#its gonna be an axe with lavender growing up the handle

[riddler-apologist]

just booked an appointment for my first tattoo 😦😦

so excited i might vomit

[aspected-benefic]

FFXIVwrite2018 #16 - Bond

Word Count: 1,801

((Aye, is late. I still wanted to finish this since this entry is dedicated to @abeat, the most wonderful girlfriend ever. She is going through a rough time right now and I wanted to do something for her. Also thanks to her for the Executioner’s lines. The four sisters and the Executioner belong to her.

This is based off of an old RP we did together. Though the RP is unfinished, I imagine this is what would happen later.))

Party:

Maroda Metzger: PLD | Teremy Itsubishi: WAR Reonora Aestethe: AST | Princess Kneesaa (aka E-e-e-e-e Ewok): WHM Ash Lawrence: DRG | Xiaoning Shou: MNK Joey Madison: RDM | Yappy Dog: BRD

Trial: Executioner (Savage)

The party’s leader, a Paladin named Maroda Metzger, tapped the special linkpearl created solely for her group. “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear… somehow...” spoke the party’s Monk, Xiaoning Shou. “These winds are deafening!”

“All right. Brave these winds a little more, everyone! I see our mark up ahead.” said Maroda.

On the open field, the winds screamed a near-deafening roar. However, the primal who hovered in midair, preoccupied with her own ritual, was not Garuda, but a woman whose very aura emanated energy of pure malice. Enough to make the more aether-sensitive members of the party cover their mouths lest they succumb to the ill sensation in their stomachs.

The Executioner herself.

Some of the party members had been told that this is their mother, a being who had become obsessed and corrupted with power. Others were told purely of their evil. But regardless of what any of them had been told, all eight had two objectives, one mission.

To stop the Executioner’s ritual and free her daughters.

The eight-person team, lead by Maroda Metzger, stepped into the midst of what appeared to be an elaborate ritual circle. Surrounding the ritual at four specific points were the ones the party had come to rescue.

The Hell sisters. All unconscious with their limbs rope bound onto tall crosses.

To the east hung a blonde lalafell who called herself Cecille the Brave. However, both her appearance and disguise were nothing but ruses to hide her true identity as Iris Hellwind.

To the west hung an elezen of extraordinary beauty, Lavender Helltear.

To the north hung a miqo’te innocent of face but steel of resolve, Holly Hellhound.

And to the south hung a dark-haired lalafell, the ever-sarcastic but kind of heart Camellia Hellfire.

“They’re still alive. I still sense magical energy from them.”

The party’s White Mage, Princess Kneesaa, nodded in affirmation.

Joey continued. “Their positions indicate their respective elements: wind to the east, fire to the south, water to the west, and earth to the north. I’m also sensing a buildup of magical energy in the center. The Executioner’s starting her ritual.”

Maroda narrowed her eyes, “Not if we can help it. C’mon!”

Taking what could very well be her last deep breath, Maroda stepped into the center of the arena. As she did so, the wind stopped and she could hear again. Her example by leadership paid off as the rest of the party followed without hesitation.

Once all eight party members stood in the midst of the giant ritual circle, an ominous shadow underneath the Executioner herself slowly loomed over them in greeting. “Well well well...look who it is. The almighty saviour has appeared!” chortled the inhuman echo of her voice.

Though the Executioner’s height made her appear like she looked at the entire party, her eyes looked upon but a single member.

Ash Lawrence, the party’s Dragoon.

“Oh, look my dearest daughters, a saviour and his motley crew have appeared to save the day! Are you not pleased? Oh, right, you can’t be, you’re barely still alive.”

The Executioner’s cackle vibrated through the arena that sent chills up the adventurer’s spines.

“So you found me. Oh no. Whatever shall I do. So what now? Going to run me through? Overcome my terrible evil in the name of justice, love, and all those other pleasant lies you mortals tell yourselves to feel better about your short and pathetic lives?” She cackled again. “That, of course, is being generous with the assumption that you have the power to even scratch me. Let alone stop the wheels I have in motion.”

Ash twirled his spear in his left hand and slammed the handle end on the ground. “You speak of a saviour, and a saviour implies that they shall be the ones doing the saving, no?” He asked in his heavily accented Ishgardian accent. “Bold of you to assume the results without before the battle. Do you count your chickens before they hatch as well?”

“Won’t let me have who? These four that you so desperately cling to? As though they were even alive?” The Executioner waving a shadowy hand around the room. “I am not ‘counting’ anything. I am reclaiming what was already mine. These four are not alive. They are merely extensions of me. Little more than puppets on a string. Strings that I control.”

The Executioner held her palms upwards. Invisible strings attached from the sisters to the tips of the Executioner’s fingers made themselves known as coloured energy streamed forth from the sisters and into the Executioner herself. The sisters who once appeared unconscious cried out in pain. The party members stepped forward. The healers even held their weapons at ready, but hesitated. No telling what would happen if they made any rash moves.

Thankfully for the sisters, the Executioner stopped her energy drain. Her actions served no other purpose than as a warning. “So you’re here on your merry quest of righteousness to ‘rescue’ these extensions of myself? As if it is even worth saving mere puppets from their one true purpose?”

Without hesitation, the party’s Astrologian, Reonora Aestethe, balled her hands into tight fists and looked up at the Executioner dead in the eyes. “Yes, they are! Perhaps to you they are nothing but your puppets in your twisted little show, but to us, they are so much more!”

Reonora gestured to the elezen to the west. “Lavender… she taught me the value of friendship, of being a good friend you can care for, but also that good friends will care for you as well!”

Reonora gestured to the blonde lalafell to the east. “Cecille the Brave--no, Iris. Perhaps she and I have not always been on the same foot, but she showed me that one does not need to always get along to be true, loyal friends.”

Reonora gestured to the dark-haired lalafell to the south. “Camellia… she taught me to open up and speak my mind. Tell jokes. That people are not always what they seem.”

Reonora gestured behind her to the miqo’te to the north. “And Holly… she taught me what it means to feel valued… and loved.”

As though Reonora’s shout was a war cry, the other members of the party stood up. Maroda was the first after Reonora to step up.

“That’s right!” Maroda shouted. “Holly taught me the importance of not running away. She also gave me the courage to stand up to the people who tried to control me. Just like how I won’t be controlled anymore, I won’t let you control them either!”

The party’s Warrior, Teremy Itsubishi, slung his oversized axe over his shoulder. “Pfft. Speaking of Holly, I’m more than happy to show you what she taught me--” A red aura--the manifestation of his inner rage--temporarily flashed, shaking the earth underneath his feet. “--with this axe.”

Princess Kneesaa took a single dainty step forward, clutching her staff in both her hands. “Lavender helped Princess Kneesaa to save taint Kneesaa’s people had become.” She spoke in a dignified Ishgardian accent. “Lavender is true friend! Kneesaa protect Lavender!”

Joey stepped beside Kneesaa and looked up at the Executioner. “And Camellia helped me to move on from the past and instead fight for the future. Fight against the stupid strong people who oppress the weak. Like you!”

Xiaoning balled her hands into tight fists, similar to Reonora, and stamped her foot, also shaking the ground. “Not only is Lavender a frequent guest at my inn, she’s also the bestest friend a girl could ever have! Besides, you’re not gonna break Lavender and Ash up! I’ll make sure that they’re together forever!”

Ash held a gloved hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. “Thank you for that, Xiaoning.”

“You’re welcome!”

Ash lowered his hand and looked up at the Executioner. “The mistress--” He took a quick glance to Cecille, “--is quite the handful. Yet, as her retainer and her friend, someone must take care of her. And as for Lavender...”

He looked at Lavender to the west. Even unconscious, even on the brink of death, just seeing her alive made him smile.

“She gave me a reason to live. A reason to fight. To defy the expectations my family set upon me, to face my shadows and conquer my fears. Now, it seems as though my companions and I shall be conquering her shadows as well.”

Yappy Dog, the party’s Bard, aimed an arrow at the Executioner, tears streaming down his small cheeks. “Give me back my Mom!”

The Executioner leaned forward like an exasperated mother about to scold her children. “Oh quit your incessant prattle. I would ask you to simply leave me in peace and continue with my plans, but I am certain you would just enter into yet another self-righteous monologue, wasting both my time and yours. I think I’ll just kill you instead!”

Reaching to the side of her head, the Executioner dug her fingers into her flesh and swiped her hand across. The sound of fabric tearing screeched alongside her show of force and her body fell to the floor, opened in half, laying flat and limp like yesterday’s dirty clothes. In its place, a shadow that vaguely resembled a human reached to the skies.

Her true form.

She continued to grow… and grow… absorbing the shadows. Absorbing the energy around her. Until she towered over the party, enveloping them in her own darkness to symbolize the end of all hope. Once she reached her full height, she leaned back, arms stretched to the side, and shrieked a deafening, unearthly roar. A show of power. A final bid to show the adventurers that they had come to forfeit their lives.

However, the party refused to fall for her intimidation tactics. Ash stood in between Maroda and Teremy. The two tanks parted ways to let the Dragoon through. Gazing up at the Executioner, Ash held his spear to the side.

“Indeed, you are wasting your time… by picking a fight to a losing battle.” said Ash. As he spoke, he felt a power within him that he had never felt before. A burning desire to protect. To save. An overwhelming power like he had never felt before. An aura of blue began to glow around him. In his mind he once again heard the foreign words he didn’t understand, yet knew what they did. Knew what powers they invoked. “That roar of yours… you have quite the will to fight, little kitten. However.”

His aura grew brighter and brighter.

“Can you compare to the roar of the dragon?”

Ash clutched his spear in both his hands to brace himself for the power within him now overwhelming him. The blue aura that surrounded him burn high and bright like a raging fire. Twin dragons swirled around him and screamed to the heavens.

“May God have mercy on your soul. Deus miserere animae meae!”

Outtake: