#elwin de lipine

[fistsoflightning]

14 | there will be signs

ffxivwrite2024 14: TELLING Having force or effect; effective; striking.

elwin wouldn't say he won the cactpot, but. lumelle & elwin. 1135 wc.

"Well," Lumelle said uselessly with her hands propped on her hips, "I can see where I got things wrong."

Beside her, Elwin copied her in a much more animated and irritated manner. "I told you I know the difference between kolossus and colossal like eight times and now you're reconsidering?"

She didn't need to rehash their quarter-bell linkpearl call that she spent mostly saying 'El, are you sure you don't mean colossal problem' only for him to repeat 'kolossus problem' like those were words that went together outside of Garlean robot colossi. The Gold Saucer could make up words for whatever. She didn't care. She absolutely did not care and there was no use continuing this spat.

But.

"I know you know but does the rest of Eorzea know? Someone could have spelled it wrong or something and you were just reading it out loud!"

"Lumelle."

"FINE!" She threw her hands up in the air, just to put her energy somewhere other than her voice. The Gold Saucer was loud enough to mask most of their bickering, but if she really yelled it was more like than not to gain a draconic tone near the end and that would make things extremely not fine. "FINE, you were RIGHT and I'm SORRY, but what are we going to do about—uh…"

Lumelle's voice trailed off as she turned to point at the very large korpokkur idling nearby with the most innocent look on its face. A not insignificant part of her wanted to squish its face a little and make silly noises; the rest of her was trying to figure out how her brother had ended up with it and also what the hells they could do about it. She knew that it positively couldn't come home to Ishgard. How it had ended up in the deserts of Thanalan in the first place was beyond her.

"I don't knoooow…" Elwin looked reluctantly back at his prize. "Um. Wedding gift for A'dewah?"

"Extremely funny idea, but that's not for moons at least and also this guy would not fit through Haruki's door," Lumelle said. It would be gut-bustingly hilarious to somehow put this guy in a box and witness A'dewah's face when he opens said box, but incredibly not possible unless A'dewah gets his shite together and actually sends out invitations or elopes. Whichever seems most appealing when he snaps. "Also also, I think Munehise has a korpokkur or three already, another is overkorpokkur. Can't you return him, or something? How did you end up with a gigantic korpokkur anyways?"

Elwin reached up to pull at his goggles in distress, the tips of his ears turning a dark red. Lumelle hastily reached down to keep him from snapping them over his eyes, because that was how you got eye damage, wasn't it?? And that absolutely wasn't happening on her watch.

"I won't laugh," she said. Maybe a giggle, but Elwin didn't need to know that.

"But I'm still embarrassed," her brother squeaked out.

"You have literally seen me go crazy and turn myself into a dragon because my crush was getting a little hurt," Lumelle said. "That time I came almost crying to your room because I tripped and ate floor in front of Alisaie and she wouldn't stop laughing at me because I made a funny noise when I did it. The 'who is A'dewah into anyways' incident."

Elwin groaned and said, eyes now screwed shut, "That last one doesn't count 'cause you gave me secondhand embarrassment."

"The point stands that you will never be as embarrassing as me," Lumelle insisted. "Tell me how your errand turned into korpokkur ownership before we get kicked out for making a scene and then we'll go get overpriced food and drinks that you can cry into."

"I'm not going to cry about this… Let go of my goggles." Elwin cracked one eye open, waited for her to stand back up to her full height of still-only-five fulms, and said, "So I did finish my errand. I delivered the mark seven drone to the lady."

"And you got paid," Lumelle said, "in… korpokkur?"

Elwin shook his head. "I got paid in cactpot tickets. For some reason. And they were—the Jumbo kind, which is definitely not what I should have been paid in? But by the time I thought about that she'd already left to have her husband try it out?"

She knew immediately where this was going with a biting clarity. "Elwin, no."

"So since I just had them now, and today was the number draw, I was thinking 'well, I guess I'll stick around and redeem these and get a funny hat after'. But as it turns out—" Elwin gestured to the korpokkur, which was not a funny hat in any sense. "—with my three tickets, I got the MGP from both first and second place? Since the lady had picked sequential numbers? So I had like, enough MGP in my hands to buy a small house, and a lot of people looking my way and saying things, and by then I was thinking 'I have got to get rid of this immediately or there's going to be a situation'."

"So you…"

"Bought. A few things." Elwin hid his face behind his hands, peering through the gaps between his fingers up at Lumelle's incredulous face. "The korpokkur isn't the only thing I grabbed but it is the only one that is. A problem!"

This was, frankly, hilarious to a degree Lumelle couldn't even comprehend at the moment. It would likely hit later when she was recounting the whole thing to Alisaie through laughter. She took another look at the korpokkur's gormless face, then looked back at Elwin and said, "You paid a mountain of fake coin for a whole plant that bounces. Look at it, it has no thoughts in there."

"I'm sure it has at least one," Elwin sighed.

"Yeah, the one that makes sure that water droplet doesn't fall off?"

"You're gonna hurt his feelings, Mellie."

"He's like a dog, he doesn't know! But fine, I'll be nice to your oversized moss ball. So long as he doesn't smush you beneath his roundness."

"Can I beg for mercy now?" Elwin's face was fully buried in his hands now. "I still don't know what to do with him."

"I'll call Miriel later, don't worry." And if that failed, she'd just have to go drop in on A'dewah in the Doman Enclave sooner than she was planning. No biggie. "I do have one last question, though."

Elwin groaned. "Promise we're done after? I can stuff my face in buyer's remorse?"

Lumelle patted the pocket of her coat that had her gil pouch. "Promise. Now—did you buy enough of the bunny ears for us to surprise Valdis with?"

[windupnamazu]

the party don't start til they get through my 50+ titles

ffxivwrite2021 #24: illustrious

⮞ lunya, g'raha, with mentions of the usual suspects (blackestnight's hanami, verbroil's rjoli, winduphaurchefant's reese, and fistsoflightning's zaya, elwin, and lumelle). 654 words. ⮞ post-5.3. ⮞ «balefire» is invited to a fancy party. someone (lumelle de lipine) is not particularly happy about this.

illustrious: well known, respected, and admired for past achievements.

"Presenting the Scions of the Seventh Dawn," cried the crier as the grand doors to the ballroom swung open. The ostensibly ornate chandelier glittered threateningly all the way out into the hall, where Lunya wiggled her fingers with a cheeky, don't trip! as Zaya and Thancred entered first, descending down the stairs in the finest finery she could make for them that they'd be comfortable with. She was so good at what she did. The steward was still talking but she didn't bother to pay attention as she turned to adjust the cuffs of G'raha's suit, hellbent on her mission to ensure he was the handsomest man at the party tonight while also meticulously coordinated with herself so no one would get any funny ideas about his courtship eligibility.

"The announcer has been talking for quite some time," G'raha observed as she dusted non-existent dust from his tailcoats, watching as Rjoli and Urianger descended into the ballroom next. "I was under the impression that these things only ask for as many titles as you can fit on the forms."

Well, it was a little strange now that she thought of it. All the Ul'dahn balls in the Promenade she and the other street kids had spied on before the Calamity never took this long to call all their guests in. Maybe Ishgard just did things differently?

She was about to turn around to ask Theo if he'd been to enough balls to confirm it when she and G'raha were ushered forward to enter next.

"Presenting Lord G'raha Tia," the dry, nasally voice of the steward called. "Scion of the Seventh Dawn and Sharlayan Archon, and Lady Lunya Lanya." They stopped at the top of the stairs, overlooking the glitzed out crowd around the room. There was a shuffle of parchment as the steward shifted a suspiciously long scroll of guest names. "Warrior of Light, Scion of the Seventh Dawn, Champion of Eorzea, the Slayer of Eikons, Savior of Ishgard, Rider of Dragons, Liberator of Ala Mhigo and Doma, Lady Luck—"

By Hydaelyn, Lunya thought a little desperately as they began to walk down the steps, her hand formally placed in G'raha's and trembling with his silent laughter when he realized what was going on. This can't be happening.

"—Stealer of Pants—" The steward paused when they passed him, squinting at the scroll, before shrugging. "—the Best Thing to Ever Happen to Lord G'raha Tia—" G'raha bobbed his head in intense agreement.

"Oh gods," Lunya half-whimpered, half-wheezed when they joined the others. Zaya gave her a carefully sympathetic pat to the shoulder, avoiding the intricate curls of hair that rested over it. "Who told them to do that?"

"Lumelle might have been mad about the thought of another stuffy ball," Alisaie said with an indulgently guilty grin. "So Elwin and I may have helped her… spice up the list of accolades. You definitely didn't hear this from us, though."

"Presenting Lord Aymeric de Borel, Lord Commander and Lord Speaker of the House of Lords, and Lady Hanami Hagane—"

"Wait, all the Warriors before us got this treatment too," Lunya gasped as Alisaie cackled and wheezed out, oh Twelve they called her lady look at her FACE. "Did you guys do this for every single one of us? There's like twenty something of us—"

"—Warrior of Light, Scion of the Seventh Dawn, Savior of Ishgard, LiberACK!"

Very conveniently, the steward's scroll caught fire as Aymeric and Hanami reached the midpoint of the grand staircase. Back at the top landing, Reese shifted guiltily from one foot to the other, the tips of her fingers sizzling with a spell Lunya distinctly remembered her learning for the sole purpose of lighting campfires. It was a good thing that no one else seemed to notice, because everyone was too busy making noise about why the burning parchment smelled exactly like Sohm Al tart and a bit of overcharged machinist gear.

[fistsoflightning]

01 - oh brother

foster: affording, receiving, or sharing nurture or parental care though not related by blood or legal ties. Lumelle & Elwin, 1.8k words. Pre-Calamity.

The eldest daughter of House Lipine attempts to learn more of the lalafellin boy who might just be in need of a new home in the clumsiest way possible - by accidentally accusing him of heresy?

If Lumelle had known what sort of mess future-her would have carefully placed in her calloused hands, she would have paid more attention in the stupid etiquette and hosting classes her stuffy aunts forced her to take.

“Triselle gave me some cookies and hot chocolate to share,” she says after pushing the door to the sitting room open, mostly to fill the quiet spaces as her lalafellin ward (?) looks up at her curiously. In front of him is the journal he asked for a few days after he woke up, but Lumelle doesn’t pay it too much attention when the tray in her arms threatens to tip over instead. “I don’t think you’re allergic to sesame, since you haven’t been seriously ill at dinner yet, but these are sesame cookies. The hot chocolate should be fine, though, so. Help yourself.”

Elwin’s curious gaze sticks to her as she sets down the plate of cookies and the mugs down on the coffee table—Triselle clearly looked around for the smallest mug they had, but even the smallest cups and plates they had look ridiculous next to his tiny hands—but the moment she tries to meet it, his head is already turned away. 

She resists the urge to sigh as she sits down on the floor by the short edge of the coffee table, grabbing the thick book she brought in with her from the tray. Sylveret had said that Elwin seemed the most responsive when it was Lumelle who approached him, as if he were cowering from anyone else in the house, but she doesn’t think she’s even heard his voice outside of the short, terse conversation she had with him after he woke up the first time. 

It’s been weeks since then, and Sylveret swears up and down that he hasn’t heard so much as a peep from Elwin outside of one word responses to any question he asks. The poor man’s probably wondering if he’s doing his job all wrong.

Lumelle cracks open the heavy novel her aunt insisted she read with a huff, twirling her bookmark around in her fingers as she thinks. Honestly, Lumelle has no clue what was running through Haurchefant’s head when he decided leaving Elwin in what is technically her care was a good idea. It seemed to make sense, in the beginning—neither House Haillenarte nor Fortemps would have been willing to take in a wanderer, much less one that had already been told to scram—but at the beginning of winter? As Lumelle’s parents were leaving her and Auphine, again?

It’s a small miracle that the inquisitors haven’t already come marching up onto the manor’s doorstep looking for blood.

She hardly knows how she managed it. Lumelle’s only redeeming quality when it comes to socializing is that she doesn’t drag on conversations after growing bored of them like a polite, proper noble daughter—instead, she snaps and storms off. That, or she says something insulting enough that they leave in a huff first. Not very daughterly of her, to invite more slander onto her parents than they already receive from the other highborns by “being a brat”. Hardly knight-worthy behavior, either, but she’s heard and seen worse from some of the Temple Knights. Lumelle thinks most people would excuse her for being snippish with the endless font of people who think thinly-veiled insults towards her are hilarious.

Regardless, she knows she can’t keep this up forever. The longer Elwin stays here, the less likely it is Lumelle can cover for him; one of these days, someone’s going to wonder why the irritatingly rebellious daughter isn’t stirring up trouble anymore with the other children and come knocking at the wrong time. Even if Lumelle can keep up this charade til next summer, her parents still have no clue as to the outsider taking up their guest room. 

Hells, she can’t even tell if Elwin wants to stay here, trapped in the manor’s decorated walls as the days stretch on like taffy. Better than the Brume, or the wilderness, at any rate, but it’s not like Lumelle or Haurchefant gave him much of a choice. She’d ask, though Sylveret’s probably done so already, thankfully more adept at breaking the ice than she is...

A quiet, musical noise shakes Lumelle out from her mountain of terrible thoughts, her eyes focusing back in at the end of the page in the novel she’s only just learned the plot of (the main protagonist is caught between her devotion to her god and her feelings for some prince… gross ) as the sound grows a little louder, a little braver. A bit like humming, if Lumelle had to guess, and usually her hearing doesn’t lead her astray, so unless Triselle is in the hall humming loudly to herself, there’s only one person it could be.

Lumelle looks over at Elwin across the coffee table, past the half-empty plate of cookies and her own neglected mug of hot chocolate, eyes widening as she looks a little closer. 

Elwin’s smiling, for one, which is a pleasant surprise; he rarely smiles, but it’s not the hardest thing in the world to get him to do. Lumelle likes to think he’d smile a lot more if he wasn’t so at odds with his surroundings all the time, and that it would fit him—but that isn’t what catches her attention.

It’s his journal.

“That’s… a gun,” Lumelle says, shifting to her knees and pushing herself up from her seat to get a better look at Elwin’s journal. His quiet humming turns to a strangled eep as he drops his pencil to cover the left side of his journal, revealing—

“Is that a dragon?”

Elwin’s hands rapidly shift from covering the sketch of—yeah, that’s definitely a gun—to covering the dragon-looking scribble on the opposite page.

“...N-no?”

Lumelle looks up from the slightly incriminating page to stare him down. “Are you sure about that?”

In a fit of either anger or bravery, Elwin looks straight at her when he says, “It’s not—it just looks like a dragon!”

If it looks, roars, and bites like a dragon… Lumelle didn’t think Elwin was a heretic, but she also didn’t think he was a scholar studying the Horde. Both, frankly, would be hard to shelter anyways, but one potential blow to Lumelle’s proverbial kneecaps at a time. “Then what the hells is it?”

“It’s a machine! I—I like designing things and, um, I thought a dragon automaton might… be cool…? I came up with the idea before I got to Ishgard, I swear, but I lost my old notebook when the scary people found me in the wagon and I just…” Elwin shrinks in on himself, determined expression giving way to a frown. “I wanted to remake it.”

Whatever Lumelle had just opened her mouth to say dies right there on her tongue at the earnest tone of Elwin’s declaration.

“Oh,” she says, like a fool. It… made sense. More so than him being a heretic when he’s smaller than a sack of popotoes. Lumelle knows one engineer already with more smarts than wits about them to know when to stop—and Elwin doesn’t seem to even be from Eorzea itself. She had to explain so much about Ishgard in the first few days that she thought her throat would kill her. Leave it to her to assume the worst, even if her not-quite-ward is a handful.

She’s still trying to wrap her head around the whole ‘remaking entire blueprints by memory’ thing, though, when Elwin shifts in his seat, hands clasped together in his lap.

“‘m sorry,” he mumbles. “Please don’t throw me out into the snow.”

Lumelle blinks. “Throw you out into the—what?”

Elwin gives her a curious look “The other elezen did the same after they took my things and looked at them.”

“Well, that’s because they’re a bunch of stuffy pricks,” she mutters. Maybe that was why he was always cowering away from Sylveret and Triselle, with his first impression of Ishgardians being the damn inquisitors with less brains than Lumelle’s draught chocobo hatchling. “I’m not about to throw you to the wolves for a conclusion I jumped to. I promised that the manor was your home for as long as you needed—but you need to be careful with that, yeah? Otherwise, both of us will probably be declared heretics.”

Elwin nods, keeping his head bowed as if waiting for Lumelle to dismiss him, or something. There’s no trace of the quiet smile or determination he had earlier left, a leaden feeling seeping into Lumelle’s bones as she realizes how she must look to him, all up in arms about a stupid drawing of a machine. He’d been comfortable up until Lumelle decided to ruin it.

Another stupid mistake to tack onto her record. But maybe she can still salvage this one?

“A dragon automaton… does sound a little cool,” she says awkwardly, even if she doesn’t fully believe it. She’ll make herself believe in the idea of a metal dragon if it makes Elwin smile again; he deserves that much faith from her. “Any chance you could tell me more?”

His head lifts back up, still terribly hesitant but hopeful. “But, your book…”

“Eh,” she says, dropping the book onto the floor by the table. She’ll have to stay up late one or two nights to finish it before Aunt Ystride comes by to check in on her and ask about her thoughts (carefully practiced and patched with a few white lies, because Halone have mercy this novel is mind-numbing), but Lumelle thinks listening to Elwin and his bright voice is worth a little lost sleep. “I wasn’t all that invested in it.”

“You’d rather listen to me talk? About a dragon?”

“Hey, you said it was an automaton first,” she grumbles. “And I know an engineer. He likes to force people to listen to him so he can work out his thoughts verbally without sounding like a madman. I can at least do that for you.”

For a moment, Elwin hesitates, and Lumelle thinks he’d rather not empty his brain out to someone who already reacted poorly to his ideas, but he gets up, walks over, and sits back down besides her, journal held carefully between his hands.

“I don’t know how much you’ll understand,” he says, voice full of barely restrained excitement. She probably wouldn’t understand a lick of it, since the closest she’s gotten to a forge was to look at swords, but she also wouldn’t let that stop her from trying to wrap her head around it. “Stop me when you get bored, yeah?”

Lumelle smiles. It doesn’t feel anywhere near as gentle or kind as she wants it to be, but it’s a start. “Trust me when I say I don’t think I could be bored with you around.”

[fistsoflightning]

25 - at least i have you

silver lining: a consoling and hopeful prospect; “every dark cloud has a silver lining.” Tehra’ir & audeo, 1.8k words. Shadowbringers, post-Mt. Gulg but before the WoL wakes up.

The world is back at the brink, and seven ghosts (?) have nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs as they wait for something to change. Hopefully in favor of them getting their bodies back...

The light pouring down from Norvrandt’s skies was almost blinding in its radiance.

Not that the sky being too bright was anything new. Tehra’ir had been here for the same five years Thancred had, traveling under the pearlescent colors of those Light-filled skies that had given Ryne sunburns when they raced away from Eulmore with her. It screwed with his sleep schedule and his temper so badly that the Exarch—or were they finally calling him G’raha, now?—basically had blackout curtains invented just so he could go back to his nocturnal habits whenever he was in the Crystarium for long enough. Apparently, the Mystel of the First had no nocturnal inclinations like the Keepers of the Moon of the Source did—that, or the ones who did were already long gone. The sky being too brilliant to look up at was normal.

But Norvrandt had got its first taste of night in a hundred years not over a few short months ago, starting with Lakeland and spreading like ink poured onto parchment to the rest of the land. The sour-sweet colors of the sun rising and setting every day, the near-eternal blue sky full of puffy white clouds, the shade of night and the stars that danced in its return. The change in weather, from eternal stillness to days of sweet rain and nights of cold wind. Tehra’ir and the others nearly cried when Reese brought up the vanguard and tore a rift in the Light they’d been working for ages to vanquish, even as ghosts. In the wreckage of Holminster Switch, Lyna looked up in awe, so childlike for someone who Valdis said might have been nearing a full century of life. Alisaie all but tackled her brother in joy. The other Scions, having already heard the news, weren’t so dramatic in their revelations, but they still took a quiet joy in knowing the skies were beginning to clear, even knowing what the price paid was.

And now the light was back. The Lightwardens were back, slowly taking their friends and turning them into Norvrandt’s doom. All because G’raha’s stupid plan and Emet-Selch’s timely but unwanted intervention led to the Light within breaking free.

Not completely, at least. Tehra’ir tried to tell himself that at least the five Warriors still standing were left with their bodies mostly intact, at least it wasn’t the end yet. He’d seen a fair share of people turn, and seven hells was it not pretty. Ryne, the absolute angel that Zaya and Thancred did not deserve but had as their almost-daughter anyways, had enough of a handle on her newfound strength to keep that from happening.

Enough to keep them alive, but not enough to stop time forever. Not even an Oracle reborn could cure the afflicted—if she couldn’t, then it was likely there was no cure, A’dewah said. He had been looking for a cure longer than Alisaie had been ready to suplex G’raha, forgoing his own wellbeing to chase it, and even with both of the stubborn idiots working for the Inn at Journey’s Head the only lead was Minfilia, the one who stopped the Flood in its place.

The skies were bright, there was no cure, and seven almost-ghosts gathered at the same place they had been for weeks, a clumsy half-oval around Zaya’s bed.

“How are we all feelin’?” Syhrwyda asked this question every two weeks, while they were still (technically) alive and meeting at the Wandering Stairs for whatever meal of the day it happened to be. If the Scions were drifting apart in their search for salvation, all the more reason for the seven of them to stick together.

Beside him, Valdis snickered, biting their lip to keep from laughing as A’dewah sat down on the foot of Zaya’s bed with a squeak that sounded a little like a deflating balloon. Not that Tehra’ir would say that to his face; he was nicer than that, and the poor man was already stressed out of his mind, even as a wandering spirit. “Transparent and intangible as always, Wyda.”

A’dewah, who Tehra’ir thought was having a small crisis (as was unfortunately usual for him), twitched. “If I knew I was going to be—be stuck in one piece of clothing for the rest of my days, I would have asked G’raha if the Crystarium had any better coats. I hate not being able to close this thing.”

Syhrwyda wheezed, watching A’dewah fruitlessly fiddle with the open part of his coat. “I’d have asked for something less purple, myself, but what can ye do.”

“Well, as long as you aren’t feeling any stranger than usual,” Duscha rumbled, lowering himself to sit on the floor. He looked a little silly, but Thancred had dragged his chair over to the window and was currently fast asleep in it, as uncomfortable as the Pendants’ chairs were. Tehra’ir thought Duscha would have looked just as silly trying to cram himself onto the piddly seat anyways. “Not that we can do much about any alterations.”

“Speaking of alterations,” Elwin said, tapping his finger to his cheek like he always did when thinking, “Thancred was smart to watch Zaya this whole time, considering their whole… everything… started right after the Well, huh.”

A’dewah gave a wheezy laugh. “I think, um, there’s a lot more to it than that.”

“You have to be blind not to see it—and even Y’shtola knows,” Syhrwyda snorted. She looked up and over Tehra’ir’s head to the open window of the small Pendants room, where Thancred had finally worn himself out from fretting over Zaya. Tehra’ir had, frankly, been a little worried; the man was too prone to overworking and repressing himself, especially when it came to the matters of Zaya and Ryne. Stupid, soft man.

“They’re really in love with each other,” Valdis said with a sniff. “It’s sort of sickening.”

Tehra’ir reached up to lightly squeeze Valdis’ shoulder, looking over at Thancred with the barest hint of jealousy settling in his chest. “They deserve it, though. Th’ daft culls’ve been through ‘nough.”

“Still wanna shake them a little for giving Ryne such a hard time, even if I get why they were having so many damn problems talking about it,” Lumelle grumbled. Next to her stool, Elwin reached up and patted his sister’s knee, mostly because he couldn’t reach her shoulders.

“If only we could,” Valdis sighed. “Watching them was emotionally taxing. They owe me.”

The reminder that they were practically non-existent was a bit harsher of a wake-up call than Tehra’ir would have used, but their resident black mage had never been one for smooth landings. Syhrwyda’s eternally sunny demeanor dimmed, her arms crossed over her chest.

“So… one to ten,” Lumelle mumbled, fingernails cutting into her palm, “How fucked are we?”

Tehra’ir didn’t have it in him to bring up Lumelle’s swear jar, already full of gil on the counter back home. She owed the swear jar plenty, and somehow so did Elwin, who must have picked up the habit at the knees of the Crystalline Mean workers, but he decided it didn’t count when they were facing off against tasks of Calamity-sized proportions. Let the two kids curse. They might never get to again.

“Fourteen,” A’dewah croaked, the godsdamned pessimist—but if anyone knew just how screwed they were, it would be him. He studied the few records that detailed changes in the Lightwardens like a hawk, spent nearly every second he could at the Inn or at Spagyrics trying to save someone regardless of if they were dying to injuries or on the verge of becoming someone’s next nightmare. It would have driven Tehra’ir insane, the nightmares and the memories. The knowledge that you were feeding poison to someone completely innocent because the alternative was worse. The inevitability of it all.

“We’re already dead,” Valdis said, smiling thinly. She always spoke in a way that made telling jokes and serious statements apart, but she’d never looked so resigned before. “How much worse can it get?”

Syhrwyda laughed, all sharp edges and no warmth. “We’ve all seen Ardbert by now. We know how this ends.”

Familiar enough story. Ardbert and his companions tried to save their world, nearly ended it, jumped to the Source after being tricked by an Ascian to come and kill them by abandoning their bodies. Cursed to wander as ghosts, except the other four gave their aether, their beings to Minfilia in order to halt the Flood. Ardbert was the only one left, now. Tehra’ir couldn’t imagine the years of haunting your home without feeling ill.

It was probably for the best that he couldn’t see them. Or hear them, for that matter.

“At least he got to come home,” A’dewah mumbled into his hands. His face paint would be all smeared, if they weren’t a little intangible at the moment. “Though—well, maybe that’s worse. Forced to wander here without being able to be here.”

Tehra’ir shrugged. “Speak for yerself. I’d consider throwin’ me stabbers to th’ sea if it let me see ol’ Limsa one last time.”

How strange was that, wanting to go home to the city full of pirates and thieves. Far better than the sugary sweet smell of Eulmore and its meol, at any rate, and at least there he could find his sister and the Guild waiting for him. Could expect Jacke to throw his arm over his shoulder and give him something to laugh about—the First was awfully lacking in anything that wasn’t gallows humor.

Gods, he never even got to tell Jacke. Spent so much time futzing about with his feelings that he comes to terms with them on a whole separate world, two years too late to spill all the words he’d been leaving unsaid.

aybe we’re not going to make it home ever again,” Lumelle murmured, knees pulled up to her chest and hair frizzy with knots, “But at least I’m here with you guys. At least I’m not alone.”

“Aw, Mel,” Elwin said, a little teary-eyed. “When did you get all soft and gooey? Did Alisaie do something while I was busy in the forge?”

Lumelle flushed bright red as a mirror apple, nearly falling off the stool as the rest of them started to smile. It’s poetic, in a way and if someone was a shitty, tragic poet; it starts with one person bringing them together to become eight, and it ends with one person losing the other seven.

(“At least I have you,” Zaya had said, in the dark of the Dutiful Sisters as the Crystal Braves stomped past. “At least I’m not alone.”)

“Ye’ll always have us,” Tehra’ir said, even as Lumelle and Elwin started to wrestle each other, a paladin and her pint-sized brother. “No matter what.”

[fistsoflightning]

                                                 SAY CHEESE!

[fistsoflightning]

take me through the night! fall into the darkside we don't need the light! we'll live on the darkside i see it, let's feel it, while we're still young and fearless let go of the light! fall into the darkside

                            || S H A D O W B R I N G E R S ||

[fistsoflightning]

8: live a little

prompt: clamor || masterpost || other fills || ao3 mirror

word count: 858

What’s the point of a giant mech if you can’t have a little fun with it?

Contains spoilers for Sapphire Weapon/Sorrow of Werylt questline? Sort of? But also not really? Thanks to @windupnamazu​ and @winduphaurchefant​ for letting me drag Seven and Viggo into Elwin’s joyride LMAO

If Cid didn’t want him sneaking off and fiddling with the giant mech, Elwin thinks he would have had the foresight to talk first and show the really big, cool robot after he finished talking about boring things, like safety precautions and the actual purpose of said mech. Really, he should know better by now—maybe asked Syhrwyda to tie him down, or something. Keep him from wandering off from below everyone’s noses.

Well. Either way, he would have found a way to sneak past, because they wouldn’t have let him near it regardless, not without a baby leash or something keeping him from getting inside. The incident with the colossus (and, yeah, nearly trampling Nero in the process too, he supposes) was several summers ago at this point!

With Wyda not paying close attention to him due to Cid’s lecture and the rest of the Ironworks crew he’d brought along not really expecting a renegade lalafell (well, except Seven, but he took one glance at Elwin, sighed, and looked back down into his pile of scrap metal salvaged from the old facilities nearby) he’d made it all the way behind the giant feet of the G-Warrior before he realized his first problem.

How the hells does anyone get in this thing?

Even if he looked as far up as he could crane his neck, there wasn’t anything that vaguely looked like a hatch or door. In all likeliness, it might be something strange again, like what with the other things in Azys Lla being overly complicated. Always with the tricky, strange contraptions with Allagans.

He taps his chin, quietly listening to the quiet clank of metal and what random words he can pick up from Cid. Someone from Ironworks might know just how to get in, though, so he looks over to where Seven last was and waves.

“Sev,” he whispers, smiling brightly when Seven peeks up from his pile of random scrap bits. Cid probably has some sort of rule that kept Seven from touching the G-Warrior himself, now that Elwin thinks about it, but a few rules could be broken if he looked innocent enough. Maybe. “Help me get into the G-Warrior?”

Seven’s nose scrunches up. “I—mm. Cid’ll have my hind if I help ya, but…”

“You can say you were just trying to stop me but I was faster, or something!” He taps the side of his goggles, adding a small wink at the end. “We can co-pilot. C’mon, it’ll be lots of fun!”

For a moment, it looks as if Seven might call Cid over and blow Elwin’s very, very shoddy cover, considering he’s not trying to hide that badly, but eventually he just sighs, drops the piece of Garlean warmachina shielding he was inspecting back into the pile, and quietly walks over, arms crossed in that way he does when he’s thinking.

“We’re going to need a step ladder,” he grumbles. “or maybe some other, taller co-conspirator. Seat inside’s made for some ten-foot tall Allagan or something.”

Elwin sighs. Of course. He could probably wheedle Valdis into helping, if he could grab her attention and no one else’s, but considering how tall she is and how bright her hair is...

“Pardon,” someone says from behind Elwin. “But perhaps I could help?”

When Elwin turns around, standing behind him is a tall man with tousled brown hair and ridiculous eye bags, still wearing his doctor’s coat for whatever reason despite having come up from Gridania to a former war zone, and part of Elwin nearly expects to see Marron lurking somewhere to make sure he doesn’t get up to anything funny.

“Viggo!” He’s known Nero for long enough to be familiar with the doctor, he thinks, to be his usual amount of energetic when greeting him. Viggo smiles, but the glint in his glasses suggests something a bit more than general interest in, well, driving a mech around. “Wanna help us sneak into the mech, huh?”

Viggo hums his agreement, looking up at the G-Warrior. “I had thought it would be nice to get out of the clinic for a bit, and I heard from the grapevine about Ironworks’ new project, of sorts. Could use a little bit of… fun.”

There’s something in Viggo’s eyes that worries Elwin just a little, but it’s probably fine, and besides. What harm could the three of them do? It’s not like they’re going to swing around the giant swords in camp; the salt dharmas would work as target practice—if they could get there in the first place, he thinks, quieter than the part of him that screams WHAT DOES THIS DO AND CAN I BLOW THINGS UP WITH IT.

Well, he thinks after, that’s what the test drive is for!

“Right,” Elwin says, dropping his fist into his palm. “Let’s get to it!”

It takes the three of them a lot of maneuvering and thinking to get into the G-Warrior without Cid noticing, but the horrified screams and curses that crackle across Cid’s intercom when Elwin manages to get the G-Warrior moving are so worth the trouble of potentially not getting dessert for the next few moons.

[fistsoflightning]

seven items: list seven items your character keeps on their person/in their inventory at all times.

bonuses in the captions!

tagged by: @windupnamazu and @whitherliliesbloom!!!! thank you carmela for both the tag and giving me the inspiration to go wild with edits. thank you kiwi for the extra tag! i went, as you may say, feral.

tagging: uhhhhhhhhhhh i don’t know too many people who haven’t done this BUT i will double tag the mom squad plus a few ppl >:3 @windup-dragoon @sati-ffxiv @to-the-voiceless @verbroil @winduphaurchefant @ofthesilverlining @stars-bleed-hearts-shine @aethernoise @holyja and YOU! open tag!!!! if you see this and do it, please tag me!! i love the idea of just having a list of random items your character just always has... which is why i went crazy.

[fistsoflightning]

updated shadowbringers pictures for my wols! they all get a glow up except dewah who decided to dye his hair purple.

little descriptions below for fun/info for future asks!

FIRST ROW: TANKS

SYHRWYDA MAETITYRBWYN: a rowdy rogaedyn warrior that could probably be your mom! she’s real peppy and tends to indulge in a little fun despite being, like, fourty years old. her axe, sunshimmer, is probably the size of your head, so watch what side of her you’re on! if you see her pulling out her grimoire, you’re in trouble...

LUMELLE DE LIPINE: the teensy elezen paladin that started adventuring when she was like.... thirteen for ‘being thrown out of ishgard for supposed heretical thought’ reasons. her sense of justice is generally well used, and her loyalty is unmatched by any of her friends! she tends to get a lil stuck in her head, and she’s also like.... a baby. second youngest of the group? you found her. also; do not mention stardiver around her or she will scream. she hates doing that dragoon jump and is deathly afraid of heights. her brother, elwin, can attest to that.

SECOND ROW: HEALERS

DUSCHA VESNASCH: our tired hrothgar archon scholar/dad.... he just wants to take a nap with eos. he is a hardcore bookworm and would rather write a letter than talk to people in person just cause his eorzean is Too Formal. his fairy friend, eos, loves to just. sleep on people’s shoulders and heads, so if he feels comfortable around you, you’ll know by eos’s reaction to you! though he’s real laid back and tired, he can still stand for himself if you give him a proper gunblade! his training as a child wasn’t for nothing.

A’DEWAH TIA: an anxious miqo’te white mage that really, *really* cares for your wellbeing and tends to forget his own! his magic feels like fluffy clouds and warm sunshine, and his smiles are just the same! however, please don’t spook him because he will jump through the ceiling and scream like a child. he’s real meek and very wound up, but can still pack a punch in battle. he vastly prefers white magic, but his innate ability for red magic isn’t something he’s going to pass up if it helps keep others alive.

THIRD ROW: MELEE DPS

TEHRA’IR NAPHTO: the charming rogue ninja miqo’te of the party! he’s real sneaky and can twist your words without you noticing, but will absolutely never do that to friends; its his code of honor. if you need someone to eavesdrop for you, he’s your man! it’s pretty simple to find him; just make a loud call out in hawker’s alley stating you’re selling tuna miqo’a’bobs and he’ll be there in like... ten minutes. yell around six pm, however, and you’ll just disturb his daily meditation with his katana and he’ll probably dive into the ocean after it.

ZAYA QESTIR: my main wol and the reckless au’ri monk of the group! they’re an avid bird love, tend to run out into thunderstorms and turn themselves into a lightning rod, and really love adventuring! you’ll probably not meet another person as rambunctious and unable to sit still as them, though they do turn that down a notch after shadowbringers! their skillset encompasses kriegstanz, song magic (to an extent), and archery, but some rumors tend to circle about their devastation with a greatsword...

FOURTH ROW: RANGED DPS

VALDIS OTOEL: our optimistic viera black mage! well known for her tricks around eorzea, and known to few as their saving grace; her knowledge of aether and magic is pretty good! she could probably be an archon if A) she went to sharlayan like duscha and B) weren’t such a gremlin. as it is now, her nickname ‘little spitfire’ is for her blunt charm and penchant for fire spells! however, her fire magic spans much further than traditional black magic. perchance have you heard of... the flames of rebirth and blue magic?

ELWIN DE LIPINE: the babbiest baby.... the even teensier lalafell machinist sibling of lumelle! he may be tiny and look like a kid, but he’s A) on par with machinery with cid garlond B) a perfect shot with his own guns C) the main little dude to go to for prosthetics and D) knows how to handle money unlike his sister lumelle. his smarts only add onto the charm of his trusting nature, and he’s always!! cheering!! for you!!!!!! if he doesn’t have his machines and guns on hand, however, hand him a starglobe and he’ll show you the night skies in midday! he loves being an astrologian and is forever thankful for his surrogate father/lumelle’s father gifting him one of very few astrologian soul stones from his time in sharlayan...

[fistsoflightning]

14: hero’s journey

prompt: part || masterpost || other fills || ao3 mirror

word count: 4813 (i DONT want to talk about how long this is)

You are not simply a hero, but this is still your journey, and the parts of you are waiting along the way. All you have to do is take them.

DRK shenanigans, anyone? Note: distinctly not canon-DRK things ahead, hopefully still keeping the same emotional sort of weight? Also, second person POV! There’s no spoilers because this is just me going off on a tangent :P

Someone had noted—an age old teacher, perhaps, memories inlaid deep onto your crystal—that grief causes the greatest oddities to occur. Simulacrums formed of it weren’t so uncommon as one might be led to believe with a surplus of aether and enough love turned sour.

You just weren’t expecting to be one of them.

Like wildfires, you expect to fade back into the darkness of the abyss easily enough; the hands of such a young knight wouldn’t be able to bear being stained so pitch-black, you think, not when she glows with Halone’s blessing and something even more. Her hands leave freezer burns over the facets of your crystal, frosty fog forming as she keeps training, keeps hunting down more and more aevis until there’s nothing left. Even Ishgard’s worst blizzards fail to stand up against the winter storm of her fury.

Must be some sort of rebellion, violent and reckless as it is. You sit back (as much as a distant flame in the abyss can, anywho) and wait until the worst of her temper fizzles back into snowmelt—which, obviously, doesn’t happen like you assumed, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, now would you?

(When you hear the truth of it, crystal fed enough blood and aether to reach out further than just from the little knight’s pockets—when you hear betrayals and exiles and my brother is dead because of your Braves, Alphinaud, what more do you want from me, your realization shows itself in coldflare and dark light, wrapping itself as best it can around someone so blessed and “loved by the gods” as your ward.

Though you need her more than she needs you, it still doesn’t hurt, you think, to cover her armor in a veil of darkness, even when her shield sings of nevermelting ice and wraps light around her anyways.)

But eventually, it does; Lumelle—you find out her name from a man willing to jump in front of inquisitors and magical spears alike for his beloved friends—her enraged grief bubbles off into a quieter sort at the beginning of Ishgard’s new dawn, and you are left by her bedside when she falls into a sleep after destroying a wyrm with grief that, really, wasn’t all that different. (Besides the whole eternal lifespan and eyeballs of power, and the wyrm’s sibling being eaten by Lumelle’s ancestors thing. That had thrown you for a loop.)

And oh, you expect it to end there, your tale that of accompanying a girl who didn’t need you so much as she needed closure; fading after protecting someone so bright would be an honor.

...

(But there is no rest for the righteous, now is there?)

...

Your next chapter opens in the palms of someone already acquainted with bloody hands, and though the little time spent out of Lumelle’s hands has left you wanting for your senses yet again, it takes hardly any time to figure just what this one’s deal is. 

(Her hands shake whenever she sees her party’s astrologian—so small, her head is practically the size of your ward’s fist balled up—and the thought of Vylbrand sours every conversation like milk left to rot. Y’shtola utters the word crone and the spike of earthquake panic you both feel lets you understand the jumble of misremembered nightmares that still haunts the warrior so far north from the place.

When she almost drowns herself in the memories, asking the sea to take her back into her arms, you are the one screaming the entire time—not because she is taking you with her, no, but because you can feel the summer breeze and hear the quiet pond rushing about the housing district looking for her, and you do not know what you’ll do if her death reignites Lumelle’s tempered anger.

The scholar cries out her name just as she falls too deep; Syhrwyda, you remember—you’ll force her name onto this damned crystal if you have to—and the breath of relief you sigh when the white mage forces the ocean to spit her out is all but audible.)

You expect her to let the little supernova cut her down, cleanse burns with blood and old aches with a trip into the abyss, because if Lumelle’s aches were screaming freezer burns then the gentle warrior’s are a quiet erosion. Even dripping blood can wear down a mountain, with enough time, and with a Calamity come and passed, the proof burned onto her skin, it is more than enough to see this mighty willow fallen to the skies opening up and pouring a tsunami’s worth of suffering in retribution.

Both you and her close your eyes when the axe comes swinging down, kneeling on the ground in pain. You do not expect it to be swift or painless like the rumors say of guillotines and execution, but you hope it is anyways.

And yet, and yet, the blade does not come.

(Part of you wonders: would the girl shrouded in fallen moonlight have done the same thing, if she had seen what Syhrwyda had seen? Would she, knowing that the choice was submission or death, have still seen her friend and ally in the woman that burnt her childhood with naught but a single incantation?

It matters not. There is no turning back time, and she has decided to give her friend a boon.)

It is not metal that comes, but a flurry of stars calling a lost sailor home instead, so potent that her magic seeps into your crystal as she collapses against your ward’s shoulder, whispering I’m sorry, I can’t, I won’t like little wishes made upon falling stars. You don’t know if you imagined the croaked it isn’t your fault or if you simply missed the mumbled movements, but Syhrwyda’s aether settles in time with the stars bursting across her skin and you know that your time with her will come to an end soon.

When she sets your crystal by a small crystalline lamp, you hum in amusement, letting yourself slip down into the abyss once more as the watery blue light ripples off the bookshelves.

…

(Who are you?)

(No one of consequence.)

…

You find yourself more confused than before when the scholar picks up your small crystal, facets gleaming brighter than before but still dulled from decades of being frozen under Ishgard’s snows; nothing about him sings of the same pain like the last two. He pockets your crystal easily and you wonder just what use he’ll find from you if he has no abyss of his own to draw from, no font to gather his strength for him to find.

(You miss how quiet he is in the din of everyone and everything else, tuned up to near painful when you open your eyes again. You miss the words he reads, the spells he crafts, the spared glances to his usual tome. Nothing about the man betrays it; hardly anything he does seems to suggest even a hint of regret, grief long since frozen over and forgotten of a home he’d long lost.

This was never an easy road—traveling down into the abyss and to rise back up again—and you do not expect easy wards, but the scholar—)

Even deadly waters can be calm at the surface, deceiving depths holding something stronger, and when he rises to meet the Illuminati and the (not their) primal, you start to see the signs of something lurking in the water and strain to open your eyes, drained as you are so close to Alexander. 

(You should have noticed how he balked away from poisons, preferring to sit far away from the rogue; you should have felt the gentle ripple when Mide mentioned Alexander’s purpose and wondered more.

It is too late for regrets, but it is not too late to stop this man, whose hands are too gentle and weary, from falling further into something he did not truly want.)

Are you daft, you whisper, and it’s not the best thing you’ve ever come up with but it’s the first words you’ve truly spoken to be heard. Like the rest, you expect your words to fall on deaf ears—stubborn people, the ones that have found you—but this time the scholar stops. Lingers, the precipice of a typhoon brewing up from the bottom of his soul. Do you truly think this will work?

“Not completely,” he says, his voice a quiet rumble as his small carbuncle shimmers and shakes its way into existence; part of you wishes you were strong enough to do the same just so you could shake the fluff out of this man’s brain to where it belongs. “But it might, and even the smallest chance...”

What of your friends today?

You don’t know what you expected, really; the scholar clams up and so do you, a connection cleaved in two as he walks away from the hand of the giant primal, stone in hand, and you are too exhausted to try and pry his heart open wider. Convincing him to let it all spill forth is harder than convincing a rock to move on its own, so you don’t try.

This time, when you fall back asleep atop a book with a soft leather cover, you desperately hope this is the end of it.

…

(Did you know them, too? Did they lead you to me?)

(In a way, yes.)

(Then you can stay, for now. Just… keep quiet.)

…

And of course, it never is.

It’s hard to describe your next awakening as anything but a bolt of lightning straight to your center, with how much aether rushes through your crystal and into the abyss. Too fast, too quick, like a flame burning too hot too soon. From freezing to the fiery depths of hell, you think incredulously as you reach out, looking to just who might be so dangerously close to tipping too far.

You don’t expect to find the timid white mage staring down at your soul crystal, red eyes and all.

(In a way, perhaps you should have known it would happen; the man was too damned reserved, all flower petals and no bark, the look in his eyes when he saw someone injured too intense for simple worry. He hates bloodshed yet makes his career in it all the same, and you’ve been held by Lumelle so tightly that you felt his magic—summer’s night bottled into a cure, blooming flowers pressed over scars, and you think nothing could be kinder than the way he loves.

Shame that you forgot that sometimes kindness is forged in the abyss.)

You’re sure he doesn’t mean to keep your crystal at all—hells, he sets it at the bottom of his satchel before he goes running off to join the fray in the same place that nearly killed him, the damned martyr—but you get taken with him regardless, and you see just how badly he’s dealt with it all. You don’t retort as snarkily as you might have with Duscha; your current ward is like paper thin glass, and you worry that if you push him he might break into pieces so small not even the sun’s light could find him.

In fact, you’re not sure what will happen if you make yourself known at all. He doesn’t seem strong enough to handle the idea that his guilt is making a simulacrum manifest.

(If you truly wanted, you could make him a fine dark knight. Teach him how to take his love and turn it into strength and protection stronger than anything the realm’s elements might give him, no matter how loved he is by them. Stain this white mage in dark.

But you see his dreams, sometimes—you never had found your way into dreams before, but with someone practically bleeding their life aether onto you, a simulacrum fueled by memories and pain, it’s hard not to have new experiences—and his hands are always coated in blood. His own, someone else’s, his mother’s, his father’s…

You choose not to take him through the abyss. You don’t want to know if he’ll still be there when you walk out.)

Finding someone that might be able to help someone who very stubbornly doesn’t want help is… a lot harder than intended. There’s not too many people… happy, with your ward; not after Baelsar’s Wall, and the man that Lumelle sent flying. You faintly remember a name—Caelestis, or something—but you care little for details and more for solutions, so you keep peering outwards and looking as best you can without fully peering into their heads.

That is, until that someone comes running at the white mage like a teal tulip some sylph chucked at you with the force of a demon.

(He introduces himself to everyone as Haruki, but you can’t help but call him Ruki after one too many trips into A’dewah’s head—Dewah, he says, and you don’t know much about Seeker names but you know that it means more to your ward than it does to anyone else—and you think you can get him to help, even if A’dewah himself is trying to avoid him like the plague. 

Especially because he’s avoiding Haruki like he’ll die if he doesn’t.)

It takes a few minor illusions and a trip to the Steppe (you didn’t know how to do these before A’dewah, you think as you practically lead a trail of hints from the Enclave to the tree A’dewah’s stuck himself in) but Haruki’s always been smarter than he might look (you still can’t get over the peacock feather of a mess his hair is) and eventually, eventually, your plan comes to fruition.

You don’t try to listen when they talk, but the rush of relief in A’dewah’s aether and the slow transition of summer bottled up tight enough to crack glass to the light warmth of, say, a greenhouse in full bloom tells you all you need to know, anyways.

(Doma is freed, soon after, and the Warriors are called back home, to Ala Mhigo’s war, but you look one last time out to Doma and see the last moments of A’dewah’s goodbyes, and of course it’s Haruki he tells last. His eyes burn like a solar eclipse, and you think if it weren’t for his son—so small and brave, callouses already on his fingers—he’d come back with you.

You think it might be puppy love, somehow, but you take one last look at what you know and think that maybe he’s just tired of being left behind, of being the last one. Might be love, might be wanderlust.

It doesn’t matter. You still have to leave, even if it hurts.)

On the ship’s journey back through the Sirensong Sea, A’dewah finally acknowledges you, in a way.

“Thank you,” he murmurs to no one in particular as he ties up his hair tighter. His eyes aren’t reddened from crying anymore—just the unfortunate lot of his mother’s eyes being blood red by nature—and you think you can rest, now.

So you do.

…

(Don’t you understand to call for help?)

(I can manage.)

(So sayeth the Weapon of Light.)

…

From one firebrand of a caster to another, you think as your crystal gets put into Valdis’ open palms—you learn her name early, this time, instead of just before the climax of the story—and though her aether is quiet you know well enough that it doesn’t mean there’s nothing hiding behind it.

(It’s the same sort of longing for something long past, you remember. Duscha’s aether had a similar balance to hers, even if Valdis is mostly umbral shade and hardly a hint of water among the flames she pulls into form. Where Duscha was restrained she is explosive, and you don’t need to look too hard to find the root of the issue.

The thing is: you’re too exhausted.)

You’re lucky she doesn’t fight closer to the front line, like Lumelle or Syhrwyda, because you can hardly summon a shadow at this point—perhaps you were played the fool by A’dewah’s tears into doing too much, not saving enough.

But then you look at Valdis and think she might be fine on her own, eyes still lit up and hopeful. Spitfire in her hair and embers in her eyes, already burning like a flame that knows how to rise from her ashes already.

There’s something to be said about youth, maybe, and you sigh as you close your eyes and hope to wake when she needs you.

(The thing is: she doesn’t need to.)

…

(... Hmph.)

(If you’re expecting an apology, you’re getting none from me.)

(I do not need—)

…

Your next venture leads you into the hands of someone so astrally aspected you don’t know if you can even summon the strength to peer outwards. Their aether and yours conflicts so greatly that it’s hard to tell if the abyss is flaring up or dying down, really, but you try regardless.

You will eternally be glad you do not have a face, because the pure shock when the face you see is one that was supposed to be long dead is not a face you’d ever like to see.

Lumelle had been your catalyst, and the little machinist before you the cause; you didn’t think he’d survived, somehow, even if you saw the monk that supposedly fell with him. He’s brighter than you’d thought he’d ever be, as close to the abyss as his sister was, and then you realize—

He truly doesn’t need you. His eyes still gleam on their own, not shrouded by something buried deep. If Duscha’s abyss was well hidden enough for you to mistake it, there can be no mistake here.

When he keeps your crystal close, anyways, you close your eyes again, thinking that perhaps this time you won’t be needed like before.

And for the most part; he doesn’t.

(There are times, surely, when a speck of darkness flickers into the light that fills his aether, but you hardly need to look at it to tell it’s over something silly. A flame that will flicker out soon enough. You don’t lift a finger over that.)

In a way, his hands are a restless reprieve. You cannot sleep, truly, because if you do you don’t want to know how much your crystal’s facets will fade, but there is nothing for you here, either.

So. You watch.

…

(But. Don’t you want?)

(I already want enough. I can get by.)

(Doesn’t mean you should.)

…

The rogue plucks your crystal from Elwin’s bag, a shadow in the night, and you hardly realize the change until you’re set by a pack of crystals. You nearly think to panic—what disaster do you have to reconcile now, tired as you are—but then the rogue whispers like he already knows.

(Maybe he does. Every rogue you’ve seen through other eyes has always been a bit sharper than they make themselves to be.)

“Take a breather,” he hums, flipping his daggers in the air and watching them glint in the dim moonlight. You think you might know his name, uttered once or twice in passing, but you’ve hardly begun to rest from your time in Elwin’s bright hands and aether that it’s slipped you by once or twice already. “Ye’ve helped us out. ‘S high time we pay back, hm?”

I do not do this for payment, you sigh, but his aether is the easiest of them all, really, more comfortable than even Valdis’ despite the light chill of it. He doesn’t respond, merely whistling as he walks along the metal pathway—Garlean territory, and he’s so calmly strolling through it?

You don’t choose to rest, even though you could, and keep an eye on the man anyways.

(It’s worth the trouble, you think when you shroud him in shadows, narrowly avoiding the gaze of some wisened soldier who knows the tricks of the trade. Even if nothing’s gained in return.)

…

(They’re...gone. They’re gone, gone, what do I do now—)

(Breathe. You’ll find them again. You always do.)

(But what if I can’t this time? What if I find them only to lose them?)

(You won’t.)

(How can you be sure?)

(Because you want to find them. I’m still here, aren’t I?)

…

There isn’t so much of a rest between leaving Tehra’ir’s palms and falling into the monk’s own, really; not when the rogue collapses alongside Valdis and the man with the eyepatch after some reverberating call that shook even you, incorporeal as you are. If you’d a physical form, the pain behind your eyes would be overwhelming; the sensation of being ripped from one’s body must be horrible, but even more so being torn from the very aether that keeps you.

Either way, the Elder Seedseer drops your crystal into their hands when she comes from the infirmary with a grim look on her face.There is something so familiar about this new bearer, aether so tempestuous and yet… calm. Leaving you contented and wanting all at once.

You don’t know what use you might be to them, either, but if you belonged in the hands of your past seven bearers then you are at home in theirs, lightning crackling from their skin to your crystal’s surface with great ease, for two non-metallic things.

(There is nothing I can do, the Seedseer murmurs and the sharp ache that immediately takes over the dull pain in their head echoes to you and oh, you understand more than ever now what you must help resolve, head spinning as the abyss flares and rages around you.)

You are there for everything after; when they flee to the Steppe, when they hole up in the empty house, when they take Ochir and fly across the mountains until Lunya calls them back home. Your crystal is usually hidden away in their pocket, safe in the leather pouch and buttoned into the cloth of their pants, and never once do you feel ignored, sitting in mutual silence. There’s nothing to be said, really, because their loss is just as much yours.

Both of you grin when you finally, finally make it past the gates into the First despite the horrid circumstances you have been brought to resolve, because it brings you both one step closer to finding them again.

(At first, you think they’ll be just fine without you, that you might be prudent to fall back dormant once more in face of the terribly draining light. At first, it seems like the others might just be a day’s journey away. The Exarch may be hiding things, but if the Scions are scattered then so too are the wayward Warriors; nothing so difficult as pulling souls back across the rift, yet.

Hah. When has anything ever been so simple?)

The journey is the hardest it’s been out of your eight travels, really; whether it be from the Light or from the constant confusion and grief that they struggle to pull from you do not know, and you keep your eyes open when they cannot—especially after Malikah’s Well.

(You are not the one fighting—never have been, even on that odd occasion that you’ve been able to force your way out of the abyss—but in Eulmore you see the flying eater’s wings seconds before they come crashing down on your bearer’s back with talons and when you reach out, for whatever banal reason, it is not darkness that springs forth.

At first, you think it a trick of the Light, because the last time you saw this shield it was back when you were still convinced you were ephemeral, but the next time you reach forth your ward’s wounds are healed in a burst of crystalline lilies.

You are not so stupid as to think this is your own strength, but they have not been with you for so long that you can’t tell what else it could be, what could be more than the others you have traveled with. 

Oh, how blind you were.)

Here, down in Amaurot, it’s harder than ever on them but the easiest it’s been for you, and when they start slipping you have to drag them back to their heels again, lest the Light breaks free and both of you end up dead. You don’t have anything else to give—you do not have Lumelle or Syhrwyda’s inhuman strength or the healer’s prowess of A’dewah or Duscha, too incorporeal to give support like Tehra’ir or Elwin and too loud to stay as quiet as Valdis—but you are there and that has to be enough.

(If Zaya themselves is not whole enough to be worthy in that Ascian’s eyes, then you will find the missing parts that make them whole and bring them home, because in your eyes there is nothing more than them and the little family you’ve somehow managed to pass through like a hand-me-down, and if you and the friends that remain are not enough to guide them through Hades’ abyss then one of them will be.

And the funny thing is; you do, because the missing parts of their soul were the storm in you.)

The final days of Amaurot are harrowing; you are there when Zaya nearly falls to a bird demon, of all things, and you are there when the tempest of aether above a simulacrum of Emet-Selch’s world nearly shatters you into a million stars. It is less you taking the reins and more you standing by their side, the shadow in the light of falling stars that pushes forward when they cannot.

You think Ryne and Y’shtola can see you, can see the glow of seven crystals at Zaya’s side, but it matters not when Emet-Selch still refuses to take reprieve of the abyss and see the merits of something different from what he knows; all that does is that you are by their side, a shade in a city of simulacrums.

(How funny is it, that in his grief Hades dipped into the abyss just as Zaya did in theirs?)

You don’t remember much of what happens afterwards. There is a blur of light, a man’s voice—seven voices you recognize as the abyss flares and takes you back, because there is no space left here for darkness, not now. You expect to die, somehow, because you’d been fighting for so long in a place that threatened to swallow you whole and keep you there even if you followed Zaya resolutely, Hades taking you in his grasp and shattering you just to prove that they are nothing.

There’s a moment of clarity—when dark overtakes light once more—and you take the chance to stretch yourself out, to cover as many people as you can tell are here because Hades’ claws glow with something terrible and you will not lose anyone now, not when you’ve found yourself in them. Even Urianger, even Alphinaud, even Thancred, who is yalms and yalms away from Zaya—all of them have become too precious to lose, too beloved to let be harmed, and if Hades’ form is large then you will become the event horizon that swallows him.

(If you disappear here, it will be worth it—you have served your purpose as a shield, gouged on aether and memories as you are, and if you can give them even a moment more the price of your existence, as much of a simulacrum as you were, it would have been worth the trouble. 

If Hades wins you don’t know what you’ll do.)

But he loses. He loses, and you go home as small of a flame as you were when your journeys began.

And when all is said and done, your crystal ends up on a necklace of thin chain and leather, held close to Zaya’s breast. Dark lightning crackles over the shining facets, finally polished to its prime like it was all those years ago when your last owner died; even then, you don’t know if you can ever come back again, really, exhausted and drained and frayed as you are.

It matters little, those ifs and maybes.

(“No matter where you go,” the gunbreaker says, and you can feel Zaya’s soul warm, cracked as it is—or maybe that’s yours, feeling a bit like your own promises are being voiced through his. Ardbert, the bloke, smiles from behind you, and the little part of you that knows exactly how you and he are similar grins wildly. “I will be there, guarding your back.”)

When they need you next to pull them from the blackest of nights, you’ll be there to see the beautiful dawn they bring in return. There is nowhere else for you to go.

…

(I’ll have to leave soon. Heroes don’t stay, you know.)

(Well, you do.)

…

From the depths of the crystal, a quiet light shimmers brightly, and you are reminded of home...

Action learned: The Brightest Dawn.

[fistsoflightning]

[ARR]  «DARE» -> [SHB]  «audeō»

[fistsoflightning]

9: confidence boost

prompt: lush || masterpost || other fills || ao3 mirror

word count: 2256

It’s all fun and games until they all get invited to an Ishgardian ball. (Or; Lumelle has never liked anything to do with the high society of her hometown. A’dewah tries to help his friend out.)

Contains canon-divergence bits and bobs, notably pertaining to the Vault, because why not?

“Mel,” Auphine calls from the doorway, fiddling with her boots, maybe—A’dewah can’t quite see her fully from where he stands in front of Lumelle’s (extremely dusty, clearly unused) vanity, more focused on clearing up the mirror than anything. “What are you going to do about your face?”

“Do not repeat this back to Mama, but I,” Lumelle huffs, and if she weren’t standing incredibly still so that Valdis and Lunya can finish taking adjustment measurements for her dress A’dewah thinks her arms would be crossed firmly across her chest. “have no swiving clue what you mean by ‘what am I going to do about my face’, Auphie.”

Duscha raises an amused eyebrow over the brim of his book while Elwin giggles into his palm. No one really expected her to know—at least, among that of the Scions and her usual friends—but Auphine makes an exaggerated sighing motion with her shoulders as she stands straight.

“You know Mama’s going to want you ‘dolled up’, or what have you,” she explains. “And the other nobles—”

“If they give a damn, they can talk to the business end of Fragarach,” Lumelle grumbles as Valdis softly pushes her arms back down. Auphine sighs louder, and A’dewah didn’t think the little conjurer had that large of lungs on her; clearly he’s mistaken, by how her exhale carries.

“Do not tell me I did not warn you!” Auphine waves to Elwin as she leaves the room, the heels of her boots clicking against the wooden floor of the manor. Lumelle groans loud enough to wake Tehra’ir up from his slump against Zaya’s shoulder momentarily, eventually resting his forehead carefully back onto their shoulder, making sure not to press his eyes into the white of their dress shirt.

For his own merit, he does his best to ignore it while he carefully swipes the tube of lipstick across his lips, pausing when Syhrwyda leans over to pick up her hairpin from the vanity. She catches his gloss, too, when it falls on its side and starts to roll away; he could probably hug her for that. Damned glass vials and all.

“Mel,” Elwin says, his swinging feet tapping against the settee. “I think Auphie might be right.”

“...I know, but I—it’s not like I know how to use any of—of that stuff Mama dumped onto me when I came back. Most of it’s probably dried up, by now.”

A’dewah, for the curious bit of him that is right next to all the old cosmetics, opens up a pot of what likely used to be a scented lotion that smelled strongly of sandalwood.

What he finds is nearly rock hard. Well then.

“Dress’s done,” Valdis says quietly, Lunya snipping the last bit of thread hanging from Lumelle’s sleeve. The high house dress… looks incredibly uncomfortable for her, he thinks, compared to the normal surcoats and cuirasses she’d normally prefer.

“You all should get going,” Lumelle says, looking up at the chronometer. Nearly the seventh bell. “I… guess I’ll be here for a while yet.” 

“Here,” he says, scooting over on the bench to leave enough space for Lumelle to sit. He waves the closed tube of lipstick in the air when Zaya tilts their head in confusion. “I can stay behind and help her.”

Lumelle, for her merit, gives him a wary glance that might as well be screeching this better not end with me in a face of powders, but she trudges her way over anyhow as everybody else leaves Lumelle’s room. Zaya gives him a small wink before they turn the corner, pointing to the two corsages sitting at the end of Lumelle’s old bed.

“Why do you know so much about cosmetics, anyhow?” She sits with all the grace of a lion stumbling through a minefield, really, shaking the bench as she falls back onto it.

“I have three sisters,” he murmurs as he fumbles with the containers and pots he’s laid out before him, opening to check the colors and closing when he looks back over to Lumelle’s skin. He should have asked someone else—surely Lumelle’s mother, but Lumelle herself would not appreciate her mother fussing about. Perhaps someone from House Fortemps would have known of some cosmetics common to Ishgard, and a merchant. Aymeric, maybe; he looks like he would know his way around a few brushes. If he’d the willpower, Hanami would have worked, too, having lived in Ishgard long enough to count as one of them... even if he’d probably get his head taken off in the process. “My youngest brother likes to, er, contour, too. Hard to avoid cosmetic talks when most of your siblings, who’ve been very much restrained in their pastimes since forever, enjoy it? And…”

He taps the top of his cosmetics box; small enough to fit into the bottom of his satchel, beneath all the books and draughts he lugs around when he’s traveling by foot, all the pots and brushes neatly tucked away. He’d needed to buy newer paints and cremes when he’d gotten back from the First—a pain, seeing as he’d been without for long enough, but if the urge struck and he didn’t have his box refilled he’d probably see his anxiety spike—but none of them would match Lumelle’s darker skin either way.

“I, uhm, might have a bit of fun with this, from time to time?” The urge to wring his hands together is incredibly strong, but he fiddles with the latch on his cosmetics box. He hadn’t even really shown Haruki, now that he thinks about it—more a private pleasure than anything, now out to his friends. 

Character development, he thinks wryly. You will be fine.

Maybe he should have waited to put on the lip paint, he thinks as he helps wrangle the rest of Lumelle’s hair into a nice crown braid. All straightened out, strange compared to the very wavy-haired Lumelle he’d passed by not a few mornings ago, and the coarse texture of her hair rubs oddly against the pads of his fingers.

Now…

“Could you turn to face me?” He carefully opens his cosmetics box to pull out a few small brushes—making sure to set them apart from the brush he’d already used, a new pot of cool red paint, and a small jar of dark powder. “Promise I won’t, er, go overboard.”

“I trust you,” she says, even though it doesn’t look like she believes it, and she closes her eyes.

The quiet click and clatter of closing and opening containers fills the comfortable quiet as A’dewah brushes powders and paints onto Lumelle’s face. He has to remind her with a quiet tap on her knuckles not to scrunch her face, sometimes, but he can’t quite blame her when he’s trying not to sneeze the whole time from the dust that flutters about in motes, the sunset fading through the window making them gleam.

“You’ll keep these after I’m done,” he says while he finishes up the edges of Lumelle’s lip paint, the bright red perhaps a tad too bright for how much he’s put on; maybe he can wipe a bit of it off? “Sanitary things, is all. I—I don’t expect you to keep using them!”

Lumelle doesn’t say anything, not even a quiet protest, instead turning her head to look at herself in the mirror.

“This is weird,” she finally decides, after a few moments of staring intensely at the mirror. “Not used to my lips being… red.”

“Is it bad?”

He pulls out another tube of gloss—thank the Matron he’d decided to get a spare tube from that merchant in Ul’dah—and Lumelle sighs. “Not as bad as I thought it might, no. It’s just…”

Her brow furrows again.

“Here,” he mumbles, a bit awkwardly. “Put that on, and I’ll grab your earring.”

It takes a bit of fishing around in the drawers, unorganized as they are; he sneezes, once, when he opens it too fast and the dust goes flying into the air, but eventually he finds the slightly tarnished House Fortemps earring among the wreck that is Lumelle’s vanity. It gleams, still, in the fading sunlight, the red unicorn standing out among the dark grey metal around it.

“Done,” Lumelle says. He turns, and it’s… not as neat as he’d hoped, but it’s miles better than anything Vahno could have done, at any rate, so he presses the earring into her upturned palm among the light scars and smiles.

“There we go,” he murmurs, gently swiping his thumb to clean off some of the out-of-place gloss. “Grab the corsages for me, and I think we’re done.”

Lumelle nearly tumbles off the seat when she leans back to grab the two corsages, barely catching herself as A’dewah cleans up what he can—part of him nearly sets to cleaning the rest of Lumelle’s vanity, messy as it is, but he manages to hold back. For now.

He pins the (rather extravagant) brightlily corsage into his own hair, the light blue kind of blending into his hair, and hands Lumelle the white one to place in her own. Once she’s got it all pinned down—well, he has to brush a few leaves away from her face; Valdis must have taken the other smaller one he’d made—he stands, and waits for Lumelle to follow suit before he carefully grabs her wrist, ignoring the chill of the thin rose gold bracelets Auphine had shoved onto her sister’s wrist.

“Now,” he says, lightly pulling Lumelle closer to the mirror and stepping next to her. “Try striking a pose, or—or, uh, doing something that feels just a tad exaggerated.” He nearly leaves off there, looking a bit at himself and the light smudge in his lipstick before realizing what might happen. “WITHOUT getting your sword or shield. Please.”

“Killjoy,” Lumelle grumbles, but she takes one look at the two of them in the mirror, and her brow furrows deep enough that A’dewah feels a slight panic rising that the creme and powder on her forehead might crack. “Why with the poses, though. What’s the point?”

He has to think about, well, why he does the silly poses in the mirror before he can answer. “C-confidence? I—mm, actually,” he mumbles, spinning in a small circle and watching the skirt of his dress shimmer, fabric glimmering. Maybe he was right to let Zaya help Lunya design… this. “It’s… nice?”

“Nice?”

“Yes,” he says, a bit braver now. “Something that has nothing to do with being ‘heroic’ or ‘strong’, maybe. Just… plain and silly. Normal-ish.”

Lumelle hums just before she moves quick, pumping her fist into the air with her stance widened enough that A’dewah can see she’s still wearing her normal boots just beneath the hem of her skirt. She’s plastered a goofy sort of grin onto her face, brightened by the bright red lip paint and the light bouncing off the mirror onto her.

“There you go!” He sways about again, planting one hand on his hip and swinging his other arm out with the swish of his dress, nervously grinning as Lumelle’s eyebrows raise under her bangs. There’s a few moments of quiet, almost like time is frozen while they stand in their silly poses; a bit awkwardly, seeing how his tail has swung out from behind him and Lumelle had managed to throw her braid over her shoulder. 

It hardly takes a moment for them to both be laughing, A’dewah nearly doubled over because oh gods did he just do that and Lumelle’s hyena-like laughter isn’t helping, either. Something so preciously silly about that exact moment sticks in the aether, singing of first snows and brilliant sunlight as A’dewah tries his best not to wipe at his eyes. He lets his hands adjust the hems of his sleeves instead while Lumelle falls back into her blustery nervousness, cautiously wiping tears from her eyes before it grows quiet again.

“I am… not sure I feel any better about this.” Lumelle’s hands bunch in her skirt, eyes looking downward. “Part of the reason I left, instead of taking another trial by combat, I suppose. Never liked it all.”

That’s… about what he suspected. 

“That’s alright,” he soothes, smoothing out his own dress. He’s likely going to regret the heels in a few bells, but oh well. At least he won’t have to crane his head as much if someone does decide to talk to him. “Everyone will probably be, uh, a bit tipsy anyhow. They won’t notice you too much, either.” He looks to Lumelle through the mirror, watching as she tilts her head back up, the corners of his mouth tugging at a nervous smile. He’s… not sure if he’s assuring her more than himself, really. “If you get nervous, you can come find me, probably hiding behind a—a planter, or something. The lilies the Ishgardians like to use are, uh, big enough to hide the two of us. Failing that—”

“We find Haurchefant and let his enthusiasm distract everyone so we can escape. Got it,” Lumelle says assuredly, nodding to herself in the mirror and finally standing straight.

A’dewah bites the inside of his lip to keep from bursting into laughter. “Right.”

With one last little motion—one he’s seen her do to pump herself up before a mission—-Lumelle strides out to the doorway with a certain bounce in her step that she didn’t have earlier, stomping as she did to Lunya and Valdis’ measuring tapes, the corset on her dress keeping her from moving around as she wished. A’dewah smiles. 

They would be alright.

[fistsoflightning]

<audeo> steals clothing from their friends hours!

fun fact: the outfit i (unfortunately) stuck tehra’ir in appears in the level 80 NIN questline.... and its incredibly bad....

for reference: 

valdis (viera) has y’shtola’s gear, elwin (lalafell) has @windupnamazu/lunya’s gear (bubblegum globe....), lumelle (elezen kid) has alisaie’s gear, zaya has thancred’s armor, tehra’ir (facepalming miqo) has the unfortunate draw of one of jacke’s favorite outfits, and a’dewah (lavender haired miqo) has @to-the-voiceless/haruki’s gear!

[fistsoflightning]

                            elie’s ffxivwrite2020 masterpost!!

my ao3 fill collection || my ffxivwrite2020 fills || all ffxivwrite2020 posts

total word count: 44753 words (oh gods) longest fill: hero’s journey (4813 words) shortest fill: put your feet up (281 words)

personal favorites: call of the sea (1466 words) | for you the flowers bloom (2224 words) | words will not suffice (2111 words) | hero’s journey (4813 words) | you found me there (1188 words) | unburn the ashes (801 words) | solar eclipse (1165 words) | i wanna know what you’re doing tonight (2796 words)

aaaaaa! we’re through boys and girls and everyone in between! i managed to finish yet another year of ffxivwrite (which also coincides with the actual start of this blog since i started posting at the start of september; just forgot to mention it earlier :P) a GIGANTIC thank you to @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast for running this event (even if you really got us with one of those prompts), to mom squad for reading my fics and screaming with me about many of them since we started chatting in like, february, and getting me through this ffxivwrite, and to EVERYBODY who read my fics, as good or bad as they were! this event gave me back my want to write and show everyone for the first time since i lost the will in elementary and i cannot thank everyone enough!

1. CRUX - the devoted and the dead - shb spoilers taban meets g’raha tia when all is said and done.

2. SWAY - call of the sea - post 5.3, no direct spoilers jacke/tehra’ir; jacke deals with v’kebbe’s noise complaints about (unfortunately and fortunately) tehra’ir.

3. MUSTER - til the dawn - post 5.3, spoilers thancred/zaya; thancred and zaya deserve a rest.

4. CLINCH - touch of death - shb spoilers heroic entrances, unfortunately, don’t guarantee winning situations. thancred and zaya are just unlucky when it comes to ran’jit.

5. MATTER OF FACT - sentimental fallacy  - shb spoilers cw: animal death + blood emet-selch takes a walk in the woods, and zaya goes hunting.

6. FREE DAY | VERNALIZATION - for you the flowers bloom  - post 5.3, spoilers haruki/a’dewah; there’s a lot to be said about summer, spring, and flowers, if you look at it closely enough.

7. NONAGENARIAN - put your feet up - post 5.3, spoilers thancred/zaya; thancred, predictably, takes a hit for zaya, and afterwards refuses to acknowledge it. krile and zaya are going to get revenge one day.

8. CLAMOR - live a little  - vaguely sorrow of werlyt spoilers? today on ironworks news: one renegade warrior of light elwin de lipine ropes seven and viggo into a joyride with ironworks’ new mech

9. LUSH - confidence boost a’dewah, lumelle and getting ready for a party(?) while also having anxiety.

10. AVAIL - words will not suffice  - spoilers for 4.4 MSQ, steppe portion magnai, oktai, and sadu versus hien, seiryu’s wall edition.

11. ULTRACREPIDARIAN - illiteracy for two - post leviathan, ARR zaya isn’t really too good at writing. thancred and alphinaud have both seen them.

12. TOOTH AND NAIL - something’s electric in your blood cw: blood, injury raubahn finds out that zaya is a lot more than qestiri the first time they duel.

13. FREE DAY | PROMISES - our change of heart - post 5.3, spoilers thancred/zaya; thancred isn’t used to having trinkets (and promises) to keep.

14. PART - hero’s journey - spans pre-HW to SHB, spoilers; DRK hcs you aren’t really a hero, but this is still your journey, too.

15. ACHE - a life in your shape cw: blood, injury (only in the fourth part) haruki/a’dewah; a’dewah has had far too many crushes for a single man.

16. LUCUBRATION - imprimatur - pre-1.0 y’shtola learns that the new students are A) workaholics, but only sometimes, and B) also very into forbidden magics.

17. FADE - you found me there - post 5.3, spoilers thancred/zaya (liddol bit of atalanta/haik at the end); thancred’s always been a light sleeper and zaya’s never been good at sneaking around.

18. PANGLOSSIAN - unburn the ashes - 5.0 and 5.3 spoilers, amaurot thancred/zaya, but amaurotine-flavored (atalanta/haik); not even the most frightening of storms lasts forever.

19. WHERE THE HEART IS - always been my north star - post 5.3 jacke/tehra’ir, sequel to call of the sea; two rogues struggle to get their dinner on time.

20. FREE DAY | PERIHELION - solar eclipse - post ‘naadam’ magnai/oktai; so maybe magnai realizes why he hasn’t found his nhaama yet, and maybe he flies over to reunion at the crack of dawn to ask.

21. FOIBLES - anything that glimmers - post 5.3 thancred/zaya, sequel to our change of heart; thancred might be picking up magpie tendencies from his partner, but somehow that’s not all that bad.

22. ARGY-BARGY - before it’s too late - SHB, pre-return to amh araeng pre-relationship thancred/zaya but mostly gen; ardbert notices a few things while he’s hovering over zaya’s shoulder.

23. SHUFFLE - i wanna know what you’re doing tonight - modern AU pre-relationship thancred/zaya; thancred lets zaya borrow his phone while they visit the city for work and forgets (?) to move a particular playlist to his lifestream.

24. BEAM - oh, your love is sunlight - post 5.3 (???) thancred/zaya AND haruki/a’dewah; a double date to raiding an abandoned, plant-infested building is a lot more interesting than it should be.

25. WISH - remember me - post 5.3, contains spoilers thancred/zaya; how does one get over missing your adoptive daughter that’s stuck on another world?

26. WHEN PIGS FLY - defying fate a girl leaves home in a fit of rage, meaning for it to be forever. a warrior returns ten years later.

27. FREE DAY | ACCEPT - blurred reflection - mid-SB, before naadam a’dewah’s not sure how to feel about hien, but he has to decide sometime.

28. IRENIC - there’s nowhere love can’t reach - post 5.3, everyone lives ysayle/syhrwyda; it’s hard, sometimes, to be at peace with the life she’s been forced to have. and then, sometimes it isn’t.

29. PATERNAL - how i met your (other) dad - it’s just crackfic. sort of. haruki/a’dewah; this is the story of how your two dads met, munehise.

30. SPLINTER - the better path - 5.3 spoilers emet-selch’s only student is possibly the worst student in the history of amaurot, but the problem is he wouldn’t trade them for the world. (and in the end, he does.)