#i wanna write with him as much as i do dadabo

[sailorsanghelios]

FFXIV ficlets but this time with my Au’ra WOL

In honor of it apparently being Au’ra April on Twitter, I dusted off this WIP of my Au’ra WOL, Seiro being shippy with Yugiri in the aftermath of the 2.5 Bloody Banquet. Really like how this one turned out, even though I haven’t written something this self indulgent and shippy in a VERY long time.

--------- “Seiro are you alright?”

Seiro had been distracted, looking out the window as the snow fell. While he appreciated the hospitality of his dear friend, Lord Haurchefant, he had never liked the cold, and even bundled up and drinking the hot drinks brought to him, it felt unbearably cold to him.

“I am not.” he said honestly. “But I will pretend I am, for Alphinaud and Tataru’s sake…. Thank you for rescuing Tataru by the way. It means the world to me.”

Perhaps the only bit of warmth he felt now, was as Yugiri crouched beside him.  He couldn’t help but stare at her, even though he knew it probably unnerved her. She almost felt like a completely different person to him, he hadn’t ever thought about what she might look like.

She smiled at him, “ I have to say I expected Alphinaud’s reaction of shock, I have to be the first woman of our kind he’s ever seen. But you?”

Seiro racked his brain and realized something, “...I’ll be honest I haven’t seen a woman of our kind, since I was separated from my mother as a child.” His heart felt heavy, thinking about such a thing in an already emotionally charged and exhausting night. “And I honestly don’t remember it very well. I mean perhaps occasionally I’d see one in the distance, but never up close.”

“Your Garlean master did not like you consorting with other Au’ra?”

Seiro’s eyes widened as he dropped the cup of hot liquid onto the floor. He locked eyes with Yugiri, his face growing hot with shame. He knew how hard she fought against the Garleans, how they made her, and their own people, the ones he had forsaken, suffer.  And perhaps after finally meeting someone who made him feel less lonely, he was afraid of her hating him the same way.

But Yugiri only had a gentle smile, “I see and I listen to everything. I’ve known since the beginning of course. I heard the Garleans even in Doma speak of you, the Warrior of Light, the former legionary fighting against the empire, defeating your former legatus. Are you so torn from Doma that you forgot there’s little that one can hide from a shinobi?”

“...you do not hate me?” he whispered.  

“ No...if anything I pitied you.”

Somehow that felt even worse to Seiro.

“ My pride in my people, in Doma, is one of the few things that kept me moving forward in my life. And to see a fellow Doman…”

“Yugiri…” Seiro gently put his hand against her shoulder, “...Yugiri I am not a Doman. Perhaps by birth I am but...I’ve long forgotten everything. I was made to forget it, I was made to feel ashamed of it...until I met you and the other refugees in Mor Dhona, I had felt no kinship with the Domans. And even now I feel selfish, even feeling it in the first place.”

Yugiri looked at him, her voice gentle, but firm, “Seiro… Doma will be free. And you will return there someday. We both will.  There is work to do here, of course. But someday the time will come when we can return home.”

He looked at her longingly,and she did so back, and he leaned forward. Perhaps he wouldn’t have done so in less dire circumstances, it was rather out of character for him to be so emotionally forthcoming, but his lips met against her forehead. The chill of Camp Dragonhead seemed to completely disappear as he was pressed against her warmth, clutching against her soft hair.

He suddenly pulled back though, ashamed of how forward he’d been, afraid of having frightened her, but instead she was smiling, and pulled against his armor to motion him to lean back down, and she kissed him against the scales on the side of his face.

As she pulled back, her voice was breathy, “and here I was thinking I was a fool for even having any stir in my heart toward the great Warrior of Light.”

He felt his own heart flutter, with the same sort of stir she was probably describing, before it sank down, “I am no longer great. I am a fugitive who has lost almost everything.”

“ Don’t let Lord Greysfone hear you say that, or he might give you a rousing speech the same way he did Master Leveilleur.”

Seiro gave a small stilted smile at that, before it instantly cracked, “...Alphinaud is young. He lacks the baggage I do.”

He absent mindedly stoked his hand against the side of his head, feeling the jagged edges of his horns. Only hours earlier when Ilberd had first bound him, he had yanked at Seiro’s horns, bringing him down to his height, and spat into them, “ I should have known better than to ever trust an imperial lapdog like you. I know your kind, they lure you in with scraps when you’re young and train you like one of their ugly dogs. And the only cure is to put them down.No matter how much you play the hero, you’ll run back to your masters in the end.”

Since the moment he had stepped into Lord Veritas’ manor, he’d felt like a monster among men. It was a feeling that’d only become worse as he went through puberty, suddenly towering over his benefactor, his horns and tail growing out, his eyes having that uncanny ability of glowing in the dark, He had always had it drilled in him, that no matter what he did, and how he succeeded, he was just a monster among the Garleans.

And now in Eorzea, it was that Garlean connection that made him feel like a monster. Even now he still used the name “Veritas”, an obvious Garlean name, because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember any other name he’d had. It was a connection he wished he could break, but Ilberd for all his treachery had been right about one thing, it would never truly be broken. No matter what the Mother Crystal told him, no matter how she said he was her chosen warrior, he had initially come to Eorzea as an invader. 

Fitting for a shinobi, he did not see Yugiri reach for him, and his eyes widened and he was jolted from his brooding, as he felt her hands gently stroke his horns. “ I know it doesn’t mean much. But it takes much more than this to convince me I was wrong about your greatness.”

The smile she gave, so warm and inviting, made his heart beat even faster, feeling like it was about to burst from his rib cage. And yet again it happened so fast, first it was their eyes locking onto each other, and then suddenly they had pulled closer to each other, with Yugiri sitting on his lap, wrapping her arms around his torso. Their lips had been a fraction of an ilm from connecting, when they’d heard another voice.

“Would you like to be shown to your room dear friend? Though perhaps you want more privacy than sharing a room with Master Alphinaud.”

In the time it took for Seiro’s heart to sink to his feet, Yugiri had entangled herself from him with the speed and grace only a shinobi could have. She bowed apologetically at the Elezen looming over them with a grin on his face “Lord Haurchefant, thank you for your hospitality, I believe I should return-“

“Nonsense. You have my full blessing to stay the night. I believe it might help the spirits of our Warrior of Light here.” Haurchefant winked at him, and Seiro looked away flustered. 

“No, I must begin looking for the missing Scions.” Yugiri insisted, “The longer we wait to begin our search, the more likely their trails are to run cold.”

“Ah that makes sense. The best of luck to you then.”

As Yugiri walked past Seiro, she gently rubbed her hand against the scales on his cheeks, “We will meet again, Seiro. I know the kami will, will it.”

He smiled, giving her a nod as she left.

“I knew there had to be some way to defrost you my friend. I always thought it never suited a hero to be frostier than Coerthas itself.” 

Seiro’s face fell flat as he looked into Haurchefant’s smirk. He had never known someone to smirk in such a friendly way.

“ Do not be ashamed, Seiro. You two make a handsome pair.”

“...its frivolous to think of such things when my comrades are missing or perhaps...worse.” As the words left his lips, Seiro suddenly felt ashamed. Even Thancred, would not be entertaining the idea of romance right now.

“ The dawn always arrives, no matter how dark it is before. Life must continue. I doubt your comrades would want you wallowing in misery. Or well, in more misery than usual.”

Seiro knew that changing Haurchefant’s romantic stances on the world was as futile as arguing with the brick walls surrounding them, “You said something about a room?”

“ Ah yes. We set up a room in one of the barracks. You will have to share with both Master Alphinaud and Lady Tataru, which I apologize for,  but with the possibility of Dravanian attack-”

“As long as it's warm, I’m fine.” With Yugiri now having left, he felt almost relieved his normal practicality had returned. “Take me to it. I’m tired.”