#aetherscope

[victusinveritas]

[nhaneh]

tbh I still kind of want to attempt an AU scene that's old Kea casually wandering in to the Waking Sands.

The ARR!Scions are meeting amongst themselves as Tataru interrupts, anxiously saying there's someone there she thinks they all might want to meet. Minfilia gives Tataru a comforting smile asking why she seems so shaken, only for old Kea to enter the room, going "Hello Minfilia. It has been far too long, old friend."

[lettersnorth]

Prompt #14: Attrition

Maybe the storm private felt particularly passive aggressive that day. He was, after all, the low man on the pole, bottom of the ranks. That meant everyone in the Maelstrom from most of the enlisted on up to the bloody Admiral got to tell him what to do and when. And all he could do was give a crisp salute and a hearty, (or if he was feeling dangerously rebellious, a half-hearted) ‘Yes, sir!’. Maybe some petty officer (no pun intended), pissed in his oatmeal that morning.

Whatever the reason, he seemed to take a certain perverse joy in telling Aislinn, in not so many words, to sod off when she arrived at Maelstrom command to inquire after the whereabouts of Kazushige Asayama. She understood. Really, she did. Manning a desk likely wasn’t at all what the private envisioned when he decided to sign up for a tour. She’d been there. She wanted to tell him it was only temporary. Newly enlisted got the shite jobs. It was just how it was. But she wisely decided that would only make things worse. 

So she nodded, thanked him for his time and got out of the way for the next person. She came back the next day, hoping maybe he’d be in a better mood. Or that there would be a different clerk at the desk. There wasn’t and he wasn’t. But he remembered her and now, like a mule, he was intent on digging his heels in. There was something she wanted and so he was going to deny it to her the way the higher ups denied him. For no other reason than because he could. 

She’d met plenty of people like him before. Hungering after something they didn’t have with no idea how to go about getting it so they take it out on someone else. 

“What about a request for information form, then?” She asked, not about to let a petty functionary get in her way. “Pass it up the chain and see what they say.” 

His lip curled a bit, sour that she even knew to ask after the form. He gave her that thousand yalm stare as he grudgingly pulled it out from under the desk and handed it to her. Who was this bespectacled woman in her impeccably neat doeskin coat? The aetherscopes and meters and  who-the-hells-knew-what-else hanging off her belt made her appear more suited for stodgy academic halls than the Maelstrom command. She filled it out right there and handed it back to him. 

“I’ll send it on its way.” He said with a tight nod. And when she left, he crumpled it up and tossed it in the waste bin.

And every morning, she was there. And every morning, he told her the same thing, that there was no change regarding her request. Until one day, startlingly, there was. Somehow, even without the formal request, a commander had gotten wind that the annoying woman was constantly showing up. Gumming up the day with her endless requests. Her insistence that her ‘free company’ deserved privileged information regarding troop movements out in the field. And he had granted her request! The gall of it! Officers like this Commander were what was endangering the structure of the Maelstrom. 

Storm Private Harper wouldn’t have it and slipped the approval behind some shelving where it would never see the light of day. It wasn’t disobeying orders if the orders happened to get misplaced.

Her annoyance slipped past her grasp that day. He could see it in the tightness around her eyes when she spoke. She began dealing with the other clerks. Began making requests for every piece of paperwork she could imagine. Sometimes for no reason at all. She seemed intent to make a nuisance of herself and knew just how to go about it and toe right up to the line without crossing over it. 

Private Harper had had enough. The desk may not have been a ship, but by gods, it was his duty to see it ran as tight as one. “I don’t care who you are, if you continue to waste the Maelstrom’s time I’ll have you tossed in the gaol.” 

“I hardly think filling requests is a cause for that.” Came her dry reply. “I’m no more wasting the Maelstrom’s time than you’re wasting mine.” Which was to say, that was exactly what she was doing but knew better than to give him the ammunition of telling him so. 

The war of attrition came to an end when her old commander happened to pass by on fleet business and witnessed the two caught in a strained exchange. 

“Sergeant North, hells lass, been years if it's been a sun. How’s civilian life treating you?” He passed a puzzled glance between the woman and the stiff-as-a-board clerk behind the desk. “From your letter, I thought you’d be rushing off to meet up with the 9th. I sent the information down a few suns ago.” 

Aislinn turned her eye on the now pale Private with a look that could cut glass. “I’m sure Private Harper here was just about to get those coordinates for me, Sir.” 

[rhysae]

Prompt 18: Wilt

Lhyra Galeni rips her aetherscope off and whirls at her assistant, glaring daggers up at the elezen man, “How is this possible?”

She has to crane her neck to look up at him, but even with the difference in their heights, he still takes a half-step back from her, his hands raised defensively, “I don’t know!” He says, hurried, gesturing to the wilting vegetation, “I’ve checked the calibration on every scope, there’s no mistake, professor, but we don’t know what’s causing this.”

Her grip tightens on the scope’s strap and she closes her eyes, counts backwards from ten, “Alert the others, take soil samples, vegetation samples, and if there is fauna, capture samples. Pack it up, we’ll be returning to the lab. I have correspondences to write.”

[winterdeepelegy]

Down the Rabbit Hole

Although Frost promised to do things Aimee’s way, he couldn’t, in any stretch of self-respect or respect for his siblings, or for Mother, allow himself to sit and wait for results he knew weren’t coming.  For too long had he entrusted all the planning to others and waited for a breakthrough opportunity to present itself, but his nigh limitless patience for the stratagems of others who claimed to know better finally reached the end of its fraying threads.  They must have been missing something.  They couldn’t have explored every possible avenue to end their problem. How strange that no one seems concerned about an entire investigation party having gone missing moons ago.

Since the first time this thought surfaced, it consumed him the way a Disposal Unit would pack away every morsel of meat and marrow from its most recent meal.  He feared to sleep lest it flee from his mind, and his every waking moment was consumed with how to make use of it. And it did eventually blossom into a plan of his own.  The trail was all but cold after so long, but it was the one line of possibility none of them had explored up until now.  He knew where he had to start, and he entrusted his plan to only three people, none of whom would be a compromise. Aimee and 168 were not to be counted among them. He returned to the capital to revisit the places and people who denied his citizenship bid during his last visit, and once more in dress uniform, but with the addition of his shadow visor conveniently glamoured to resemble a simple pair of shades.  If he had to, he need only explain that it was customary for one a Combat Unit to keep ones eyes concealed, and that his eyes had grown unaccustomed to Garlemald’s artificial lights in his extended absence.  It wasn’t exactly a lie.

After settling in a room, Frost made his way first to the magistrate’s office to present evidence and plead for the intervention of Frumentarium.  The lost investigators weren’t of their order, but if anyone could help him find the answers he needed to prove Theius’ treason, it would be them.  But first, he had the magistrate and his council to deal with, and to them he presented his verbal testimony, as well as a data chip containing security recordings of the night Lillium Pyr Sylvanius was kidnapped by 305, and two separate samples of the gelatinous crystal substance 305 left behind in the Sagolii, and on Felix’s sword.  They returned after reviewing this evidence, and agreed to considering his case if he, working closely with Frumentarium, could secure more solid evidence.  He was sent straight to their headquarters to let them review the evidence, which was sent ahead of him. The “wheaties”, as he called them, were surprisingly more friendly than he was expecting and very welcoming, even to a foreign conscript.  An agent by the name of Alypia was only too happy to answer his every question and throw around ideas, until a call came through from Theius requesting access to Frumentarium’s Allagan archives.  He waited and watched on the security monitors as the Tribune arrived and counted three Subject signatures, although he was only accompanied by three.  The fourth had to be Theius, himself.  Frost remembered that the old man had augmented himself from the last time he ran into him in Azys Lla, and it certainly sounded like he meant to make another trip.  Of the three in Theius’ company, he recognized 238, but one of them also appeared to be 168.  The third he couldn’t identify for the amount of covering she had, but something in the back of his mind reminded him of 193′s attire.

Frost was more fixed on the likeness of 168.  It didn’t make sense that Theius would come out anywhere like this without 305 bounding at his heels like a puppy, so he reasoned that it must have been him using his ability to manipulate water to craft a visibly convincing shell.  However, knowing this, he had to make sure.  With Alypia’s permission, he raised the linkpearl to his ear which would connect him to 168.

And the doppelganger on the monitor imitated the motion.  Either it was really him or he knew what was happening in the sealed lab where the evidence was being held.  He terminated the call and crammed the linkpearl away in a pocket, only to have it chime back a moment later without the doppelganger making any gesture that he was the source of the call. “The crystals!”  Alypia, having been filled in on where those came from, she quickly figured out that the crystal samples must have enabled 305 to see what was happening in the room, which also meant he knew Frost was here, where he had already been, and probably why.  The fact Theius had three units around him and one disguised as one of Frost’s closest brothers was a ruse.  If not for his being here, the old man might have only come here with 305, and without him disguised. That one so loved to sow as much doubt between allies as possible.  It was a game to which Frost had grown wiser, but not before losing the trust of his first and oldest friend to it. He and Alypia moved to a different conference area on another floor where they continued to discuss their options as they waited for Theius’ group to depart.  If they were followed, they would know the enemy had ears in the room as well as eyes.  Thankfully, Frost could still view them on the floor below using the aetherscope setting on his visor and saw when they left, but he could also see the tainted trail of water aether 305 left behind.  That trail would be immediately frozen and neutralized as soon as they returned to the ground floor, and Alypia would call an order for the place to be decontaminated. What they were able to learn from watching and listening before they had to move was that Theius requested information about an area in Azys Lla where dozens of Allag’s chimerae still slept in containment over a thousand years on, and he wanted access to them.  They couldn’t be sure to what end he wanted them, but it was a fair guess that he wanted to harvest the cores of those dormant beasts so he could make all new subjects of his own.  He would have to go and find out.  And he would make damn sure to interfere with the Tribune’s plans however possible. This is where Frost’s new mission would begin.

@onidephor, @eyesseeingbeyondtheveil

[lettersnorth]

FFXIVWrite 2020 Prompt #12: Tooth and Nail

Ren had done his best to warn her but Aislinn sat at the campfire that fateful night in the Reaches only half-listening to him. The real point of the matter, the sharp metallic glint that had grabbed her attention and refused to let go, was that she had thought Bertram was dead and it turned out she had been wrong. He was very much alive. 

The whole explanation about how he wasn’t the same, how he didn’t remember a thing, how he had been made a puppet in a Imperial experiment, so lost in the dark, twisting labyrinth of his mind that he couldn't see his own brother without flying into a rage, she heard all of that but it was as though what Barengar was saying was a conversation being held behind closed doors and the part of her still paying attention, the straining eavesdropper. The rest of her was elsewhere.

He must have realized not everything had gotten through to her, that her mind had snagged, when her next question to him wasn’t concerning the mage responsible, but instead was about where he thought Bertram could be found. He didn’t know, he had said. And that wasn’t why he had come to her. He needed help. Finding Osmund Garrett, not his brother. But he, of all people, had to have known she wouldn’t be satisfied until she had seen it for herself. 

As it happened, she and Bertram ended up crossing paths moons later in a wholly unexpected fashion. A chance meeting in Aleport. She had been sitting on a bench fiddling with her blasted aetherscope. The device was a new creation of hers crafted purposefully for this business with Garrett and consequently, not all the bugs had been worked out of its system yet. However, she couldn’t concentrate on what had gone wrong with the device because a man refused to stop asking her questions about when the next ship would be coming in. Realizing she wouldn’t be getting anything done until she had answered him, she looked up from her work in irritation. And there he was. Older. Shaped by time in ways she hadn’t anticipated. But that perfect blue of his eye hadn’t changed. She had never forgotten that color, not in all the years since she had left Ala Mhigo. 

It proved too much of a shock. All her preparation for this possibility, all her experience as a runner, of keeping her thoughts hidden, holding her cards close to her chest, it all went up in smoke the moment she looked into that eye. 

“Bertram.” she had blurted. Stupidly. A verbal 52 card pick-up. 

And he had only stared back, nary the slightest ember of recognition sparking in that gaze. There was nothing but confusion. As if he were asking himself how this stranger knew something like that. “I don’t recall giving you that name.” 

She had thought she knew pain. Perhaps she and it weren’t exactly friends, but surely they were well-acquainted with one another by now. Wonders never ceased, because it turned out everything horrible that had come before was child’s play compared to this. To being reduced to nothing more than a random stranger to the one person she had once counted on to know her the best. Who, over the span of years, had never been far from her mind. It was a slap across the face that would sting anew every time she encountered him after that.

She had lost too damned much. It had to stop somewhere. She decided then and there she would fight tooth and nail to find a way to put that look of remembrance back on his face. The Twelve could take everything else away from her, and nearly had. He was non-negotiable, her line in the sand. 

Garrett might have been a scientist of the highest caliber. He might have thwarted Ren at every turn. But he hadn’t run up against a force of will like hers yet. Because here was the thing about Aislinn; she never gave up. She just kept coming, relentless as the ticking of a clock, and she knew at that moment she wouldn’t rest until she had found the answer, the way to bring him back. Because of course there was a way. She became the unerring shot that had been sighted in and set loose in Garrett’s direction. No doubt Barengar knew that was exactly what he was doing when he sought her out. 

But in that moment, there on that Aleport bench, all she could do was snap her mouth closed, realizing she had been gaping like an idiot. “Sorry...my mistake,” she said, clearing her throat, somehow managing to keep her tone light through sheer will, “...What business brings you out to this little isle?” 

If she had to start over, she’d start over.