#ellie's effortposts

[elliewiltarwyn]

Ellie and Ysayle

DANG got hit right out of the gate with an NPC Ellie definitely has thoughts and feelings about, but I haven't actually thought about it yet dshfaklfjgs so this is all off the cuff!!

(and ofc it got long so...)

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Ellie did not easily settle into the role of Warrior of Light; it felt ill-fitting and sometimes wrong, especially as she grew in notoriety and renown and started having people worship the ground she walked on for supposedly worshipping and being "blessed" by Hydaelyn. Never did she feel she could bring it up with her friends, not even her co-Warriors of Light Lily and Mia.

But an enemy... She knew the truth, she thought, she knew primals are an existential threat and cannot be suffered to live... but the Lady Iceheart was the first person who was able to put words to the unease roiling within her. It's likely "we who gods and men have forsaken shall be the instruments of our own deliverance!" dominated her thoughts until the bloody banquet pushed them out. How much agency does she truly have as a Warrior of Light -- is she bound to Hydaelyn's will? To the Scions'? She (and Mia and Lily) are the ones here in this amphitheatre fighting for...what, if not their own ideals? The Empire was such an easier villain to abhor in contrast.

When Alphinaud suggested appealing to Iceheart, she leapt at the chance because it felt like something within her own power -- her own will. And as she grew to know Ysayle Dangoulain proper, she found common ground in the distrust of those who consider themselves superior, who believe they have the right to use their powers -- their blessings, their Echoes -- as their own political pawns.

Mia had made overtures since the bloody banquet, but Ysayle was the first person Ellie felt truly understood her. Especially since she couldn't well speak of the hypocrisy of harming innocents in her quest for justice, because Ellie had very much made the same mistakes battling the primals in Alliance lands, if not on so grand a scale.

And as a person in her own right... she admired how strong Ysayle and her convictions were, to the point she found herself doubting if her own could stand up (but she found great pleasure in discovering that armor could be chipped by Petting Fluffy Moogle). The more they spent time together on the journey to Hraesvelgr, the more moments of softness, vulnerability, and warmth she found in a woman supposedly made of ice, and the more she grew to admire her. She found herself drawn to Ysayle almost as she had been with Minfilia, for a similarly earnest heart below a masking exterior -- she might very well have fallen in love if she wasn't still so raw with grief from the bloody banquet.

It might be better that she hadn't, because the very same grief and pain she suffered from losing Minfilia struck her regardless as she witnessed Shiva's form dissipating and a lone blue-robed Elezen plummeting to her doom through the clouds, and she found herself cursing whatever higher powers steer their fates even more. It also instills an even deeper distrust of Hydaelyn -- what exactly is She demanding of Her servants, of people with warm hearts like Minfilia and Ysayle? Of people like her? That sort of distrust isn't well and truly dispersed until she meets Venat in Elpis -- and I think (way more than I used to) Ysayle's memory lingers in Ellie's mind the entire time.

...that was way more than I expected holy shit lol, thanks for the ask @ubejamjar!!