#king thordan

[this-is-ris]

... are we gonna talk about this guy's battle mitts?

...are they his... mittigation?

Sorry.

[booty-uprooter]

is he still our father in law if our wife is a bastard

[eorzeashan]

not to vagueblog but some of you are clearly experiencing dragon madness

[imadetoe]

FF14 Borte vs Knights of the Round by xanroth

[magician-hero]

i have become the very thing you abhor

[ainyan]

For the NPC ask, what are your character's thoughts on Thordan and the Heavens' Ward?

Kal'istae despises Thordan. She despises him for withholding the truth and perpetuating a gross lie for his own power, she despises him for falling for Ascian machinations despite being fully cognizant of their methods and their aim, and she despises him for squandering the opportunity to have a real, meaningful relationship with a son any father could be proud of. And that doesn't even include the fury she feels that he would willingly make of himself a primal to perpetuate his lies and a war that had nearly destroyed his own people.

She pities the Heavens' Ward. Though they made the conscious choice to follow Thordan, they were tempered by the church long before he got his hands on them, and the dogmatic teachings they had absorbed from childhood on only prepared them to follow the many they saw as the spiritual head of their faith without question. That said, they still had a choice, and they chose wrongly, and their deaths at her hand were rightly earned.

Thank you for the ask!

[iernbone]

[walks in, twirling hair] sooo... AU where Artoirel is chosen to become one of the Knights of the Round? :) [I am immediately dunked into the nearest trashcan]

[echthr0s]

okay fine top 5 ff14 bosses

these aren't in any order except the order in which I remembered they existed, and my only criterion for being "top" is that I'm thirsty for them so that automatically makes them Good also not counting dungeon bosses bc there's already too many hot pieces of monster ass to choose from without counting those too

HADES

this should make sense to you bc I said Barthandelus was hot. but also he has a few forms and they're all sick

BAHAMUT PRIME

once again, to be expected, my crush on Bahamut persists across multiple FF games

ZODIARK

duh.

OZMA

ok I lied about the criterion, I don't think Ozma is hot but I just think this is a cool ass boss. it's just Orb

also one of its attacks is called "Singularity" soooo #themes

HEPHAISTOS

ok. best for last. bc of course you've got this

mm yes. very good. but! BUT! then there's also THIS

so I rest my fucking case

[naldthal-thetraders]

Various doodles I made for a friend in the static! 

The headshot was a commission, n the bottom 2 were lil gifts when they cleared DSR.

[meatymidnightmultiverse]

“This detestable old man, how many lessons must I give you before you give me your bird!? Yours is the last one I need!”

[nixetra]

@effectedcoin

[liminalitycarb]

Dragons and death everywhere!  But WE'RE MAKING PROGRESS! Highlights from Week 23 of Dragonsong's Reprise Ultimate with the No Crits Allowed group are live now! 

Hopefully we’ll get more than 1 iteration of Dragon King done next week!

[missazurerose]

Kinda random but you know what I want to see? That. Down there. What's in the lower levels of Ishgard?

I don't really do the variant dungeons. I tried the one where you're down below Ul'dah with Nanamo but I quit before I made it all the way through one path. I got tired man. But you know what would make me do one? That's right you guessed it. Exploring the lower levels of Ishgard with Aymeric. We could be tracking down some secret left by Thordan. Archbishop Thordan or King Thordan? Either one. I don't really care.

Just let me down in the lower levels. Let's go. It would be an excuse to properly update his game model. Come on. Don't be cowards SE. Let's see the rest of the city. Bring Aymeric back. You denied me in the Dawntrail tank role quests. Gimme a whole repeatable dungeon with him.

[jewish-anime]

Portrait of the Lord and Lady Greystone, c. 7th Astral Era, Ishgard. Artist unknown.

One of few surviving portraits from this era, and the only portrait of the Warrior of Light painted during her lifetime. It is believed that the Greystones sat for this painting sometime after their victory against Dragon-King Thordan, though records of the Eighth Umbral Calamity beginning shortly afterward cast doubts on the veracity of this claim.

____

i drew this like a year ago around when the seigneur outfit came out and only just now got around to coloring it lmao....... (the caption is a reference to my fic the paths not walked, wherein DSR is canon in the doomed timeline that the exarch came from)

[yasuosexual]

i was putting some thought into it earlier and i just want to take a moment and reflect on haurchefant

warnings: HW spoilers

it’s obvious throughout heavensward that he has a huge crush on the WoL i mean who doesn’t lol. he literally kills himself so that they will live… like can we just go back in time and spend 5 more minutes with him 🥺?

i just want to hold him and thank him for all he’s done… give him a little kissy maybe… idk i’m just really upset about the whole thing.

like imagine if he didn’t die:

- after killing king thordan and saving ishgard from the wrath of nidhogg, haurchefant found you sitting alone on the steps of foundation. he walked over to you and sat down beside you, draping a blanket around your shoulders.

- “how are you faring?”

- with the same tenderness and love in his voice from the first day you met, he offered such kind words— always putting your needs before his own. haurchefant pulled you close to him- his large arm encompassing your back. there was no escape.

- “warm up,” he chuckled, laying his head on top of yours.

- his large hand worked circles on your back, trying his best to make you warm. he noticed you distancing yourself after the fight against estinien. haurchefant figured it was taking a toll on you… and it was.

- eventually he coaxed you back into his quarters where he cooked you dinner and made you a hot drink. when you told him that you weren’t hungry, he insisted that you must get something in your stomach.

- after eventually sharing a meal together, haurchefant offered you to spend the night with him.

- “why don’t you stay here? just in case you have a nightmare,”

- and he was right. you had confided in him prior about having bad dreams, especially those related to the tumultuous battles you’d endured.

- after agreeing, he insists you sleep in his bed and he will set up on the floor next to you. what shocks him is when you say-

- “please sleep with me…”

- his face turned beet red at your sudden statement— he liked you for some time but always figured that there would be a better time to act on it.

- well it seems that maybe the time has come now.

- he asked if you’re sure you want him to sleep with you and when you nod your head, he can’t help but feel butterflies in his stomach as he slid under the covers with you.

- haurchefant is taken aback when you lay you head on his chest. his hands found their way into your hair, massaging small circles on your scalp.

- as soon as you started to lightly snore, his lips placed a chaste kiss on your forehead.

- “good night, my warrior of light,”

celly

like i’m fucking screaming why is he dead 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[myreia]

Sketches of Times Lost

Day 17: Sally

three times rielle has cried. rielle POV & character study. appearances by rielle's father, ystride de caulignont, sidurgu, and fray. written for ffxivwrite2024. rated: teen 2200 words. ao3 link content warning: mentions & brief descriptions of child abuse.

The girl raises the doll high in the air, her little round fingers holding it suspended by its arms on either side.

A pastel green dress, like hers. Buttons for eyes. Yarn for hair. An endlessly toothy smile.

She smiles back and giggles. The doll’s head flops to the side, staring at her with the same joy she had when she unwrapped her only moments before. But time goes quickly for a child this young, and there is a difference between then and now. Before and after.

Before, she was perched on the windowsill of her bedroom, having pulled herself up onto the place Mama forbid her to go. She knows she could get in trouble for it—already she flinches inside just thinking about it, imagining Mama’s tall shadow on the wall, the way her face twists when she yells, how cold her fingers are when she grabs her and puts her back in her place—but some days she doesn’t care. No matter how many times Mama has said the windowsill is dangerous, that she could fall and hurt herself, the girl still climbs on it when no one is looking.

There is a world outside, a world far more interesting than the wooden toy blocks on her floor or the pages of a little book of King Thordan and his knights twelve with their glittering armour and golden lances. A world of wide green fields and clear blue skies and little pink and yellow blossoms that float in the wind. Sometimes she thinks she can see dragons dancing round the mountaintops, magical and bright. She pointed to them once, and Mama batted her hand away, telling her she should not look for such things. Dragons are a omen of the evil that lurks in near their home.

But Papa doesn’t mind. He lets her look out the window all she wants. Sometimes he sits on the sill and holds her in his lap, letting her scrunch up her face and press it to the glass. He tells her stories of dragons and Elezen long ago, before there was such a thing as war. Before there was such a thing as the evil in the woods and the secret things that go bump in the night.

That’s where she was when Papa came to visit. He sat with her by the windowsill, a sad look on his face, his hands clasped behind his back. Why did he look so sad? She can’t remember the last time she heard Papa laugh, save for these small moments when he comes to visit. He’s gone most of the time. He has a duty to Halone and to House Caulignont, you see.

“Rielle,” he said. “Sweetheart. Come away from the window.”

It’s different when he says it.

She did as he asked and waited patiently, sitting on a little stool by the hearth with her hands clasped in her lap. That’s when he gave her the box. Small, simple, wrapped in brown paper. Her eyes lit up and she could not hold back her gasp. Mama has given her gifts before—a pretty dress whose hem is now ruined (her fault, she stained it with mud), a locket with flowers engraved upon it (lost in the snow when its chain broke), a book of devotional prayers (Mama doesn’t know she moves the bookmark every day)—but not like this. She tore through the wrapping eagerly and found the doll within, smiling that joyful smile up at her.

Which brings her to now. After.

The girl swings her legs back and forth as she holds the doll, taking in her beautiful hair and her beautiful eyes and her beautiful smile. A friend, perhaps—a perfect friend for a lonely girl has little else than the warmth of her father’s fairy tales and dreams, and the cold of her mother’s pious devotion.

“What are you going to call her?” Count Caulignont asks, resting his forearms against his knees as he watches his treasured daughter with a distant smile. “All little girls need names.”

“I’m not a little girl!”

He chuckles at her fierceness. “Very well, I stand corrected. Not little. But your friend there still needs a name.”

She stares up at her father with wide, shining eyes, and grins. The name comes to her immediately and she declares it loud and proud, hugging the doll tight.

There is no more windowsill to get her in trouble. No more glass to press her face against. No more mountains or clear skies or green fields or dragons.  

And no more Papa.

That all disappeared after the sky bled red and the moon came tumbling down and an everlasting snow swept over Coerthas.

Some days she lies on her cot and bundles her blanket together and hugs it. She’s cold and shivering without it, goosepimples breaking out all over beneath her threadbare dress, but at least she can pretend there is someone else here with her. At least she can pretend she still has a friend.

The doll isn’t here anymore. Mama took it from her, a punishment for not reading her prayerbook. She finally saw through the trick with the bookmark after all these years, even though the girl has read it out of want for something to do. But it doesn’t matter how many hymns to Halone she can recite or how well she can retell the tale of King Thordan and his knights, no amount of prayer can burn a heretic’s blood from her veins. Mama was so angry that day. The doll was tucked between the girl’s arms. She seized it and pulled, expecting it to come freely, but the girl could not let go.

Her friend’s head tore clean off, stuffing falling limply to the cold stone floor in puffs like snow.

The girl wailed in the aftermath, eyes shining with tears.

“Look what you’ve done, Rielle,” Mama said, her lip curling with disgust. “Don’t cry. This wouldn’t have happened if you had just given it to me. Now who’s going to put it back together? It’s ruined.”

But the girl could only cry.

And Ystride de Caulignont sighed, exhausted by her little girl, and walked away, heels treading across the doll’s ruined remains. She slammed the door behind her and left without another word, her voice later echoing down the long stairwell to the cells as she complained to a guard about the weeping child.

The remains are still here. Bits of cloth and stuffing stuck between the flagstones, unravelled yarn twisted around her bedpost, broken buttons rolled int the corners of the cell. Sometimes the rats pick away at it, stealing another bit to carry back to their nests. She’s seen it before, at night, their yellow eyes glowing in the dark when she jolts awake. They stare at her, as if surprised they are caught in the act, then squeak squeak squeak as they scutter away across the floor.  

She knows what happened to her only friend.

She can only wonder what happened to her father. She understands more as she gets older, from conversations between the guards when they think she can’t hear her. Heretics and dragons and something in her blood. Something in her father’s blood. Some days she finds herself praying—not to Halone, but to whatever else is out there—that it will awaken and she will burst forth from this tower and tear it down.

Papa wouldn’t like that. He didn’t like violence, he didn’t like fighting. His face was too kind for that. He was a knight and he performed his duties well, right up until the day he never came back.

Was it the sky that killed him? That awful, awful day of the moon? Or did Ystride kill him, too? Pop his head clean off and leave him for the rats? She hates that she can imagine it so well, blood and all.

It’s the nightmare that haunts her when she’s asleep and shivering, when she should be dreaming of those pink and yellow blossoms she never got to see up close.

“Godsdammit, Fray, where do you think we’re going to get the gil for this?”

“A problem for later. This is a problem for now.”

“It’s only a problem because you’ve developed a frivolous streak. What happened to frugal living?”

“Call it living a little. Besides, frugality is something only Temple Knights care about, Sid. I never thought you’d be one to pick up their habits.”

“Bloody hells—”

Fray laughs and adjusts his helmet, striding faster down the street. Sidurgu curses again and stomps after him, his hulking form cutting a swath through the crowd. Not that there’s much of a crowd here. The village is small, nestled on the border between Coerthas and the Dravanian Forelands, far enough down the slope to escape the snows. She’s not sure if it even has a name. Fray and Sidurgu stand out among the locals, but no one pays attention to her. She fades into the background, unnoticed. She can pick the pink and yellow flowers from the terracotta planters without anyone yelling at her. Steal an apple from a vendor’s table. Nick a bracelet from a merchant.

“…say what you want, but she needs something.”

“She doesn’t need a doll, she’s too old for things like that.”

“How would you know what she needs? Have you ever been a little girl, Sidurgu? No? Thought not. You’re far too spikey for that. Besides, I have it on good authority that it’s not only little girls. Perhaps the world would be a better place if we all carried a stuffed animal or two well into our adult lives.”

She makes a face. I’m not little, she wants to say, but when do adults ever listen to her.

Sidurgu, meanwhile, grumbles under his breath and reaches around his horns to scratch the back of his neck. Strange to think that she was afraid of him at first. She had never seen an Au Ra before. But no matter what some Ishgardians think, he isn’t the one who is part dragon.

She’s not so sure about herself some days.

“…gods bloody well dammit—”

“Must you swear so much? Children have ears, you know.”

“And children are smarter than you think, Fray, little cursing won’t hurt her.” He sighs and shakes his head, passing a hand across his face. “Let’s split up. We’re getting nowhere.”

The girl watches as her guardians part ways, disappearing through the crowd, each assuming that she is following the other without checking. She would call them dunderheads if she could get away with it, but for now she errs on the side of caution. As nice as they have been—swearing and all—she doesn’t know them and they don’t know her. She’s simply a girl in a tower, imprisoned by monsters and rescued by knights.

Papa told her a fairy tale like that long ago.

For now, she perches on the edge of a bridge, swinging her feet back and forth as she watches the river rush below. The sun beats down, warming her neck, and the warm air is pleasant on her face. She clasps the bracelet around her wrist and dumps the flowers in her lap, poking through them as she takes a big bite out of the stolen apple. It’s sweet and juicy, far better than anything she has tasted in a long time.

“Rielle!”

She finishes her apple and tosses it away, watching it plunk into the rippling water.

“Rielle!”  

She swings her legs and plucks at a flower, pulling it apart. She scatters the blossoms into the air and watches them soar.

“RIELLE!”

The girl startles, looking up as Sidurgu runs down the bridge, armour clanking frightfully with every step. He’s gasping by the time he reaches her, either with relief or panting for breath or both.

“Bloody hells,” he rasps. “Please say something before you disappear like that.”

She blinks and rises to her feet, brushing down the front of her dress. “I thought it was all right,” she says. “You and Fray weren’t far.”

“I know, but…” He trails off, an anxious look crossing his face. “Tell us next time. Please.”  

She nods. She can do that. “What’s that behind your back?” she asks, pointing.

“I, uh…” He pauses. “It was Fray’s idea… well, mine, too. But…”

“What?”

He exhales a breath and kneels down, lowering his towering height so they can see each other eye to eye. “We thought you might like something,” he says gruffly. “A friend to keep you company on the road, wherever we might find ourselves.”

She nods again.

“I, uh… Here.” He removes the object from behind his back and presses it into her hands. Not wrapped this time. The eyes are different. The hair, too. But the smile is the same. “The woman told me its name is Sally, but I suppose you can call it whatever you like—”

The familiar name hits her like a lightning strike. With a sob, Rielle takes the doll and crushes it to her chest, hugging it as if she will never let go.