#maybe i should get better at tagging my stuff with general ffxiv tags but oooh well

[crystal-verse]

Day 12- Quarry

[malikah's well time! a brief peek into some of k'pheli's mid-to-late shb thoughts]

Malikah's Well is a quarry long-abandoned, and yet something about it feels so very familiar to you.

Perhaps it's the deep, deep stone tunnels, the way it burrows into the very earth itself. The traces of having been lived in still linger, and that, too, adds to the familiarity. The Sin Eaters and other creatures scurrying through it take away from your focus, but you are lucky enough to have Thancred and Mehka both stealing their attention, leaving you and Urianger and Alphinaud to focus on healing them, Alisaie and Ryne and Y'shtola all focused on dealing swift deaths. The deeper you go, the more it itches at you, until you realize. Ah. It reminds you of Gelmorra. Not the lived-in Gelmorra, closer to the center of the city-state, the deeper tunnels, but of the edges of Gelmorra, where the Miqo'te third would rotate between dwellings throughout the seasons (where you would have rotated between, had you not been so ill that you'd needed to stay in the inner sections in hospitals), the K tribe wanderlust no less strong even underground.

It reminds you, more specifically, of the dwellings that are dormant, the ones not in use at the current time -- traces of life and yet so empty, so still. Plenty of things left there, but nothing perishable, nothing that will not be alright if left unattended for some while.

'Tis certainly an apt comparison -- it would seem as though time had not passed in some of the parts of Malikah's Well, some stasis from the Light seeping into here as well.

Still. You must needs focus, because you are one of three with the fates of everyone's lives in your hands, and it would do you no good to be distracted. (Beneath your skin, beneath the muscle, nestled into that spot just under the sternum, the Light burns. Not enough to be worth concern, just enough to be annoying. Each breath burns -- and the Light indeed is a very cold burn.)

The Lightwarden is soon in sight. You ready your codex. Inhale, exhale. Oberon is by your side, no more twisted by your excess Light as they had been, years ago, by your excess Dark. (Your aether, so usually astrally-aligned, is not umbral, but you inhale fire and exhale ice and the Lightwarden will fall. It will. For Norvrandt, for the night sky, for the Exarch -- you will fell Storge, and when that too is done you will hunt down Kholusia's Lightwarden and it, too, will fall, and the night sky will be upon all of Norvrand and then, and then, you shall finally be able to rest.)

Thancred readies his gunblade, Mehka her axe -- the twins their codex and rapier, Urianger his cards. Ryne's knives are held in steady hands, and though you cannot see aether in the way that Y'shtola might you are no less aware of the way she draws it into her hands, ready to unleash any spell. The battle shall be soon. (Just this, and one more. Just two more Lightwardens, and then you will be done. You can handle this. You will hold the Light. Just two more.)