#junelezen: medusa

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN :: Day 9 - Deviation

Reality isn’t so kind. Everything doesn’t work out the way you want it to. That’s why… As long as you don’t get your hopes up, you can take anything… You feel less pain.

[nightmareopera]

outtakes for this junelezen entry, featuring daedalus and nina @azure-dragonsinger, antonio @hermits-hovel, and alexandrite @lilbittymonster.

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 1 :: Portrait

The Aetherochemist Medusa of Xande's Court. Historic records identify her as Ariel Mersegrit, formerly of Meracydia.

Ariel is the Allagan Empire-era shard of my ancient, Ariadne (who briefly held the title of Halmarut before the Final Days) - an Allag-educated Meracydian bio-chemist, sought by the newly re-established Allagan Empire in their push against the southern continent due to her research into aetheric dampening.

She is immediately given up by the Meracydians who want nothing to do with her and taken to a prisoner camp, where Emet-Selch offers her a place in Allag (and among the Ascians) in exchange for her cooperation against Meracydia. She agrees, and together they poison several villages down river from the prisoner camp, killing man and dragon alike.

While Emet-Selch gives her the Halmarut crystal, given Halmarut's distance from the rest of the Convocation, it doesn't contain enough memories to fully reawaken Ariadne. Ariel knows that her survival in Allag is fully dependent on her allegiance with Emet-Selch and so begins weaving an increasingly complex set of lies that she has been reawakened and cooperating with the Ascian plot.

Meanwhile, she ingratiates herself w/ Xande's inner court (including Amon, who is aware of her Ascian aspirations, and Scylla, who is not). She takes the name Medusa as part of Xande's court. Eventually, she backs Amon's plan to summon the Cloud of Darkness.

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 11 :: Day

DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY

okay the time of chronological posting is OVER time for chaos

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 21 :: Deity

Daughter, be the bearer of my wisdom.

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 10 :: Summer

Ah, mortals from the realm of light. You have not stumbled here without purpose... I am the Cloud of Darkness. What I do not smother, I devour. What I cannot devour, I destroy.

When you try to chat up your boss at the office party and he asks if you have a minute to step outside but like, instead of drunken makeouts on the terrace, he introduces you to the immortal eldritch being he's making a deal with to end the world forever and asks if you want in on this scheme and you're just like 'yeah why not, sounds fun i love cahoots.'

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 8 :: Beauty

I am a little world made cunningly Of elements and an angelic sprite, But black sin hath betray'd to endless night My world's both parts, and oh both parts must die.

John Donne, Holy Sonnets

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 7 :: Friends

"Just - be careful. Remember that no one here is your friend." "Not even you?" "Especially not me."

Scylla offers some friendly advice at the New Year's Office Party.

Featuring Alexandrite @lilbittymonster; Daedalus and Nina @azure-dragonsinger; Antonio @hermits-hovel; and Viola @abyssalmermaiden.

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 4 :: New Adventure

This is she? A treacherous bog snake? A snake whose venom took down grown dragons. A feat that your mechanical army has yet to accomplish- A fine addition to the menagerie. Do not disappoint me.

Following a successful demonstration of the efficacy of her aether-dampening poison (which subdued several dragons, and killed scores of humans, animals, and younger dragons alike), Emet-Selch brings Ariel to the Crystal Tower, where she swears fealty to Emperor Xande - to mixed reactions from his notorious Courtiers. Xande is bemused by the snake imagery, and the reputation sticks. In response, Ariel builds a persona to navigate life in the heart of the Allagan Empire - Medusa.

(alexandrite belongs to @lilbittymonster)

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 30 :: Free Choice

beloved dragon friends - caliban/erasmos belongs to @azure-dragonsinger; antonio/icarus belongs to @hermits-hovel; pandora/panthea belongs to @whatsthisascianbullshit

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 24 :: Winter

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 14 :: Night

Let me remember thee what thou hast promised, Which is not yet performed me.

Ashes fell like snowflakes as the red moon rose above the city of Allag for the last time. Even now, at the end of all things, the dragons of Meracydia were merciless in their vengeance, tearing and ripping at the city’s edifices as if they were made of paper. The Crystal Tower rose above it all, crowned by the eerie glow of the Cloud of Darkness. The smoke and screams of the citizenry fell away as Medusa ran up the stairs of the tower, desperate to reach Amon and Emet-Selch before it was too late. There was nothing left for her here, nothing more to learn or steal or hold close to her heart. Sounds fell away as her echoing footsteps were at last muffled by the rich red carpet that led to Amon’s theatre. A stage of horrors and heartbreak, she thought, recalling Scylla’s warnings. If only Scylla herself had heeded them.

She slowed as she approached the carved doors that separated the theatre from the rest of the Tower. A sudden, unexpected apprehension gripped her for a moment. What if they had already fled? Emet-Selch had kept the secret of Ascian teleportation from her, even after all these years. He wasn’t a fool, as much as she’d like to think of him as one. But he wouldn’t leave her. Not her, Medusa corrected. She wasn’t the person Emet-Selch thought she was, but his desperation to see her in Medusa had been an intriguing bargaining chip between them since he had freed her from the prisoner camp in Meracydia. She reached for the door, cautiously. Freed was a funny word to use, she decided. The Court was just as much a prison as that muddy swamp. At least death in Meracydia would have been swift, even merciful. She shooed another memory of Scylla’s howling screams from her thoughts. The past is the past, and she was ready to take on the mantle of Halmarut’s seat. She opened the door.

She saw Amon silhouetted against the red sky, his head hung between his shoulders, already garbed in the robes of a Paragon. His mask was gone, but his face remained turned from her as he ascended the steps towards Xande’s throne. Some unfinished business to attend to, undoubtedly. She looked around for Emet-Selch, and found him watching her from the stage, half hidden by shadows. The austere robe he wore draped strangely on him in contrast to the decadent, intricate costumes of the Court that she had always seen him in. As she approached, she saw his face likewise held none of the typical mirth she associated with him. She smiled at him, more out of nervous impulse than the relief she felt that he hadn’t left her here. He didn’t smile back.

“Strange meeting you here!” she called, an attempt at humor she immediately regretted. His face softened anyway, and he held out a hand for her as she crossed the raised bridge that connected the stage to the ballroom floor. She glanced down for a moment: she couldn’t see the ground at the bottom of the great spiral stairs of the tower. The fires and smoke had grown too thick. She took Emet-Selch’s hand and he pulled her up onto the stage, where they both stood for a moment, facing each other without anything to say.

“I take it you still have the Crystal?” he ventured, finally. She nodded, and produced it from her pocket. She half-hated the thing, a weakness she turned to in the darkest nights: to live someone else’s memories, a person who was admired and loved and safe. All things she wasn’t and couldn’t be. Not in Allag, anyway. Emet-Selch shook his hand, impatiently, and she handed the crystal back to him. Back in his palm, he closed his fingers over it and exhaled slowly. “It’s all getting a little out of hand out there, isn’t it?” he mused, still unsmiling, his shoulders hunched.

“Quite.” Medusa frowned. “Given the imminent destruction of the realm, I think I’ve fulfilled my vow to you.”

“So you have.” He tucked the crystal away within his robe and straightened his back. Medusa could not recall him being this tall, as he opened his arms to her. That apprehension was back. She was missing something, or something was off, but she was so close to escaping Allag, to freedom from pain and mortality as she understood it. She embraced him, and couldn’t remember the last time they themselves had been this close. 

“I promised you a reward for your faithfulness, did I not?” His voice was close to her ear, hushed even in this empty place. “A place among your peers and the power of the Paragons-”

She felt trapped as he held her closer, his grip on her shoulders suddenly strong and worrying. She tried to squirm away, but he had her now.

“I’ve been thinking,” he drawled, “in light of your excellent performance of savagery, that Allag suits you far more than I had anticipated. Someone as wretched and empty as you could only thrive in this pit of vipers. You’ve set the stage for a brighter tomorrow, Medusa.”

Her eyes grew wide - he had never called her by her chosen name. She could feel her pulse pounding stronger and more urgently as she struggled against his embrace. She had outlived Scylla, wormed her way into Xande’s graces, even reached a begrudging understanding with Amon, only for the one man she thought she could trust to turn on her like this, at the end, at the end of all things, at the end of her duty. No. No, it couldn’t end like this. She wouldn’t let it. She kicked against him, thrashed her shoulders and head to knock him, and tried to dig her fingers into his back with force. His clawed gloves sunk into her shoulders as he held onto her and floated up above the stage.

“You made me do this,” he hissed, his voice growing louder now and more manic. “You thought you could just pretend to be her, that just seeing her memories was enough? It didn’t work! The crystal didn’t work on you the way it worked on the others-”

“Hades-” she sobbed, clinging to him now as the fires in the tower beneath them grew closer and closer.

“You will not use that name!” he spat, his voice echoing off the distant balconies in the empty theatre. “You are fundamentally broken. Unworthy of her legacy, and unworthy of this power.” He drew in another breath and held it for a moment, while she scrambled to hold onto him above the drop. When he spoke again, it was with a concentrated effort to remain even. To be fair. “Worry not, my dear. The stage has been set for a Rejoining. If you survive the Ardor, you will be stronger. More clever. More complete. And if you don’t-” he smiled, loosening his grip on her, “we will meet again.”

He let go and she fell, screaming, past the ballroom floor, past the winding stair, into the thick smoke below. He froze, hovering above the stage, until her screaming grew faint and then ceased altogether. He sighed, wearily, and opened a portal to the Ascian’s realm as the dragons grew closer and closer. Next time, he promised himself. The crystal would work next time.

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 13 :: Ancient Times

all.is.right.in.creation

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 6 :: Mount

In addition to its immense strength and three gaping maws lined with razor-sharp fangs, this voidsent boasts incredible longevity, having lived since the Third Astral Era. The restraints, of Allagan design, are believed to make it as tame as a puppy, though it may simply be biding its time before devouring its keeper.

Scylla's talents for summoning and binding voidsent finally find a practical use: transportation.

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 16 : Magic

Medusa does not have a canon job/class - she's operating more as a hodge-podge of other Final Fantasy jobs. I imagine that Meracydian summoning operates a bit more like summoning in FFX (in contrast to the summoning developed in Allag that requires capture and control of egis), but she gives this up when she moves to Allag, obviously. She picks up on some of Scylla's more void-aligned magicks, or straight up just steals the abilities of others (like pilfering Daedalus' time magic trinkets for later use). She's taught a couple of Ascian abilities, but notably Not Teleportation.

[yloiseconeillants]

JUNELEZEN - Day 12 :: Sun

I don't see you leave the Tower often. Don't you miss the sun?

you will have to tear the 'sunflowers are native to meracydia' headcanon from my cold dead hands, unfortunately