunteer for second place?”

Sibling competitiveness demanded that he answer her challenge— and he did splendidly, handily out performing her as a seneschal. She couldn’t have been happier; every little lady, no matter how old, had been made to feel like a princess thanks to Uthengentle and herself. And that was enough. 

And that was enough.

[starswornoaths]

@thechandraraj I got your ask for the parent question ask meme, but it showed up in my inbox all weird and I can’t for the life of me just directly answer it without tumblr having a stroke, so I wanted to apologize personally and also answer your question! (under the cut, because it’s a little long.) Thank you so much for the ask! :D

Parent Q&A ask!

“🚻 Did she ever have trouble sleeping as a kid? How'd you deal with that?”

“At first, as all babies tend to be, yes,” Myrina sighed around a nostalgic smile. “Being new parents, we were doing little Ella no favors, frantically searching for an answer when all she wanted was to be comfortable.” She let out a soft chuckle as she brought her teacup to her lips. “But once we figured out her routine in the evening? Much as Serella was her own source of unending energy, she was also child of habit; so long as she played hard that day and did her chores, she was ready for bed after dinner and a bath.” Her smile softened. “My Hanvesh would read to her every night. Called it, “exercising her mind so it doesn’t keep her awake,” he did. I used to think it was silly, but when he fell ill and I forgot to read to her, well. She was in our bedroom with a book in hand, passing it to her Da to read.”

She paused then, taking a little longer with her drink of tea as she dwelled on her son. Her baby Uthen, who couldn’t sleep those first long months without waking in tears, without screaming for his parents. The little boy who, in his sleep addled confusion, would cry and demand his real parents, would try to fight them with his little fists because he thought they were the Garleans who took his parents from him in the first place. The sweet child who needed to be approached in the same way she had approached shell shocked, full grown men who saw dragons in every shadow. It has been well over two decades since she has had to smooth his hair from his face, had to hold him until he remembered what cruelty brought him to Gridania, and hold him longer still as he wept, his loss made new all over again.

When she begins talking again, her words are carefully measured and slow.

“We learned a lot from raising Serella. By the time Uthengentle came to us, we had gotten a little better about looking for signs to make him comfortable. He needed to be read to as well, but he couldn’t sleep without a hug from everyone in the house. It was a sign that we were all there and loved him.” She set her cup down. “Kids...they tell us what’s wrong with them, but they don’t have all the words for it. They don’t know what will help them. They turn to us to help them find it. I...I had to learn that.”

[starswornoaths]

Of the Sea...

Hello! Hi! This is a bit of Hanvesh’s backstory! I decided to do a lil mini series of these for Serella and Uthengentle’s parents, to chronicle how they wound up retiring in Gridania, and this is the first part of what (I think) will be four parts! I hope you enjoy!

Word count: 2,002

All things considered, Hanvesh had a pretty damn good life, he’d reasoned.

There were so few things more satisfying than feeling free on the high seas, bellowing shanties amidst cannonfire, the whistle of his arrows finding their marks on the occupants of enemy ships, the celebration of a hard won bounty and the taste of good mead on his tongue as he cheered with his shipmates after a good haul. He had not truly lived until he first felt the sway of the ocean on a ship deck, the wind on his face and a song on his lips.

For he had been recruited specifically for the fact that his songs were nothing short of magical, in every literal sense of the word — and Hanvesh made sure everyone knew about it. When their ship sailed into battle, his lyrics inspired and bolstered their men to accomplish astonishing feats they would have otherwise never achieved, and more often than not, was what had made the difference in many a decisive battle out in the briney blue. The ship’s reputation — and their coffers — grew to astronomical heights over the years; there was nary a pirate in all of Vylbrand that didn’t know what they were capable of, what they had already taken for themselves. Their galleon’s name — The Serpent’s Sting — was carved in the annals of history and lined with all the gold they had amassed. Hanvesh felt like he had, after years of struggle and dedication to his craft, at long last caught a northerly wind, and was soaring on sails filled with the sweet air of success. 

Until that self same wind dashed them all against the rocks.

It had been foolish to engage in battle with another ship in the eye of a storm, and they had all known it — but the captain had grown too cocksure, too arrogant with their string of good fortune. ‘The Navigator always steers us through, boys!’ The captain had cheered as he ordered them to sail head on into the oncoming storm in conquest for more loot. 

As Hanvesh looked down at what was left of the captain, he bitterly noted that he wasn’t saying much of anything anymore.

None of them were — save for him. He stood in shallow water, his clothes tattered, his bow broken and his spirit dead, alongside the rest of his crew. Their bodies all scattered around the remains of their beloved ship, their seafaring home, eerily still even in the rocking of the water. The waves — gentled now that the storm had passed — lapped at his ankles lazily, their froth ticking his skin. He stared and stared and stared out to the horizon, waiting, praying for a sign from Llymlaen showing him where to go.

Though, he mused sourly, surveying the destruction of everything that he had known for the better part of a decade, he wondered if, perhaps, the Navigator already had.

Somehow, astonishingly, Hanvesh had managed to make it ashore with only a few gashes and bruises to speak of — nothing short of a miracle, given that he was the only one to have made it at all. He was in shock, he realized with a manic chuckle, barely wheezed out of lungs that struggled to gulp in air even as he stumbled toward the wreckage, stepping into the gaping maw that the rocks had carved into the bilge. 

Looters would be along shortly — he would know more than most, and he didn’t want to walk away with nothing; even amongst the tattered remains of a life well lived, surely there was something to aid him? Much as it didn’t feel right to take anything from around the bodies of his fallen shipmates, if he was to even have a shot at living — for them, for himself — he would need all he could get. 

His faithful pack, a lovely hardleather thing stained a crimson almost as deep as its pockets had survived with him, blessedly, and he slung it on his back as he continued to fumble around the ship’s corpse — and the corpses of those that littered it — for anything that might be of use. He found a dagger that was still in good condition — Gilpin’s, he realized — and though he remembered the way the boatswain would often twirl it as he went about his business in mourning, he still slipped it into his belt and moved on, trying to remember the man as the lively quartermaster that he had been, and not the graying body with its head nearly severed that he ended up as.

Sure, they’d been pirates, but they had all deserved better, Hanvesh thought. And I should’ve died with ‘em. 

They had hardly kept all of their treasure aboard their ship — they had far too much of it — but there was more than enough gil kept on hand for trade that he could easily purchase arms and armor for himself — provided he made it back to a town. He hoarded every coin he found in his pack — he’d count it later. Scrambling up the remains of the companionway, he made it to the captain’s quarters, brushed past the barely there door that clung to the doorway by a bent hinge, and staggered inside.

Miraculously, the cabin was largely dry — and intact, save for the bits and baubles strewn about the floor, in pieces. Hanvesh stepped over them, pulling the maps and charts down from the wall and folding them carefully into his pack; he knew he would need them desperately. Amidst the broken trinkets on the floor, he found the captain’s compass, its weighted brass casing, while scuffed, had protected the compass from the wreck, and he pocketed it for use later. As his eyes wandered around the cabin for anything lightweight that he could put to use, he felt an anger swell in his chest the likes of which he had never felt before; they all wound up like this because of Captain Marlow — their captain, the man they had trusted to know what was best for the crew! And his folly had led them all here! For a few long moments, he stood there, letting the reality of the end of this chapter of his life — and how it all ended — sink in. 

Too long, he realized with a curse when he began to hear distant shouting. Looters had already found their wreckage — or local authorities had beaten them to it, for once — but either way, he needed to leave — now. He turned to leave when he caught sight of a small flag of theirs — with their colors — still intact on the wall. His hand, still trembling and clammy, gripped at the fabric and ripped it off the wall, stuffing it into his pack and clamoring out, climbing above the cabin and up onto the afterdeck, creeping along toward the upturned stern of the ship, he peered over the railing just in time to see who was approaching. 

They weren’t looters — couldn’t have been; their weapons were too nice, too standard issue, to say nothing of the uniforms. No, these were Knights of the Barracuda. A blessing, then — provided he slipped past them undetected; if he could spot which squadron they were, he would have a better understanding of where he was. 

Hanvesh flattened himself against the deck as much as he could, still watching them through the railings as the woman he presumed to be the squadron leader barked orders to search for survivors. His elongated ears pricked up at the sound of boots thumping against the remains of the deck wood, and cursed — he was trapped.

Unless, of course, the leader of the squadron moved. Clenching his hands into fists, he silently willed the woman to just move toward the ship bilge, the same way he had come up, so that he could slip over the railing and disappear into the trees just beyond the beach. If she didn’t…he unclenched a hand and gripped the hilt of Gilpin’s dagger. His hands might feel shaky, and he absolutely wasn’t at his full strength, but if it meant making it out alive… 

Still. Best to avoid confrontation, he decided.

Blessedly, Llymlaen had decided to grant him pity, as the woman stepped up to the bilge to inspect some of his fallen shipmates. Taking the opportunity for what it was, he shimmied between the railings, his long, narrow body easily slipping between two posts and allowing him to hang from the other side. 

As Hanvesh righted himself and just before he lowered himself to hang, he caught sight of one of the Barracudas who had climbed atop the afterdeck, though had not yet spotted him in the dark. He spied the crest on the shoulder of the armor — the 9th Squadron. So, he thought, glancing back into the thicket of trees. They had crashed in the Sea of Jade somewhere? He rather hoped it was farther in toward the Rothlyt Sound; he could slip into Gridania or Gyr Abania better that way. If he was on an island just off the shore…well. He’d stolen ships before.

Bracing himself— because he could hear the Knight on the afterdeck drawing closer— Hanvesh let go of the floorboard. 

His already uneasy legs buckled underneath him in the wet sand, and though he sunk to his knees he scrabbled to stand under himself and the added weight of his pack. Though he teetered on falling on his side like a baby turtle he managed to right himself despite his muscles, his very skin protesting his movements, and sprinted into the treeline.

There came a shout from one of the Knights that he heard someone take off into the trees, and Hanvesh spat a curse, even as he begged his body to obey him and move faster. He couldn’t hope to out maneuver them with stealth; though his wounds were not grievous, they still bled, and hounds that the Knights of the Barracuda were, they’d sniff him out afore he had even gotten his bearings. In the thicket of trees that he now dashed and stumbled through, however, they were slower than he, and he used that to his advantage. 

The trunk of a mighty tree splintered near his shoulder— a bullet! Hanvesh realized with alarm when his ears rang with the crack of ignited gunpowder— they were opening fire on him! Did they think him a bandit, or worse, did they not want survivors to cry foul for them taking the Devil’s cut of his ship’s hard won plunder?

Doesn’t matter, have to keep moving, Hanvesh decided, beginning to duck and weave in odd patterns to avoid making his path a straight line: if these bastards wanted a shot at him, they’d have to work for it.

So Hanvesh ran. He ran and ran until his ears could no longer pick up on the sounds of his pursuers shouting commands at one another. He ran until the whistle of stray bullets faded away until there was only the rhythmic thumping of his feet on the hard earthen ground. He ran until he saw the trees thin out and give way to walking trails and silence reigned in the forests. He ran until he all but collapsed against a guidepost panting, flushed, and trembling like the leaves that fluttered in his wake. 

Still, his eyes yet availed him, and he looked up at the sign— Northeast up the path to Gridania, forty malms. His poor fortune had lifted, somewhat: at least he knew he was close to civilization. He need only make it there without dying in the process.

His spirits still heavy and his limbs like lead, Hanvesh Arcbane moved onward and upward, to what he could only hope were better prospects than the rubble of the life he left behind.

[starswornoaths]

6— Does your muse have a color scheme? What do those colors represent in regards to your muse?

@thegildenheart also asked this, so I decided to split my answer for each muse- Serella’s can be found here! :D 

Uthengentle’s color scheme is a bit more apparent to me, though that’s mostly because I had to talk it out with his player.

Uthengentle has two primary colors that have significant meaning to him: garnet and amethyst.

Garnet- or deeper shades of red that are similar- tends to mean comfort to Uthengentle. It stands out to him as a color that was prevalent in the early days of his life as an Arcbane. The first meal he had with his new family- the first real meal he had in days at the time- had beautifully cooked meat that was deeply red inside, there had been plump red rolanberries on the table. It was significant in the way that Myrina had knitted him and his new sister hats, scarves, and gloves for that winter out of a deep wine red dye that she could better see her little ones out in the snow- that she had wanted to find them no matter what- had solidified that he was not taken in out of pity: he was brought home again.

Amethyst means purpose, means power to Uthengentle. Few people know that he is of the Black, as he simply passes as “a highly skilled thaumaturge” more often than not, though those that do know presume that it has to do with lightning and his own abilities. They are wrong. When he thinks of amethyst, he thinks of the single, imperfect, raw amethyst in the deepest corner of his pocket. It is no bigger than his thumb- perhaps it has monetary value, perhaps it would make a stunning gem if he asked his sister to refine it. He does not want to. It was the last gem his father had mined- he remembers the way it clattered off of the bigger stone his Papa had been striking before the Imperials struck him. It was the day they broke his father beyond work, beyond repair. It was the day his family decided they had to try to flee. Uthengentle keeps this amethyst as a reminder of what it means to not have power, to be robbed of purpose. He thinks of his Papa, a former member of the Fist of Rhalgr, proud and strong and unyielding, who had been reduced to languishing in the mines of Ala Ghana until his masters had decided he was not broken enough. He holds onto it and reminds himself: “My purpose is to fight, that those weaker than me can keep their own power.”

[starswornoaths]

Prompt 16: Bonds

Growing up following the deaths of their parents, Serella would have given anything just to see them again. 

Then Myrina Arcbane was standing in her kitchen, and all she felt was numb.

When Uthengentle had contacted her from Dravania to inform her that their mother was alive, Serella’s first  thought was that he was either grossly mistaken or his joke was in poor taste. 

She had told him as much, but when he asked if they could meet at her home in Ishgard to discuss how best to assist the dragons, the thought that he might be speaking true struck her as odd. 

She should be happy. 

She had dreamt of reuniting with her parents again, alive and well. In those dreams she had tearfully charged into an embrace with them, had wept and smiled and said I missed you, I love you over and over until she had no voice left.

Instead, a quiet numbness settled uncomfortably on her shoulders.

Rather than immediately set out for her home, she detoured to the Seat of the Lord Commander in search of a moment of stillness with which to bolster herself. Aymeric received her, though as soon as it was clear that she needed his comfort, all pretense of professionalism dissolved, and he sought out her hands with his.

What troubles you, Ella? He had asked.

My Ma’s alive. She said to him with a wince— she could have chosen a better gentler way to put that, she felt.

Aymeric, ever the gracious one, took the revelation in stride and simply tilted his head and regarded her in that softly silent way he did when he was trying to gauge her thoughts.

Full glad am I to hear it, he said after a moment, though he was not smiling. Though I confess I am more concerned with you— how do you feel about it?

I don’t know. She admitted to him quietly. 

There was only so much he could offer her in the way of comfort; she had to meet with her family— and that thought settled stiffly upon her shoulders— and he could not follow but he held her hands in his and promised that he would be there to support her as she figured it out.

Even hours later standing in her kitchen and staring at the kettle on the stove to avoid looking at her mother, she still didn’t know.

Uthengentle had given them privacy— said he’d run to the shops to grab some things for dinner or some such. She had nearly insisted he stay; she didn’t know what to say to the woman other than to offer her tea.

“Your hair,” Myrina spoke up softly.

“Half braid. Like yours.” Serella said, adamantly staring at the kettle as though she were willing it to whistle sooner. “It was,” she shifted her weight, uncomfortable. Deciding that wasn’t how she wanted the sentence to begin, she tried again, “I don’t really remember how you used to look. Same with Da.” She shrugged a shoulder. “But I remembered your hair. So I practiced how to do it myself.” She shrugged. “It was all I had of you. So I kept it.” She paused before admitting, “It felt like I still had a bond to you that way.”

“I never thought it mattered.” Myrina murmured. Serella heard her step further into the kitchen. “You were always so much closer to your father—“

“You had Uthen.” Serella said, shrugging again. “And it wasn’t like we weren’t close.”

“That is true,” her mother conceded. With a few steps she came into Serella’s peripheral view and leaned against the counter. “I had hoped that we would grow closer as you grew.” Serella said nothing, so she added, “I had hoped you would come to me with your burdens as you grew into a woman,” after a pause, she asked, “did you have someone to go to?”

“Too personal.” Serella said sharply. “Too soon.”

“Too soon?” Myrina balked. “Serella, we’ve been apart for decades—”

“Would I have ever seen you again at all,” Serella cut her off. “If you hadn’t reunited with Uthengentle on accident?” Myrina took a step back as if surprised at her daughter’s frustration. The gall. “Did you ever intend to reach out to us at all?”

The kettle shrieked, cutting off her questioning. She let out a soft curse and turned the stove off.

Myrina said nothing, but her silence answered for her.

“I thought not.” Serella scoffed. 

“Serella—“ Myrina tried, but her daughter held a hand up.

“I’m not saying we can’t have a relationship.” She explained in a tone that sounded too much like a patient parent. “I want to be close with you. I want to have my Ma again.” She shook her head. “But you don’t get to stumble back into our lives and act like things are fine.”

“I’m sorry.” Myrina said softly.

“...So am I.” Serella admitted in a quiet whisper.

Serella poured her mother’s tea in silence. A silence Myrina did not break again.

[starswornoaths]

Myrina Arcbane...

When Serella tries to grasp at the memories of her mother, she can only remember garnet colored hair and emerald eyes- and the way her mother tied her hair back. She perfected recreating the hairstyle to cling to what little she had left of her beloved Ma, though when she tries to recall a face, it’s hazy, as if dreamt, as if Myrina had never truly existed. 

But that’s okay, Serella thinks to herself, only half believing it. It’s okay because she remembers her mother’s careful, low voice, raspy from years of use but no less tender for it. She remembers the smoothly calloused hands that would brush her hair for her at night when she was too small to hold a brush herself. She remembers the lessons she was taught- in survival, in combat, in maintaining a hearth and home. 

And she tries to convince herself that it’s enough.