#in my heart this is why emet-selch can tank in that dungeon | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

buoyfriend · 3 years ago

Text

30 - Two-Toned Echoes Tumbling Through Time

Ardbert/OC POV

When she needed a push, I was behind her. She faltered as we watched Emet-Selch's memory of the Final Days, impossibly tall buildings crumbling around us.

"The land buckled, the cities burned, the water ran red with blood."

She paused to consider his words as a foul beast raced to meet her. I shoved her away before I held the monster's fury with my axe. We ran, as fast as our feet would take us. We ran as we did in dreams before, now in the Ascian's nightmare.

Ardbert

If she needed a push, I would be right there behind her. If she lost control, I would try my best to stop her. We continued our walk towards the Ondo Cups as she reflected on her lack of skills, "I've always been afraid to tank."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Oh, so much responsibility." she lamented.

"You were a white mage for years, deciding who lives and dies is responsibility enough."

"I know, but I can't really read maps. I'd hate it if everyone relied on me to know my way around a dungeon."

"Truthfully? I never did. I just guessed and was frequently lucky."

She laughed at me then, stopping to look on at my axe. "I've been meaning to ask..." she stiffened, preparing for her question, "What's going on with the blood? Is that paint? How does it stay on? Why is it there?"

I had waited so long for anyone to ask. I launched into my tale, talking with my hands as I described the terrible deeds of a Dark Lord, brought low by my very axe. It had been sealed away for ages after each wielder had been driven mad by the cursed blood that remained upon it. Her eyes widened before her face split apart into a grin, raucous laughter leaving her lips. "That explains much" she cried.

"Ha ha. Would you like to go mad as well? You've truly never wielded an axe?"

"Not ever."

I held it before her as she grasped the handle, considering the blood along the blade. I showed her my forms, something easy enough for a beginner. I carefully strapped it to her back, insisting that she try the very first step, swiftly retrieving it for battle.

My hands gripped her shoulders as she adjusted to the weight. Confidently, she said "Yes, I've got this. Okay." As soon as my hands left her shoulders, she fell backwards. I could not control myself, I howled with laughter at her expense. I thought as much would happen, I did not correct her posture when she leaned her shoulders back, proud to carry my axe.

She could not help herself either, her scowl was weak, yielding to a grin as I helped her onto her feet. We tried again and before long she showed me her attempts at my forms. She would make a fine warrior, I thought.

The Tempests were breathtaking. An entire city, conjured up from memory. I thought of the places I'd seen, wishing I could recreate the vast lands of my star. That I could even recreate the places from my dreams, all the strange cities I had found Lua in.

I felt the book hiding in my armor, Lua's book. It burned as I held the secret from her. I could have asked her to read them aloud to me, but she had done enough during my time of incorporeality. Instead, I secreted it out of her belongings the night before and hungrily read about an adventuring sheep herder. She slept yalms away from me as I thought of him, seeking his life's purpose as the beautiful maiden trusted the winds to return him back to her.

A piercing headache siezed me, my vision lost to blinding light before it was placed with something else. Another place, another time. A moment from a dream I'd had weeks before, though this time I was not a character, merely the audience. This time, Lua watched beside me. We watched a boy, not even 18 summers, holding a girl of the same age. She sang to him, her voice breaking as the life began to leave her.

"Valhalla is calling me to the end, I can hear now the beating hearts of lost friends"

I came towards them, but my gestures caught no eye. I could hear him whispering as he leaned into her limp body. "I promise you, I will end this. I would give anything. I will end this. I will see you alive again, I will give you all that I said. We will be alive again together, and I will end this." Another voice spoke, our fickle Hydaelyn. "She heard your promise, the gods heard it too."

Our presence returned to us as the headache subsided and our shared vision disappeared. "A promise?" Lua asked to herself.

We pressed on further, to confront Emet-Selch.

When she needed a push, I was behind her. She faltered as we watched Emet-Selch's memory of the Final Days, impossibly tall buildings crumbling around us.

"The land buckled, the cities burned, the water ran red with blood."

She fell once more as it came time to face him. We collapsed together, stricken by the Echo. I saw Lua again, bathed in the light of the Mothercrystal.

"Well come and well met, my brave little spark. How long you've wandered." Not Hydaelyn. Another.

"Adrift in a stranger's galaxy. For how long? Why?" Lua asked.

"My most pitiful. My suffering dears. The gods heard your promise, to end this cycle of birth and rebirth. Unto you I have bequeathed a chance to make good on those words. I plucked you from ruin, from the end. I brought you into a loop of time, reborn to try."

I thought of the many lives I had lived in dreams, alive alongside Lua until suddenly, terribly, I was not.

"I gave you all I could offer. I let you reenter the stream of life at the beginning, on Etheirys. Alive together as one soul in a perfect world. I thought that you could overcome the challenge destined for this star, by the sheer strength of your conviction."

"My conviction?" I asked.

"On that star, the thirteenth. I brought you back from that place, back to the beginning for a chance to make things right, to save your kind. Yet, you failed. The world was sundered, and you were cursed to live in shattered reflections. Many times over you failed, countless times your chances squandered. On each star, you lived as neither truly you nor the other, an imperfect combination of both your souls, struggling to be made whole again."

"Yet another chance, I bore your souls unto other stars, more distant stars. I had hoped that if I freed you of the yoke of Etheirys, you might have a chance. Perhaps you would learn there and I could bring you to this place when you were ready. I tried. I truly did believe in your promise, in the strength of mankind. "

I watched Lua, eyes twinkling in the crystal's glow. "I won't fail this time. I won't let her fall this day, we will save the First. We will save all of the remaining shards, we will stop the Final Days."

"Truly? What would you give to make that so?"

"I would give anything."

I watched her on the floor of this horrible dream Emet-Selch had conjured for our battle. I lifted her up by her hands, I asked her, "If you could take another step, would you? Could you save our worlds?" Her words wouldn't come, I watched her mouth try to form them but fail to make sound.

"We fight as one" I told her, holding her face in my hands. I felt the weight of my words, my promise, as I began to lose myself. I lost the sensation of her skin against mine, the feeling of the ground beneath me. I lost it all to blinding light, becoming one with hers. I had vowed that I would never leave her, I had promised her my axe. I had promised so many things, that this time on this star, I would not fail.

Lua

When my mother died many years ago, I felt her death weeks before the final day. She had been clever, her humor sharp. She was shrewd with people, always knowing their ways as soon as she saw them. She was shrewd in situations, always knowing what to do. I hardly felt that myself. In the days before her death, so much was asked of me. Before her body was even cold, I was asked to plan all the tasks of the days after. People to contact, arrangements to be made.

I thought I would crumble under the weight of it. She had always known what to do, but now she was lost to a deep sleep in a bed across the country. Every day, I felt her. I felt her life leaving her body and entering mine. I felt her strength. I made her final arrangements, settled her matters. I went to her, holding her cold hand as the last of her shrewdness, her ferocity, her strength left her and found me.

I felt Ardbert's aether, I felt his spirit leaving him. I thought that he would leave me. I thought he had broken the promises he had repeated to me in dreams, before the Mothercrystal, to my face in our waking lives. I grasped at him, my hands finding nothing to hold onto as he faded away. I put my hand atop his, trying to hold my face. I felt the last of his life leave him as it found me. I used his strength and settled his matters, our matters on the First. We ended this calamity together.

I made vows of my own that day. I would remember for Emet-Selch, for Hades. I would remember that the Ascians had lived, all that he had done to try to keep them with him. I remembered for Ardbert and all that his party had done to try to keep the First safe, to keep their world from shattering once more.

I took up an axe for a while, I think my forms improved. I practiced in the clearing outside the Crystarium for some time before I hid it away below my bed.

Once we arrived home, G'raha returned to us, all Scions in tact, I slept a long dreamless sleep. At least twenty hours, I was dead to the world. The next day, I made for the aetherite plaza. I wrapped myself in my thickest coat and braced myself for the cold. As promised, the winds of Ishgard nipped at my nose on arrival. I pulled my hood over my head and quietly walked off to House Fortemps. Two, four, six hands pulled me into the house.

"Lua! Not a single missive!" Emmanellain cried.

"How could she? She was on another star." Artoirel shouted in my defense.

"Ah ah, no, I had heard that there was some communication. A-forgive me, a fairy? A fairy was communicating on your behalf?" Lord Edmont asked.

"What would you have believed if I sent you missives by fairy post? How ridiculous does that sound?" I asked.

"I would have liked to know something. The last I saw you, you were recovering from a nearly fatal wound." Edmont scowled.

"I'm sorry. I-god." I leapt up to embrace him, one hug of countless over the next several days.

With the dawn, I found my way outside to search for Aymeric. With luck, his door keeper told me that he was finishing breakfast and guided me to the table.

"My friend!" Aymeric bellowed, "I had not heard that you were home!"

"I snuck in last night. I wanted to catch some time with you before work."

"Full glad I am that you did. Sit. You must be hungry."

Like many days past, we traded stories over a meal. When the bell tolled, I walked him to the Congregation arm in arm. Something was the same. My feelings had changed as I'm sure his had, but after it all, I had my friend back.

Another day, another battle. The Scions traveled to meet the Telophoroi, to confront the beginning of the Final Days. At night, I would bring out my notebook. I would read the stories Ardbert asked me to write down and make good on my promise to remember for him. I read his horrible chicken scratch hand writing, wondering when he had the time to do it. I read the poem he left, bringing my guitar to play his melody, wishing he could sing the words to me again.

One brings shadow, one brings light Two-toned echoes tumbling through time

One brings shadow, one brings light Wandering ended, futures aligned

One brings shadow, one brings light One more chapter we've yet to write

#wol x ardbert #ffxiv fanfiction #ffxiv fanfic #ffxiv headcanon #ardbert fanfic #ffxiv ardbert #ffxiv writing #fluff #death cw #ardbert headcanon

6 notes · View notes