#ffxiv riol

[disciple-of-frost]

Back on my FF Headcanon Train, let's gooooooo!

Anyway yeah, Gav and Gippal are Riol's counterparts on the 7th and 10th. Good day.

[stephenfairbrook]

#XIVRarepairWeek Day 1: Meet Cute

Hey, it’s XIV Rarepair Week on the bird app and we’ll see how far I get. There will probably be different pairs through the week.

This was mainly an excuse to finally draw #maxiriol! I ship one of my WoLs with Maxima but I've seen a bit of art, mostly from Japanese artists, with him and Riol and went "...well, now…”

...so, I had to be basic and go with "Oh no, we bumped into each other and scattered these papers and our hands touched reaching for the same thing!”

[yzeltia]

Febhyurary 2024 Day 11: Dungeon [Violet]

[riceballgremlin]

[risartblog]

A whole bunch of NPC sketches !

[dawntrailing]

(1/2) SCIONS OF THE SEVENTH DAWN - FORMAL WEAR

[deathflare]

pt 2 of twitter requests

[1driedpersimmon]

👀🤔 what could be happening...?

[devxoid]

arr-hw fav characters compilation!

[joyejoyu]

riol

[riolforrest]

But you won't be woke to that 'til I'm gone.

scouting class for the scout pls & ty

[hazelkjt]

Alternative OC love interest for Hazel...

Riol Forrest

This one stumped me for a bit, but to be quite honest I don't see Hazel ever really falling for Riol like that.

He's got a good heart and she would LOVE to hear stories from his time in the Company of Heroes, but he just doesn't fully strike me as someone who would be her type beyond his sense of adventure. While I'm sure they would end up as decent enough comrades and possibly friends, the two of them seem to lack much of anything in common for Hazel to find her attraction blooming. He seems intelligent enough but doesn't strike me as the book loving type, Hazel would have little patience for his sneaking and avoidance of combat, and she would absolutely NOT indulge his gambling habits...or be all that thrilled to be cheated out of a game.

So yeah, they'd probably just end up being sort-of friends but nothing further than that, at most.

[chysgoda]

September 27 Memory

Support

X’rhun did not have time to call her name when he turned the corner of the graveyard path and saw Art’imis already fading into the life stream with a teleportation spell. The mage frowned, she had been in her full, shining white, battle plate and he wondered where she had been and where she was going. When he reached the monument that memorialized his slaughtered brothers and sisters there was a spray of red gladiolus wrapped with a strand of cowry shells. Carefully he laid purple star lillies next to the red gladiolus. Quietly, he told the crimson duelists of the past the trials and triumphs of the order he was rebuilding

Art’imis had an armful of red gladiolus flowers wrapped with a strand of cowry shells as she descended the steps to the Gladiator’s Guild mausoleum. It wasn’t unusual for gladiators to have no family outside of the guild to mourn them. It was part of the guild fees to maintain it and it was rare to see anyone but guild members inside. The raen woman blinked to see Riol laying pink sea thrift at the base of the wall where her mentor’s name was listed in bronze letters. He smiled at her and gently took the gladiolus to lay with the sea thrift. Riol brushed a tear off her cheek and they went to find where their favorite street food cart was peddling lunch today.

The star lilies and sea thrift were very pretty together, Riol thought as X’rhun laid the purple flowers next to his own offering. In the deep red shadows of Little Ala Mhigo he appreciated the company even if it wasn’t X’rhun’s burden to bear. The miqo’te man laced their fingers together and squeezed gently. Riol swallowed thickly and returned the gesture before letting go so that he could crouch down and run his fingers over Wilred’s name carved into the gravestone. X‘rhun rested a hand on his shoulder and for a time they kept vigil.

(Star lilies are the stand in name for lilies of the nine)

[yzeltia]

Febhyurary 2024 Day 8: Crossover [Violet]

[blackchimaera]

Helping the little guy defend himself against the goobbue who want to eat him

[ecosystem-administrator]

WIP whenever!

Thanks @plounce for the tag!

tagging in turn @vitaecryptid, @tehjai, @starsandauras, @msviolacea, @gachabastard any of you who have some scraps of a thing to show off, consider yourself called on! and also you who's reading this wishing I'd tagged you instead, you're tagged now, too.

back at the end of FFXIV Write 2023, I was feeling much more ambitious about writing more Maxima/Riol and probably Maxima/Riol/Thancred, and as usual didn't manage to actually finish or publish anything. So here's a snippet and an unpublished vignette under the cut.

“Thanks for agreein’ to help with this,” Riol said as he spread the reports over the table. “I can handle the fieldwork fine enough, but I just ain’t as well-traveled as Thancred.”

“And while military transmissions are standardized, communications between political cells tend to have an extra layer of obfuscation,” Maxima nodded, leaning over the Hyur’s shoulder to peer at the documents. “They expect the government to be listening, so they make sure that what they’re saying is hard to understand unless you’re reading the same books and listening to the same broadcasts…” His gaze fell over a line in a specific document, and he quickly pulled it out of the pile. “This one.” It was a communication intercepted from a group whose name Maxima recognized as being noisily extremist about the need for Garlean territory to remain in control of pureblooded Garleans alone, and a brief scan of the contents chilled his spine. Had they grown so bold since he’d last been home?

Riol grimaced. “We’re not in touch with that group - they don’t want anythin’ to do with us, an’ it’s all kinds of mutual. We just try to keep tabs in case they’re ready to start makin’ stuff worse…but I can’t work out what their aim is in this last one.”

“They’re about to start a campaign of violence,” Maxima answered, letting the dread and horror soak into his tone. “This line here, about pruning roses… there’s a drinking song from that area that compares non-Garleans to a local breed of Morbol sometimes called ‘overgrown roses’…”

“So they’re lookin’ to start actin’ on what they’ll consider ‘pest extermination’.” Riol responded grimly, nodding his understanding. “We knew it was a matter of time, I’ll get the recall orders issued ASAP. The agents we’ve got in the area will try to warn any locals at risk, too.”

--

Maxima and Riol are lying in bed, tangled in each other. Or rather, given the difference in their sizes, Riol is somewhat engulfed in Maxima’s embrace, with an arm around his lover’s waist to communicate that the comfort is mutual. They are silent, just soaking in the moment, enjoying the warmth and comfort of skin against skin.

Maxima is thinking of how easy and comfortable this is, how he sometimes forgets to be afraid of what others will think when they’re together. And then the memories of his past come crashing back in along with all the acquired shame, and the proud defiance of that shame, and a profound sense of guilt for having escaped all of that into a place where it doesn’t matter that he’s only ever had an interest in men. And it’s maddeningly unfair that he should feel so guilty for allowing himself to be happy for once, but the emotions cycle in waves until Riol, feeling the tension in his body, leans up to kiss him and snap him out of it.

Riol is used to this. He’s thinking of how rarely he falls in love, and even when he has he’s never been inclined to do anything binding about it. Social formalities have never been high on his list of priorities, and he knows plenty of others from Limsa who feel the same way about it anyway. It’s enough to be here in the arms of this man, who is handsome and troubled and kind and so much more passionate than he lets most people see, and just enjoy the glow of love that makes him imagine their hearts are beating in time like some kind of sappy poem. He’s getting soft as he gets older, but he can’t find it in himself to mind.

All their discussions of their relationship have been on an entirely practical level; they haven’t spoken the depth of their emotions out loud. That would feel too much like a promise neither wants to make, an expectation neither wants to set. It’s enough to be here, for this moment, however long it lasts before they inevitably move on to whatever comes next.