#he wants to be a knight! to protect moghome!

[motheatenscarf]

Beat Heavensward!

It's getting harder and harder to stop and post my thoughts as I come across them because... idk, I'm in a bit of a funk. And also because I find myself more and more just mentioning these thoughts to my friends who are also playing through the same story as I am and we all appear to be enjoying it differently and are having lengthier discussions there and I wind up not having the energy to post it here.

So, I'm gonna make a few posts in a row based on some screenshots I'm going through!

My most recent/immediate impressions are as follows;

I REALLY liked Ysayle and I was sorry to see her die but I saw that one coming a mile away. Also, god forbid they have any interesting women in this game. Sigh.

Lucia, all my hopes are on you, don't die, and Alisaie, maybe don't grow up anytime soon, I don't think they'll kill a little girl but all of the interesting women are doomed :T

But yeah, Ysayle did nothing wrong, she had nothing to atone for, her death makes sense from a character perspective, I understand why she FELT like she had to make up for her mistakes, but she did nothing wrong and I liked her a lot and am sad she's gone. I wish the narrative acknowledged her passing as sorrowfully as it acknowledged Haurchefant's, but I also get why it didn't do that.

At least Estinien commented on her passing favorably.

And uh, yeah, lol, the Estinien thing getting overtaken by Nidhogg's fury thing kinda came out of left field. I know it was something that had been telegraphed, but I was talking with my friends moments before I watched him turn into a dragon and saying, "Yeah, I really thought there would be more of a thing with him struggling to control his rage, but I guess they had other things they wanted to focus on." And uh... then he transformed out of no where once he had the second eye of Nidhogg.

And rather than taking it seriously, I just made.... .SO MANY jokes about Estinien and his balls because it was a deeply unearned dramatic moment.

But yeah, I was coming around on Estinien, we'll miss him, oh well lol.

Speaking of coming around on characters, I DID, grudgingly, come around on Aymeric and it makes me so angry lol.

I really wanted to hate him because he was a cop, but he's a good dude. It's a fantasy story, we can ride dragons and there can be ONE good cop who is actually tragically idealistic and morally upstanding. And we have to protect him or Isghard is gonna stay in the dark ages forever. I really wish we could have seen him confront his father in the final showdown, but that's an old issue I have is making the WoL face enemies alone.

I liked Y'shtola's mentor as well, but she was there for 5 seconds and my favorite thing about her was her enchanted broom that quoted Mr. Sparkle (there are A LOT of good classic simpsons references in this game, the Fates especially Jesus Christ), and also she uhhhhhh didn't matter apparently. I hated that whole time wasting detour and the fact that Y'shtola is here and she is as unflappable and emotive as a fucking rock despite essentially getting a terminal diagnosis for her time in the lifestream. Just not a single emotion behind those dead, dull eyes.

Which, to me at least, speaks to the VAST improvement in the quality of writing that Y'shtola, the best character from ARR's scions, is notably the weakest element here. Alphinaud's gone through some great character development, Tataru is utilized well as an endearing element, and the new characters from Isghard are all of them genuinely interesting and compelling, even the cop whom it took me forever to come around on, I like Aymeric, I liked Estinien and Ysayle and Haurchefant. I LOVED the Dark Knight class story. The Paladin class story sucked, but even just regional questlines like the hunters in Tailfeather and the Vath and the dragons and the soldiers in cloudtop or Falcon's Nest or even the moogles in Moghome were all interesting!

Which is I think why I get so frustrated by the pacing sometimes is because it has all these fantastic elements if it would just give them the attention they deserve and not bounce around like crazy or handwave things that deserve time and focus.

It's fun and it's pretty good but it could be AMAZING if it would just fully commit to itself.

[thebluebellcompany]

FFXIV Write Day 14 -  Attrition

In which a moogle asks for training in the only way he knows how.

Another short and sweet one, since work has been hell and capitalism never stops.

- - -

“Pleaseeeeeeee Mister Campanula?” 

No response. 

“Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee Mister Campanula?”

A twitch of the ear. 

For roughly the past 2 bells or so, Mogweiss had been on a war of attrition with Campanula, circling around him not unlike a vulture looking at its latest prey. Leaving Moghome was his first step in wanting to become a knight, and when Mogweiss had realized that the viera had once been an active member of the Temple Knights, the begging had begun. Little pom waving excitedly in the air, Campanula could do not much else other than sit at his table and drink his tea and hope to Halone that the moogle would let go of the idea. 

Unfortunately, that did not seem to be happening anytime soon.

Eris, who had been drinking tea alongside the ex-Temple Knight, had only watched the resulting chaos with barely contained glee. “Oh come on Campanula, surely you can amuse him for a little bit.” 

“You’re biased.” He bit back, taking another sip of his tea. “Mogweiss could ask you to murder someone for him and you’d say yes.” 

Twisting her grin even larger, Eris only replied, “It would probably be justified.”, stopping the moogle from his continual orbit and settling him comfortably in her lap. “Besides, what harm could it do? You know he wants to become a knight anyway.” 

Campanula just shook his head. “Whoever heard of a knight moogle? Do they even make suits of armor that small?” Looking over the rip of his teacup at the creature, Campanula could only sigh. If he knew one thing about the godsdamned moogle, it was that he was persistent. It was how the thing managed to tag along with Eris in the first place, after all (though that hadn’t taken much convincing. Eris had taken one look at the moogles of Moghome and had fallen in love instantly, bonding with Ysayle over their combined cuteness). 

“Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Mister Campanula? I’ll be the greatest and hardest working student ever, I’ll train-”

“Alright, enough.” Setting his teacup down with a click, Campanula could only let out another sigh. This was going to be an ordeal. Might as well get over it and have the moogle run away at the first sign of hardship. “One day. One day, you follow my instructions correctly and without complaint, and then maybe you can think about training. Got it?” 

Mogweiss jumped out from Eris’s clutches and did a little spin in the air, wiggling his butt as he did so. “Oh yes! Thank you Mister Campanula! I’ll go grab my helmet!” Before Campanula could say anything else, the moogle had bolted off who knows where, seemingly to grab his armor. 

“He got to you too, huh?” Eris chuckled, taking a sip from her teacup. 

“Shut up Eris. We’ll see how long he lasts.” 

[efrmellifer]

Falconry

Estinien watched Etien as she lay abed, still asleep.

She’d been doing that a lot more lately, which made sense. It led, however, to Aymeric leaving in the mornings and entrusting his sleeping beauty of a bride in the care of Estinien, and left him especially bored with no one to talk to and nothing to do.

She wasn’t fitful; she didn’t need anything. The most excitement he got was when she turned or tossed her head and mumbled something he couldn’t understand. Indeed, it was possible that the words she said weren’t even in a language Estinien spoke.

But he liked it, for it being an easy task he undertook to help people he loved.

He reached out and laid a hand on Etien’s cheek, unsure why he was doing it at first. At his touch, she sighed, turning to kiss the base of his thumb, and a realization hit him. When she kissed him, every time, it was like something settled. Like a bird coming home to roost.

A bird that he’d first spotted in the Churning Mists.

Like the falconers of an older Ishgard, he’d spotted it, flying free. But the metaphor did little to explain what it was that he meant by it. The party, if it could be called that, had split up once they’d left Moghome, to lighten the burden of setting up a campsite. Alphinaud had been sent for firewood, and then Etien to follow behind him to ensure his safety.

After all, they wanted him to learn how to keep for a night out in the wider, wilder world, but they didn’t need him paying for knowledge with his life.

So Etien was set on his trail with a slight delay, and as he tended to his own tasks, Estinien watched—they weren’t far off after all.

He had inferred based on the stories and what little he knew about the Miqo’te of the Black Shroud that Etien would have been a hunter before she was the allied city-states’ bow for hire, but it became much more clear when he watched her at her task without throngs of fellow fighters around her. Her steps were measured, sneaking after Alphinaud and avoiding his detection. She’d ducked into a dried-out bush once and even Estinien had lost tack of her, despite the glint of her hair and armor in the fading sunlight.

To say he was impressed with her adept completion of the task set before her, drawing all the notice of the wildlife of the Churning Mists and none of Alphinaud’s (nor his ire at the thought that he might not be able to defend himself) would be nearing an understatement.

She said nothing as she came back a little before Alphinaud, having brought some herbs with her as if to disguise her true task and purpose, then silently stood beside Ysale and helped her with the evening’s meal.

It was afterward, when they all sat in a circle around the fire in an attempt to keep warm, their Moogle escort already asleep and snoring, that it felt like a floating spark from the fire burrowed past all Estinien’s armor and into his heart.

He had known, from the proudly gushing reports Haurchefant gave and the way Aymeric doodled little drawings of The Warrior of Light on the edges of his notes, that Etien had managed to capture the hearts of his friends. He’d admired her fortitude and was intrigued by her strength, but he’d never taken any great interest in getting to know her… until now.

Alphinaud commented on the pleasure of sitting around the fire with them all, and Estinien couldn’t resist replying about Alphinaud’s very newly found aptitude for finding firewood, and to his surprise, Etien had laughed.

He didn’t think he’d ever heard her laugh, or even seen her smile. She had a bright energy to her, but he’d never seen such a merry expression, the glint of her eyeteeth just visible behind the spread of her fingers to cover her mouth.

Squinting in joy under the glow of the firelight, her eyes were like emeralds displayed in a fine cloth, her hair’s glimmer more like an ember’s light against the starry night above their heads.

All settled into place for Estinien then, fully understanding why his friends felt so strongly about her.

The falcon’s chirruping kik-kik-kik had begun.

_

With the cries of griffons in his ears, it was easier to drown out the falcon call and feelings he had so far managed to ignore.

But he couldn’t deny that he had come all the way to the Peaks of Gyr Abania.

He had been telling himself the whole journey that he knew why, but at the back of his mind he was all too aware that it was some paper plastered over the true reason, that if he could keep the lock on that hidden fact engaged, everything would be fine.

So he pressed his lie, to himself and to others—this was for others. He was acting as a secret but much-needed helper and protector of the woman who was going to save Ala Mhigo. Even as he addressed his lance, he addressed this point: he was needed because Etien was needed. Ala Mhigo needed her to stay standing, to finish the charge until victory was attained.

And, on a note closer to Estinien’s heart (but not quite yet within it)… Aymeric needed Etien to come home. Her visits early on, and letters since then, had done much to stem the longing, but nothing would truly satisfy him until Etien was in Ishgard again.

Estinien knew this, having seen it written clearly on Aymeric’s face, and in no small way, he shared the sentiment.

Having her home would be better. But she had to finish things here. And so he would trail after her the way she had trailed after Alphinaud in the Churning Mists, keeping everything he could off her tail.

Starting with this ceruleum cannon.

He dove, straight through the pipeline and out again. Bullets shot upward, most bouncing with pitiful pings off the girder on which he stood. One glanced off his armor. He couldn’t help but scoff, unable to be deterred. But now it was time to hop to it, whatever the next step was.

Above the shrieks of griffons, he heard the kik-kik-kik again.

_

Etien had gone back to the First, and Ishgard was a little sadder for it.

Estinien was busying himself with a new undertaking, venturing all the way to Garlemald to investigate Black Rose and put an end to its development. With help, of course, both from those loyal to the Empire and those who occupied a less easily definable position.

He wasn’t working alone, but sometimes he felt alone, thinking about being so far from home and the people he was closest to so disparate now. His heart ached, pulled so far from where he lay at night thinking, wanting to be making himself useful at Ghimlyt, or—he might as well admit it—yearning to see what went on worlds away, what Etien was seeing. She sent letters back every so often, but even her vivid descriptions couldn’t quite put his boots in the flower fields of Il Mheg or the watery confines  of the Tempest.

His more upset moment were often spurred by thoughts of missing those two, and thinking of a story Aymeric had told him, secondhand now, as Etien had told it to him after hearing from Urianger.

They had been sitting at the table drinking tea (well, Estinien hadn’t touched his, actually) as the tale unfolded, and there was one detail that stuck out and always tripped him in the remembering of it.

The vision had foretold of the defeat of the Alliance, put simply. The massed military forces brought low, and even the Scions put down.

Each of them had had their own strengths that made the machine of the Scions run, Etien had told him once, after too much to drink, but according to this premonition-turned-story, even their combined strengths couldn’t insulate them from the dangers that had drawn near—Black Rose, apparently.

And so he had thrown himself harder into this task, ever eager to learn more, to stay one step ahead of the opposition as best he could. Gaius made a good partner in this regard, with his knowledge and skill put to use in this way.

But all the applied knowledge in the world, all the hope that it would never come to be, couldn’t clear the image from Estinien’s mind of Etien laid still, at eternal rest, fallen before the Leveilleurs as if she had been trying to protect them at the very end.

The unbreakable Warrior, frozen in her final act of attempted heroism.

It made him shudder, as the kik-kik-kik sounded in his ears.

But that did serve to explain why he always got a little antsy when he was tasked with keeping watch over her.

So still, only the slight shifting of the covers any indication she remained with him. That the horrible vision hadn’t come to pass.

And so he laid a hand on her, to feel that her skin was still warm with life, that breath slipped past her lips and over the edge of his palm.

Though the way she shifted to kiss at his hand indicated so much more than just that she still lived—she still loved him.

And so the falcon circled around once more, and landed on Estinien’s hand, its call silenced. Its journey was over now. It could don its hood and rest.

Etien moved again, groaning as she woke, then stretching. Estinien removed his hand, to give her space to move.

When her eyes finally lit on him, she smiled. “Oh, hello, Estinien. Have you been here long?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I was looking at you, not a timepiece.”

She laughed, and his heart swelled the same way it had the first time.

“Was I doing something interesting?” she asked, sitting up and stretching more.

“No, but you are pretty. Like the princess in that faerie story.”

Despite her blushing, she deflected the compliment. “Well, thank the gods I have a handsome knight here when I wake.”

Estinien shook his head. “I suppose so. Good thing you did, I was beginning to get bored.”

Etien blinked. “Oh? Well, then we’ll have to find a way to keep you entertained for a while.” She licked her teeth clean briefly. “But first, a good morning kiss, if you please.”

He leaned in, practically leaning out of his chair, then rested a knee on the mattress so he could kiss her properly. She may have purred, but he could have chirped.