#but im still writing that kdhfjfkj

[furymint]

FFXIV Write: Prompt #3

wc: 711 | cw: war imagery | part of first au | @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast

Elliot allowed himself to be pushed along the wilds of Lakeland. The sky tinted from its jarring blue to a welcome gold, staining the retreating army with a dying light. Darkness crept from the eastern mountaintops. Defiant, the Crystal Tower glittered as a beacon of refuge, but Elliot felt no relief at its visage.

He barely understood why they wanted him. The Crystarium forces swept across Kholusia in a bloody wave to the ocean, dragged him with them, and trapped him not in irons but in a herd of irascible soldiers. He quickly learned how difficult it was to be talked about but never spoken to. They shoved and wrenched him aside, cursing his confusion to forget their own. The names of their missing friends rung in his ears as they screamed to find them or swore that they better be on the next boat and not with the dead. Salt water, greasy tar, and blood slicked the floor; the ship pitched and thrashed the crowd into each other; everyone seemed to be crying, groaning, shaking, searching, hanging on to life because they’d seen how easily it was taken.

When the ship hurled into port and spat its beaten passengers to the rocky shore, Elliot collapsed in the grass. Despite exhaustion, he quickly scrambled up to free space as nurses filed from the deck with legions of stretchers. He followed the march again. Talk came less easily to the group.

To distract himself, he unclipped his earring and toyed with the latch in his scratched hands. Frowning, he wished he hadn’t given back the ear clip yet. It tied him to the only person he knew, even for an hour, in this chaos--but he gave it away to the nurse who took Nolanel away so that maybe, maybe when he woke up he would derive some comfort from it.

Elliot’s heart wept for something even passingly familiar. These people were not his; the land was like naught he’d ever seen; not even the sky held any familiarity to him. None of it belonged to him. Paralysis struck him as he realized that he, too, belonged to nothing now.

A woman in dented armor shoved him along. Fresh teams of carriages rolled passed to collect those who could not walk. Gaping faces peaked from behind the bleached tarps at the returning army. No doubt some of them were searching for a cherished name as well. Elliot kept his gaze down.

He followed the ruinous line through the steel gate, where crowds of distraught citizens screamed their anguish at the grieving army. City guards barricaded the rioting throng with a makeshift fence of wire and their own bodies. Above, domes of blue crystal appeared black in the dying sun. Lanterns swelled along the path to lead the tired army through the city; their crimson flickered in hollowed faces, making monsters out of victims.

On uncertain feet, the soldiers pressed through the aetheryte plaza. The massive crystal hummed with a power that scraped at the integrity of their scrambled aether, intensifying what pain had dulled. They spilled into the courtyard at the foot of the Crystal Tower. Some exhausted themselves to climb the stairs for shade, bickered over the walls to lean on, and threw their kits and aching selves to the ground. Several stood defiantly rather than collapse, or to allow the injured room to lay down.

Chains rattled in the southern thoroughfare. The marketplace gate opened to release a wave of people and pushcarts burdened by crates of water. Doctors and priests and volunteers and still more soldiers flooded the area. Bread crumbled in famished hands, lost identification pins skid across the ground, strips of gauze webbed around shuffling feet. Someone flung their helmet at a wall in frustration. The reverberating sound ripped curses and shouts from already sore throats. A fight broke out around the suspect.

Elliot knew better than to ask for help when his plight could not compare to most others. He accepted whatever aid came to him, kept his mouth shut, and tried to ignore the questions around him: who’s that boy? a eulmoran? fuck. a stowaway? a spy? Whatever their words, he was not to be respected, and he learned terribly that to be talked about but never spoken to was a harsher punishment than every ignorance he lost in the siege.