#avicinda x giroda

[jijiroda]

I haven't done traditional in years so I'm really rusty but I wanted to do a quick thing of a scene in @avicinda's fic (which you should read!!) but gijinkas because yes!

I love these two sm 🥺

[avicinda]

Devotion - Chapter 1

In the highlands of the Wishing Woods due north of the Grand Millewish Tree, Avicinda and Giroda meet. "Fate", unfortunately, would see them become enemies before their friendship can bloom into something else. (And fate, you see, has a name—it would have you call it Lord Chigda.)

Pre-canon. Avicinda/Giroda. 5873 words.

In which there is a meet cute and then everything immediately goes wrong.

Read on AO3.

(Avicinda/Chigda will be in Chapter 2, but I tagged it anyway in case anyone came in looking for only Avicinda/Giroda.)

[avicinda]

What is your Giroda/Avicinda take?

(Oops this got really long and rambly...)

So first off, to me their dynamic is rooted in their narrative positions at the start of the story and how they reverse places by the end of it. It's not just for ship purposes, but it is where my shipping them comes from (though I apologize if most of this ends up not being very shippy-like because, to be honest, that aspect is actually pretty secondary to how I think of them as a pair!)

The main thing is that while Giroda replaces Chigda in their society, I think Avicinda is a more direct foil to him.

With how faewish sprites place importance on family/heritage/lineage, it seems to me Kuroda's (falsely tarnished) name shaping the way Giroda was treated by the other sprites mirrors the way Avicinda's lineage shaped him. I feel like there's a lot of angsty fun that could be had with this parallel? Also IMHO Avicinda's description of his family's prior duties didn't necessarily mean his entire family were all knights, but he chose "Whim and swordsmanship" to be the "strongest" servant, and so ends up as Captain of the Paladins serving a fake god while neglecting service to his fellow sprites. Contrast with Giroda who is descended from a knight but was barred from becoming one formally while doing everything to help those around him. And of course, by the end of the story they've swapped positions with Giroda as leader of the sprites and Avicinda having a poorer reputation (though he doesn't seem to be as hated as Chigda is).

And they even literally swap places with Avicinda being locked up in the same cavern Giroda was kept in while Giroda moves into the temple that Avicinda was previously one of the only sprites allowed entry to—

So how it could develop as a ship:

1. Avicinda/Giroda could get pretty dark quick if it happens before or during the main story, considering Avicinda's position of power and Giroda's desires to be a knight...in the very organization Avicinda controls. Being so spiteful to Giroda specifically, I can imagine he'd dangle the promise of knighthood over Giroda as an extra way to torment him and let off some stress from serving Chigda on top of other things he'd claim as all part of punishing Giroda, because Giroda as the traitor's descendant is the antithesis to his knighthood. On Giroda's part, I've always thought that while he might truly hate Avicinda for all he's done to him, Giroda would on some level still be seeking his approval, because Avicinda as the concept of a paladin is his ideal at that point. This is, of course, the perfect recipe for a very nasty relationship to form.

2. Post-story, I can't imagine it happening until several decades or even centuries have passed. I'm fond of imagining that Giroda will one day be the one to come find Avicinda on a quiet night to tell him he should rest. Because Avicinda in my mind is the type of character who decides that he must atone eternally and then never actually forgives himself and never gives himself a chance to breathe ever again. Considering how black and white faewish sprites seem to view the world, an older, wiser Giroda who has been Wish Master for a long time might become the only other sprite to understand him and even remember or care about why he's doing what he does. Bonus: "moron" for old times' sake, but affectionate.

3. AFAIK we don't know how old any of the faewish sprites are definitively other than just vaguely knowing some of them must have been alive for a long long time, but I am under the impression that due to the timeline of when Chigda took over as Wish Master versus when Giroda's parents were sent off to hard labor, Giroda is actually much older than implied? And was maybe actually locked in that cavern for centuries??? (I might be wrong about this bit of Giroda's lore and need to go and dig up more of the books again and rewatch some quest scenes...) And Avicinda is relatively much younger as the rest of his family seems to have died out since the days of the Wishing One.

Point is, if all of the above were true, what if...Giroda escaped before Chigda picked out Avicinda to be his knight and sent those esselings after him (that it was a setup by Chigda is headcanon). What if Giroda and Avicinda met out in the mountains before all that!!! What if they became friends (and then lovers hehe) due to their shared ideals of knighthood and serving the Wishing One. Giroda thinks Avicinda is so cool for training Whim/swordsmanship everyday and asks him to teach him. This not-yet-a-knight Avicinda thinks of Kuroda as a traitor but doesn't know yet that Giroda is his grandson, so as far as he knows Giroda is just a sprite he's never met before who happens to be just like him! And yes of course he'll teach him how to use a sword and become a powerful stylist.

(Chigda is probably going to sabotage this, but they can be happy while it lasts.)

4. And for that "No Nikki" AU where Avicinda and Giroda team up and do the Swordsmith Ruins together, Giroda gets to watch Avicinda's faith in Chigda shatter and the self-loathing start, just as Avicinda gets to watch Giroda become what he always thought he was going to be. There's some resentment, but Giroda doesn't let that grow. He needs Avicinda's help here to take the fight to Chigda and right what he's done wrong, and maybe after some much needed introspection, Avicinda takes on the mantle of turning the paladins against Chigda while Giroda evacuates the other sprites before joining the fight.

Giroda still gets elected as the new Wish Master, but this time he asks Avicinda to stay as Captain of the Paladins. And Avicinda who might have left to look for a new purpose in life if not asked, ends up agreeing. He stays, and quickly becomes devoted to Giroda. Maybe he's just shifting his need for a target to swear an oath to onto someone new, but in the process he ends up symbolically becoming Giroda's shield instead of how he was as Chigda's sword. And Giroda as Wish Master gets to direct that knightly energy somewhere productive for the sake of all faewish sprite society this time.

[avicinda]

you know, maybe you have a point on avicinda/chigda.

Avicinda's inability to fully accept the death of the Wishing One, a belief passed along by the weight of his family's legacy. the deep-seated need to have someone, something, a symbol, to protect and devote his everything to. waiting tirelessly for the day the Wishing One returns and calls upon him and no one else to serve.

Chigda's willingness to manipulate all of that. To bind Avicinda to his will, to make himself Avicinda's god. Chigda cares about no one but himself, but maybe...maybe there's a tiny spark somewhere in there that enjoys having Avicinda at his side...but not quite in the way Avicinda might believe. was he not envious of the way Kuroda was so beloved by those around them? so here's the fervent devotion Avicinda has for him, that he can tighten like a leash as much as he wants and Avicinda will never complain or question it. To do so would be to blaspheme against his new god.

let Avicinda feel chosen. give him crumbs of an affection that would be genuine were they from a true and benevolent god. Keep him half-blind (heh!) to the truth of Chigda's new nature intertwined with the dark. this is why he will sacrifice everything and everyone for Chigda.

Is any of this not love, too?