#oc: ysabet sable | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

The Warden

Ysabet Sable is never allowed back into Gridania.

Pertains to Endwalker’s tank role quest, and contains spoilers to it, as well as continued liberties with canon.

He ran. Antoin knew nothing else. Thought had deserted him, sanity followed. All that mattered was getting one foot in front of the other, staggering and stumbling through the brush. His breath was shallow and frantic and... somehow, wrong. But he was ahead of his pursuers. That was all that mattered. And so long as he was, there was hope... He was focused on the heavy tread behind him, growing encouragingly fainter. The soft leather ahead eluded him, until it was too late. Wood and crystal whistled, cracking him squarely across the forehead and laying him out, panting and twitching across the forest floor. The culprit stepped over him, gave a quizzical look, then gingerly prodded him with the tip of her mace. Little response. Adequately stunned, then. She dragged the point across his open shirt, pulling it down over one shoulder... ... and there it was. The sign of corruption. "Hold there!" The woman barely flinched as the warning shot whistled between her ears. She flicked them in irritation. "You're late, Wailer." "Who the hell are you?" Not the shooter. Ysabet counted six... no, seven. Two thought they were hidden. And she heard a heavier tread in the back, there... "I am Ysabet Sable. You know of me." She shifted her posture, resting both hands against the greatmace Læraðr. "Do not interfere," snarled a third. "This man bears a plague--" "He bears no plague," snapped Ysabet. "You really think a chigoe did this?" Relief, from the man on the ground. "It's not-- it isn't the Creeping Death? You're saying I'm safe? I'm saved?" "Perhaps," lied Ysabet. "What do you know of it?" said another Wailer, arrow already nocked. "Did you cause it, eh?" Ysabet glowered at him. Evidently, he did not know who she was. "I know you," he went on. "You really think I'd forget a lost rabbit, far from home? Sniffing around Quarrymill?" "Ah." She levelled a claw at him. "No, no, no. I do remember you." "Aye?" Quietly, she said, "I remember you sitting on your hands, In thrall to your dead gods, as a man died in front of you." His knuckles whitened around his bow. "Say that again--" The clank of metal got closer and closer; at last, it crested the hill. "What the hell is going on?" And then, "Ysabet!?" "Hello, Severine," said Ysabet, eyes not moving from the Quarrymill Wailer. "I am surprised to see you. Pleased, as well. Care to enlighten me as to what's going on?"

They took Antoin back to camp to convalesce, then took tea there. Ysabet, somehow, always came prepared. "The Twin Adders have a blasphemy they needed put down," Severine explained. "I was available." "So were others. You didn't have to run out. Don't you have a child to rear?" "I didn't know you were here!" Severine leaned back with a sigh. "Look, this isn't meant to be dangerous. We've slain blasphemies before by the dozen. I'm here to keep the Adders steady while they get the job done." "Mm." Ysabet sipped at her tea, trying to look for delicate phrasing and not finding any. "And how do they feel about taking orders from an outsider who looks a lot like a duskwight?" Severine's smile was humourless. "The Adders keep professional. They're used to mixed company. They've actually seen some of the world, had to work with different people. The rest... haven't exactly been cooperative. But I can't imagine you've had much better luck." "No, I haven't." She leaned forward. "I'm unsurprised to hear of the blasphemy - is there a name?" "They're calling it Gleipnir. Why are you here, then? About the Creeping Death?" "At first, yes." Ysabet chuckled, softly. "Though now, I see a fuller picture. The corruption in the woods runs far deeper than one stray blasphemy." Severine raised an eyebrow. "That might be the case, but the blasphemy is important. Especially if it's behind this plague. Will you help in the hunt?" "Ah, I doubt it would be welcome..." "I'd welcome it," she countered, flatly. "Whatever your issue with the Gridanians isn't my concern, but surely it involves clearing out Gleipnir. Better to work together than at cross-purposes, no?" But there was no time for an answer. A scout burst into the camp. More attacks. This time, at Rootslake. And this time, the Elder Seedseer was going to attend in person. They left. Together.

"How can we face a beast like that?" "Seedseers're sitting pretty with their guards and their finery... what do they care about any of this?" "They aren't doing a bloody thing. They just don't care..." An uneasy silence fell upon the camp. Commonfolk looked up from their circles of gossip toward the unlikely newcomers. The Elder Seedseer, too, looked up from her conference with her bodyguards, forcing a brave, terrified smile. "Ser Belgrave. And... Lady Sable? I had not thought you would come." "Nor hoped, I suspect." Ysabet's ear flicked. She had not often troubled the Shroud. It had always felt... wrong, to her, to its very core. "Nevertheless, I aim to be of service to you." "What happened?" Severine asked. An Adder grimaced. "Gleipnir's stalking the region. No more attacks - yet - but the locals are in a panic." "There is no cause for panic," said the Elder Seedseer, voice carrying clear across the camp. "The beast will not trespass here." It lacked conviction. And, worse, emboldened one man to bite back, a stage-murmur under his breath, "easy for you to say, eh? We ought to pack up and head to Ul'dah. 'Least down there they don't pretend to care for the common man..." The accusation struck Kan-E like a blow to the heart. She cared. Of course she did. And she would weep for any lost. But what could she do? So she thought. Ysabet cut over anything she could have said, a cruel laugh twisting the knife. "You think so little of the land, you would flee before fighting for your place in it? Has it mistreated you so?" The man had not meant to be overheard; or, at least, not consciously. Confronted, he doubled down. "That isn't-- that's not how it should be! We're meant to live at peace with the land, right? The elementals have to be kept happy, and if the Seedseers can't even do that, what're they for?" "What, indeed," Ysabet muttered, too loud. Far too loud, in Severine's mind. "Calm yourselves. Whatever the elementals' part in this, I will keep you safe." A pained look, from Kan-E. But perhaps it was the shove she needed; she was the spiritual leader, once again. "The elementals live among us. They do care, and they do reward our faith. I swear no harm shall come to any of you. Even now, the net closes on Gleipnir..." She trailed off at beating footsteps. Another report. Some locals really were trying to bolt south to Thanalan.

They tried it Kan-E's way, for a while. But when they found the men, they were frantic. And one had been stricken. He turned, and the rest of the crew with him, the panic more infectious than Gleipnir's plague. Severine and Ysabet did all they could, and put them quickly to the sword. "Raya-O said we would need to turn to the elementals for assistance," said Kan-E, her slender shoulders slumped, "and I know, now, that she was right." "Must they be roused?" Frustration crept into Ysabet's voice. "Is the rot not apparent? Is it not enough of a threat--" "I will seek audience with the great one," said Kan-E - coming close, for the first time, to truly raising her voice. "I shall make the proper ablutions; pray return to the Adders' Nest and await my summons." The Seedseer stalked off, guards in tow. Ysabet stood, and watched them leave. Severine lingered between them, gave a searching look to Ysabet, but she was not comforted by what she saw. There was a coldness in those eyes. "Not coming to the Adders' Nest, I take it?" "I have my own preparations to make," Ysabet said, quietly. Severine grunted, and half-turned away. Then turned back. "Assume, for a moment, that I'm not grounded enough in druidic philosophy to follow this... this tree-measuring contest with the Seedseers? I don't understand how these people work, either, but is it really ours to reason why?" Ysabet gave it thought. She had a way of musing that Severine could find infuriating, sometimes; tell her something she really needed to gnaw on and she would stand there, staring straight through you, sifting it over. But eventually, she came to her conclusion. "I came to Ul'dah, and did not understand. Then I saw the truth; that it was broken. But with the Sultana and the Bull, and the rest of the Scions, we did what we could to make it whole, no?" "A fair assessment. But..." "When we came to your own homeland, Ishgard, the other Scions did not understand. But you knew the truth, did you not? That it, too, was broken? And with you and Aymeric, the Azure Dragoon and the Fortemps, did we not mend it?" A tight smile, through Severine's thin lips. "We left it better than you found it, certainly." "And what of Garlemald? There was a cancer there, called Empire, and we cut that out, did we not?" Ysabet was growing in momentum, now, the words coming faster and more strident. "And Garlemald will heal, as we left it. So now we come back to Gridania, and we see a people in thrall to blind gods who lash out without their rituals and their sacrifices, a... a people who will let children die and duskwights be made outcast, to preserve their unnatural order, all to earn protection from these vaunted elementals... only now, to find them too numb to stir, even as an otherworldly threat threatens to consume all in its path? You tell me, now, that this is a land we cannot mend? That we should leave these people to rot?" There was silence, for a time. A gentle breeze rustled the canopy above. "So," asked Severine at last, "what will you do?" "That... I do not yet know. But when it is time to act, I shall."

Mrdja's arms trembled. The point of the arrow wavered, dipping madly under the target, then swaying right. Damn it all, how did Kjva make it look so easy? Her arms were strong, her aim was steady. With her, it was one swift motion. No hesitation. And always, always, always, she struck her mark. Mrdja ... released. The arrow vanished into the undergrowth. The stag was not alarmed enough to scatter. Stupid, stupid! She pulled another. Pulled it back-- no, too soon! She had to breathe. She had to stay calm. She knew this. And in front of the targets, she was a fair enough shot. The targets did not have chests with pounding hearts. The targets did not have darting black eyes, deep as pools. They did not-- She let fly. The stag grunted, staggered to its left... shook its head violently. The arrow was lodged in its throat. But it was too stupid to know it was dead. It looked straight through Mrdja, who did not know until that moment that a stag could look reproachful. And then, of course, it fled. Fumbling for her second arrow and swearing the foreign curses she'd picked up from the merchant caravans, Mrdja raced along to follow, forgetting all she had learned about drifting along the forest floor in tune with it in the interest of pure pace. Or was her own heart racing too fast? She was no huntress. But she was here to learn an object lesson. Ljda would not see her until the stag's head was produced. The nature of things was out of balance. Foreign hunters had driven a herd into the woods, and they threatened to grow out of control, and this proud old sire would do more than his share to multiply the damn things. 'Can we not leave it to the hunters?' she had made the mistake of asking. Ljda had frowned. Instantly, Mrdja knew she had erred. 'It amazes me,' she said, 'your capacity to repeat the same mistake, a thousandfold. You aspire to master life, yes? To become a healer greater than any salve-maker, to ensure the grove will flourish, to keep your people safe?' 'I do! Is that not--' 'There are two sides to it. And sometimes, to preserve life,' she said, plucking a weed from her garden, 'we must bring death'. And so she'd been out here for two days. Exploring this extended metaphor to its conclusion. Ljda had a sick sense of humour. Worse still, she heard on the wind that the proper huntresses were taking bets on how long Mrdja would take before finding her prize. But at least the shot was landed, now. She needed only follow, scurrying through the forest floor, steadily gaining as the stag lost speed, the shock of its eventually fatal wound catching up, slowly, slowly-- The wolf came from nowhere. Slavering fangs clamped around the stag's throat, dragging it to the ground and silencing it - but for the crack of its neck - with a hard yank. Mrdja stood and watched in horror. And it looked up. And it saw, perhaps, a second meal. Or perhaps competition over its first? Instinct took over. Somehow the arrow found its way to the string, without her even knowing. And somehow, as the wolf leapt, it found its mark, burying itself through one eye and deep into the brain. It hurled itself on her with the last of its strength, but as she kicked and struggled, it slumped off her with no more resistance than its own weight. She sat there, breathing, for a time. Wondering why her racing heart felt so good inside her.

Ysabet found the Guardian Tree unwatched. She frowned. That was not how it was meant to be. And when she saw the first shapes of warped, discarded armour, she knew... ... well, she knew she could not concern herself with that. Any number of hired hands could take down a lesser blasphemy. Only she could do this, now. Not even Kan-E, she suspected. For better or for worse. The 'ritual preparations' were a pretext, Ysabet knew, which meant it would not be long before Kan-E, Severine and the Keeper made their arrival. And they would not allow her to do... this. "Hello, Father Tree," she murmured, running her long fingers through the canopy. "I do hope you are not counting on pleasantries, today. I do not come as supplicant." It rustled. Perhaps already resistant. No, it could hear, she knew. And what it understood, it did not care for. This was not the way of things. This was not how they were done. She drifted her long hand down across its branches to its trunk, claws scraping gently against the bark. It liked that not, either. Yet she did not find the rebuke she expected. "Grown timid in your old age, is that it? Tell me your story." And, when it did not prove immediately forthcoming, "I will have your story." The bark betrayed it. There was... a wound, on it, that could never heal. And she let her mind and soul drift to the fringes of the great consciousness within, keeping her feet ever grounded, staying moored... and she let its memories bleed into her. A wanderer and a Padjal - in training, a mere child! Meant to keep me safe! Meant to protect! Yet he brings this interloper! Can you not see? See through his lies? And the wanderer rose from his pretended prayer, pushed past the child, snapped a branch off the bough-- The rebuke was great. The wanderer did not survive, struck a thousand times a thousand times, no punishment too great. And the unworthy earned his punishment. Stripped of his horns... "Ea-Sura," Ysabet murmured, and her eyes were open, and she saw it-- him! It? Waiting. Watching. Slavering. Profanity's spawn Despair's orphan Sadness, anger Sadness Death's prayer One and all And the fear overwhelmed all. Ysabet pulled herself back while she still could, and dragged herself, mind and body, away from the Guardian, which had whipped itself into a mad frenzy. Ea-Sura! Ea-Sura! Ea-Sura comes! And yet And yet... it waited. Only waited. Ysabet watched it, back rising and falling, sapped of all colour and life and somehow all the more indefatigable for it. And Ysabet realised, then, that it awaited an opening to avenge itself. "For a branch?" she said, softly. "All this, over a branch?" A branch? The rebuke came strong, but Ysabet was ready, this time. Indignation overpowered its own fear, but could not find a way through her wards. Corruption starts... covenant broken... all lost... would that there was the strength... to bring to bear... were I strong... you would be crushed... breaker of faith... "You damned a child for the sake of a trick, a single pruned branch it cost. And now your people reap what you have sown, and here you stand." Ysabet shook her head softly. "Unwilling to act. Fearful of the beast's wrath falling where it deserves. So more die, because of your sloth." No strength to share! No strength to share! The flesh rots! Drive out the evil, drive out the evil! "These woods do rot. The corruption spreads, for want of pruning." Ysabet gathered herself, hands clenched around her mace, letting it become the conduit for her force. "You are the source of the thousand poisons, Guardian. And I am no Seedseer in your thrall, but my people did name me Warden, for I kept them safe. We heard and knew and felt and breathed the Green Word, not the lies of elementals, and the Word never promised protection, nor asked service. We needed only know our place, do our part. Know that I see you for what you are," and she was bellowing now, her words echoing through every corner of the Shroud, "and name you false prophet, name you deceiver! The world demands you be unmade, and through me, it shall be so!" Læraðr came down; branches whipped out, lashing at her, at Ysabet, grappling at her, driving her closer, driving her to one knee. But she made the world rise to her defence, the primal aspects that respected strength; the earth bowed to her and shielded her, vines lashed against the Guardian and drank deep of its sap. Evergreen leaves yellowed and fell all around, warden and guardian locked in primal conflict. Yet with every step in the physical world, Ysabet came closer to its presence in the world beyond, a thousand years of experience at the core of the Shroud. There was a presence here with a power far beyond her, and though it was confused and complacent and fearful, bloated and decadent... this was all that kept her from being subsumed into its core. Yet so close, she could see those flaws, and they gave her resolve. Gave her contempt. Both proved fine shields. But it would mean nothing if she could not deliver... the final blow... "YSABET!" The name sprang from two mouths, one Severine's, one Kan-E's, witnessing her struggle against the Guardian. The latter railed at her; Ysabet tuned her out. But the former unsheathed her blade and advanced-- -- but not on the guardian. But neither on Ysabet, for now, at last, Gleipnir pounced with a wounded, bestial roar, driving its claws into the Guardian, ripping away at its bark. Its poisons seeped into the tree, and it keened, and lashed, and struck back-- -- and left an opening. Ysabet ripped herself clear of the vines, the barbs and thorns tearing through her flesh, but it was enough. Enough to drive her mace through the tree, shattering it to the core, a strike that burst with a thousand long-awaited winters and the killing frost that would give way to renewal. And Gleipnir, too, struck again and again, until a terrible silken sound cut through the rancour. A single blow from Severine drove through its spine, pinning the beast to the tree. The Guardian shuddered. Tremors beneath their feet-- the ground gave way, all around, as roots splintered. And the Shroud screamed in mourning, for it did not yet understand-- "What have you done?" There were tears in Kan-E's eyes. "What have you done?" Severine stamped on Gleipnir's back to drag her blade free, expecting a reprisal that never came. The thing seemed... almost tranquil, in truth, slumping against a dying tree. Severine dragged her blade back, but the second blow never came. It was not necessary. The beast was dust. Ysabet leaned heavily against a nearby, innocent tree, breathing hoarse and ragged. "I have done my part, Elder Seedseer." "You slew the Guardian Tree!" "I am pleased to say I played some significant part in that, yes." With some effort, she looked Kan-E in the eye. "You thought to bring ritual? You thought to plea for your lives? You would have wasted your time. Its thoughts were on the surface, there for the taking. It was consumed by fear. Useless to you; worse than useless! It caused this! And your peoples' complacency..." She shook her head. "Ach, I do not care to moralise. Ea-Sura is slain at last, and avenged besides, and you will learn in time to thank me for my part in it. But I will not force you to exile me, Kan-E. I will go." But when the next words came from Kan-E, as Ysabet panted and tried to regather herself, it was not to berate her. "But what do we do? With the Guardian fallen... ?" "Ha. That's easy enough. Slash the site clear, burn it, then..." Ysabet forced a smile. "Then bury a sapling in its stead. Place your faith in the Shroud to adapt... and in yourselves to adapt, besides."

It would take more than that. Far more than that. And Ysabet Sable never did return to Gridania, her status as pariah marked forever - or, at least, for the generation. That, at least, she was destined to outlive. But the sapling they planted would outlive her, in turn, growing strong as it fed off the charnel of the Guardian. And that was the way of things. The way it should be. It really was that simple.

#ffxiv #oc: ysabet sable

3 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FFXIVWrite Compilation (2021/22)

Every FF14Write post I made for 2021/22, compiled and ordered.

Art credit: @nerdlordholocron

Ysabet Sable (Mrdja Camoa) An elementalist far from home, determined to see the far corners of the world and write down her tales for posterity. While she can come across as callous, she desires meaningful connections. Treasures her airs of dignity and poise.

2.0 Lovely, Dark and Deep 2.0 Heady 2.55 Adroit 4.0 Destruct 5.0 Vainglory 5.0 Baleful 5.0 Aberrant 5.0 Avatar 5.0 Oneirophrenia 5.4 Soul 5.4 Miss the Boat 6.0 Onerous 6.0 Row 6.0 Promises to Keep 6.0 Warden Post-FF14 Cross Post-FF14 Bolt Post-FF14 Novel Post-FF14 Turn a Blind Eye Post-FF14 Pitch Post-FF14 Before I Sleep

Cwenthryth Sadler An Ala Mhigan immigrant on the streets of Ul’dah, Cwen says little and seems at times disconnected from the world. While initially her moral flexibility lent herself to work as gang muscle, she has found genuine meaning fighting for a cause beyond her next meal.

Pre-2.0 Crane Pre-2.0 Foster 2.0 Commend 2.0 Bow 2.55 Speculate 3.0 Fluster 3.0 Scale 4.0 Friable 4.0 Veracity 5.0 Silver Lining 5.5 Preaching to the Choir 6.0 Attrition

Severine de Belgrave A spare child of a Dzemael client family, Severine’s only duty was to serve Ishgard without disgracing her family name. She accomplished the first of these, but liked a drink and didn’t guard her tongue, leading to an informal exile in Eorzea.

3.0 Confluence 4.0 Thunderous 6.0 Anon 6.0 Hail Post-FF14 Illustrious

#ffxivwrite2022 #ffxivwrite #ffxiv #oc: ysabet sable #oc: cwenthryth sadler #OC: severine belgrave

4 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Vainglory

In which Ysabet Sable takes the fall.

"One of the many curiosities of the Flood - or, to give it its rather unwieldy full title, 'the Definitive Account of the Flood of Light that Threatened to Swallow the World Whole, and of its Ultimate Defeat' - is that Sable never chronicles in detail how she came to arrive in Norvrandt. She does describe a 'calling' that befalls one of her companions and in a later volume details what became of Hlessi, her future wife, to bring her there. Yet her first accounts of being in Norvrandt are in the 'Rak'tika Greatwood', in the process of reuniting with the, ah, equivalent to viera, where she spends hundreds of pages detailing the world in degree in lieu of any real sense of narrative; this is only picked up when her companions find her again. Now, it can be surmised that she must have ended in the Greatwood somehow, but how? Some extremists have posited that the entire book is fiction, but this seems deeply at odds with what is known of Sable's character - and these volumes tell us as much or more about her than they do about the events she hopes to capture - but my preferred theory has always been that her arrival was a time of chaos, and she simply did not have time to detail the events that befell her. Moreover, that they were too mundane to prove relevant to the account, once she did find the time to begin..."

Violet eyes flickered open. No. No, on second thought. Too bright. She'd give up, gather her thoughts awhile. The Calling. The Calling. Oh, it was fine and fascinating when it was happening to other people. But she... ? She had always thought she would have more time. Time to, for instance, stop it from ever happening. That would have been nice. Hm. Sensations. Bad ones. For instance, a twig digging into her bare breast. ... Why was her-- Where was she? Was she dead? What was going on? Reluctantly, she pried open her eyes. It was horribly bright. Throat, parched. Head, aching. Worst of hangovers. Couldn't be dead. She'd lead too virtuous a life to be beset by hangovers. Also, Thancred wasn't dead. Braindead, maybe. Who could tell the difference? Haa. She was alive enough to joke. "Oaghhe." She forced herself up. Leaves rustled underfoot. Felt good to be standing on ... wait, no. No, it didn't. It didn't feel right, didn't smell right. Where was this? Not Eorzea. Not Golmore, certainly. Somewhere... far beyond... ? And she was shorn of aether. It did not feel... cut off from her, to her relief. But if something attacked her, she would only have her skill at arms to count on. The arms she did not, presently, possess. ... She decided she would climb a tree and panic there instead of the forest floor. Yes. Better to have a vantage point. It was a good plan, and it would have worked if she was not so disoriented. For three, four steps, she sprung up the branches with an alacrity that belied her frame and age. Then she tried to throw up, fell out of the tree and broke her arm. It was not a good day.

Hours passed. Too many... strange. It should be nightfall, she wondered, should it not... ? Perhaps she was so disoriented she had simply lost track of the time. Yeah. That had to be it. When she found signs of civilisation, she pounced on them like a starving man on a loaf of bread. A road. A road! It was a risk, and she was tempted to wait until night fell (any minute now...) but her stomach growled between thoughts. She had a little magic to her, now. Coming back all too slowly. Enough that she might be able to protect herself... She needn't have worried. The place was empty, and picked nearly clean. Meticulous. But no cobwebs. They had not left in an undue hurry, and not too long ago. What had driven them out? And where had they gone? A few houses were likely emptied prior to that, though. She found some abandoned clothes. Made for shorter people. Shorter, starving people. But there was a dress loose enough to become an ill-fitting tunic, some rope she could force into a belt, boots... it would be enough to not look like a wild-eyed barbarian if she ever found a local. There were small mercies; not least, a well. Her thirst had crept up on her, but now water was in sight, she found it all-consuming. And after she had slaked it, she bolted a door shut with the last of her wards and passed out on a ratty old mattress, too tired to wait for the sun to set.

She woke up... who knew how much later? Past the dawn. Nine, ten hours perhaps, but it had felt like far fewer. Her hunger had woken her. Viera could last on an empty stomach longer than a hyur... by a day or two. Probably? She had never needed to put it to the test. Hers were a hardy people... in their own lands. Nothing to do but keep walking. Night did not fall. Night never fell. It could not have been so long. So why did it feel so long? Did time pass slower, here? Wherever 'here' was... ? But after countless hours, the stench of people assailed her. Living in squalor, in bulk. She followed it hungrily. Maybe, if luck supported her, they would be brigands who would try to kill her and she could murder them and see if her palate could force down human flesh. Ha, ha, ha... She collapsed on the outskirts.

Her eyes flicked open once more. She heard... voices. Why was it still so damn bright... ? "Finally awake," she heard. Then bustling, people crowding around her. "Oh, thank Vauthry!" "For what? We don't need more competition--" "Are you really, really sure she's not a sin eater?" "Sin eaters are beautiful. This thing's caked in mud and sweat. Oh, she's one of us, alright..." "Hush. We have to stick together." "D'you reckon she's come all the way from Fanow?" "Why not? Word's spread far." "She looks pretty well-fed. I reckon she got thrown off the tower. Shouldn't get a second chance..." Ysabet forced her voice into a piteous croak. "Shuuuut. Uuuuup." They did. Long enough for her to try and pick out a few faces. A young woman, who had certainly been comely before the emaciation kicked in and was still, really, only a long bath away from presentability, smiled encouragingly down at her. "Be of good cheer! You've made it. Just. Here, eat this." 'This' was disgusting. It tasted of chalk, and absent of all that was good. But it did, just about, sustain her... maybe it would give her the strength to find more food. There had been berries, before. She could have foraged. But she was not desperate enough... it was all... wrong... "Do you have a name?" asked the woman at last, giving up on her thanks. Right. Yeah. "Ys... yss'bt." Recognition? Any recognition? No. "Isbamet? Right, right. All the viis i've ever seen have those weird -met names. Mind, I've only ever seen two or three." The woman smiled at her encouragingly. Others did not seem so impressed by her disorientation. She forced herself to nod, and at least seem like she had herself together. "Yes. Ysa...met. Is my name. Like the other viis. Which I am." "Of course," said the woman. "Where did you come from?" Ysabet blinked at her stupidly. "From Fanow, or--" "Yes," she said immediately. "There. Isamet Fanow is my name. My head hurts. Thank you for taking me in. How long was I out?" "Three, perhaps four hours." Then why was it so damn... ? No. If they were not worried, she could not show her hand by being worried. Perfectly normal. The sun was in the sky forever. "I understand. Yes. Well, it is good I have made it here, to my destination." She looked around. "Just to be clear, ah... just to be certain. Where are we?"

Nine days. Nine days of sitting outside the city, cooling her heels. Getting her strength back, she told herself. But it was clear that the city was the place to be. Outside the city was terrible. Entering the city was only barely worth the trouble of being outside the city. But it was very much worth the trouble. After all, the world was ending. Eh? She pieced her circumstances together, bit by bit. The portents were not good. The sun did not set. The land was diseased. And the damn chalk-bread, that... was good for barter, at least. The refugees certainly couldn't seem to get enough of it. She ate enough to live. When the guards asked her her trade, she said she was a writer. It did not feel prudent to reveal the full extent of her magnificence. Not just yet. Only when she was in would she built her strength. There she could, at last, spread her wings...

"Isamet?" Dutifully, Ysabet bounded forward as her master yawned her name. Oh, how she hated her! Oh, how she hated her shrewish, vapid friends! But it would all be worth it. She was getting closer to the heart of power, this... 'Vauthry' they all heard about. In hushed whispers and reverent tones alike; fear and love, a potent mixture. She would get to the bottom of this, yet... But for now that meant smiling like an idiot as her master paraded her in front of her soft-boned friends... "This is Isamet," she repeated unnecessarily. "A viis, you know." "Oh, how droll!" "Yes, that's just what my Stol said! Oh, and will you look at her little ears..." "Oh my! So droll!" Ysabet tried to think of how clean she was. Think of the food in her belly, the warmth of the hearth... "Oh, but Isamet, dear, would you mind brightening up a bit? It's quite putting me off my fifth course." Ysabet smiled. Incisors gleamed. The fifth course could now continue. Clink. Gura-Prel's teeth scraped against the spoon. "Isamet here," she said, mouth full of food, "she can read. And write! Imagine, a viis - and one of the, you know, the savage ones from Fanow - able to read and write!" A friend smacked her wet lips. "That is so droll." Ysabet stared dutifully at the wall. "Do you suppose..." A second friend slurped on his food, and did not deign to swallow his Godsdamned food before continuing to speak, spraying food across the table, "D'you suppose she knows any folk songs? From her people? I'm sure they are very merry over there." "Oh, that's right!" Gura-Prel brightened up. "A merry, simple folk, eh? Isn't that so, Isamet?" "It is often mistaken for--" She bit her tongue. "It's. Others have made. The assessment is--" "Oh, dear," said the final friend, chortling heartily even as she slurped on her wine and oh, oh how dearly Ysabet wished she had not been born with the curse of hearing. "She really tries to talk like a civilised person, bless her." Gura-Prel felt the need to defend her investment. "It's not like that. She can be very articulate." "Mmmmm." Slurp. By the Green Word, was she licking the dregs from the damn goblet?! "Honestly, Gura, I fear this will end up like the last one." "Oh. Do you think so? No, I quite like this one." "Maybe too much," opined the male. "You could afford to feed her a little less. She looks a trifle spoiled, and I like a hungry look in my servants, don't you? It keeps them from being complacent." "Oh, she came that way!" said Gura. "Did she? That's very droll," said the woman who said everything was droll. She was the one. In Ysabet's increasingly creative power fantasies of murdering Eulmore, she was the first one to die. Four chocobos would tear her apart, drag pieces of her to every corner of the world, so that she could never say the word 'droll' again... "She isn't really that impressive, Gura. The Blois got in a viis only the other week, you know." Leaning closer, he said, "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were following trend-setters." "Why, Pelo!" "But fortunately, I do know you better! So how's about one of those folk songs, eh? Or dance? Do you think she dances, Gura?" "Do you, Isamet? Do you dance?" Ysabet's smile was more brittle than glass under a rock. "I love to dance. I love dancing more than anything in the world except serving you, master." "Ah, I knew it." The male smacked his lips. "These simple tribals, they really can't resist a good old shake, eh?" "Well then," said Gura, gamely, "let's give it a shot!"

Half an hour later, the tea party had concluded. Thirty-five minutes later, Ysabet's voice could be heard wailing through Eulmore's vast halls. "No! No! I did everything you asked for! I'm the most literate person in the world! I DID THE STUPID DANCE! You don't want to do this! LetgoletgoletGO!" People lifted their heads, for just a moment. Ah. Nothing of importance. Just seemed someone had lost her chance, but there were always plenty waiting to take her place. Unusual, though, thought the few in line of sight of proceedings. Most did not take six guards to subdue. Ysabet did not see a point in starting a killing spree. Yet. But that did not mean she was going to go quietly, thrashing and kicking at her escorts. "Idiots idiots IDIOTS!" she screamed. "I put up with your vapid friends for THIS?" "Oh, please, Isamet, you're making a scene," pleaded Gura. "I will stop making a scene if yoU TELL THEM TO LET GO OF ME!" "Oh, we will," muttered a guard, chuckling. His mates chuckled with him, with the imbecility of people who lacked imagination enough to have more than one joke. It was rarely a good joke. "They're just going to escort you out of the city, darling, there's really nothing to worry about," soothed Gura. And... yes. Wait. She was right. This wasn't the way to the jail. She relaxed long enough to be dragged a considerable distance. Then she realised she wasn't being taken to the front gates, either. But by then, it was too late and she was on the precipice, surrounded by armed men, and rumours she had heard about and assumed were imaginative metaphors suddenly flooded back to her... Gura smiled apologetically at her. "So sorry it didn't work out." Ysabet glowered back. "I hate you with all my hate." And then the gates behind her opened, and the boot pressed into her midriff and her heels gave way and now, at last, she was flying...

"... the strongest evidence for my theory actually emerges from a different primary source of the era, who spoke to Sable some years later about her time in Norvrandt. According to this account, Sable said that her greatest achievement in Norvrandt was 'not burning Eulmore to the ground and killing everyone inside', which does to me suggest some hidden encounter prior to the Fanow entries..."

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable #sometimes you just need to keep her humble

3 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Before I Sleep

Peace.

Hlessi is @nerdlordholocron

Every day, Ysabet Sable tended to the grove. It had needed more care than ever, since her return. It had been a long time, now. Ganzorig had left, produced children who, themselves, had submitted themselves to her teaching. They too had left. They, too, had children. In every sense Ysabet Sable lived in the fullness of time. And yet, stubbornly, she remained. Though the morning rituals grew more and more taxing on her. She was the warden of this place. It was her duty. Onto pleasure. She shambled through the halls. Not quickly, nor with the determined stride of her youth. Haste was not seemly for one with a mane so grey, while the years had bleached the flaxen yellow from her hair. She had grown stout, then squat, then - seemingly overnight - lean and stretched over her frame. Her strength had gone, and she could not stand too long, anymore. The last thing to go would be her eyes. The intensity of that stare remained strong. Strong enough to trick their subjects into thinking she was not squinting. But she could still pick through old tomes in her forbidden section, left untouched in this infinite library. She plucked out another from the shelves, almost at random - all here were new to her, not yet vetted, she had learned hard lessons from letting her students spelunk as they wished - her cracked nails finding purchase, dragging it out. Slowly. Even this took effort. She opened it, leaning against the shelves as her eyes flicked through the words, fingers very slightly trembling as they reached for every new page. She smirked, as the gist became clear to her. No dark magic, here. Ancient magic, certainly. Only in the sense its fundamentals were outdated, disproven. The only threat here tha-- The only-- Here, the only threat here that any-- Here that anyone would take it-- One would-- ! The book clattered to the floor. Bouncing once, on the edges of the hard cover, before sprawling open, pages bent at odd angles.

Her eyes flickered open. Her senses laid their reports at the door. It was no darker than it had been, so it cannot have been too long - or had it been that long? No. Someone would have checked on her. They were checking on her more, these days. But nobody could enter this section... unless they forced it. They would need to be really sure. Her forehead was slick. The floor was cold. She wanted to throw up. She did not want to move. Better to be carried. No! Then everyone would know her weakness. What? She was not weak. She could get up on her own. That aching sound? Her hip and shoulder. Bruised. Had they hit the bookshelves on her way down? Forward. She had fallen forward. Sight: she could see the book. Mangled. That could not stand. She forced herself onto her knees, holding both hands flat to the floor as she panted, tried not to look at the blood continuing to pool underneath her. Drip, drip, drip, down from her forehead. It stank of iron. In time she took the next leap. Got back on her feet, and stooped down just long enough to heave the book up, examine the damage. Not good. The creases were set like that forever. She tsked, and laid it on a nearby table. She felt a terrible thirst. Now to get out of here. No! First, to look presentable. But when she put her finger to her head, tried the simplest of healing cantrips, she found her well empty. To push it through would do more damage than it would fix. So... then... what? To sulk here, forever? To die, alone? She did not want to die. She tried to spit into her hand, but her mouth was too dry. Reluctantly, then, she wiped her forehead clean with the book's appendix. It scraped like sandpaper against her brittle skin, but it was preferable to the thought of going out looking like... this. She shambled out into the harsh light, made it to the sanctity of her bedroom. A few people noticed her, but nobody saw anything out of the ordinary. She told herself that, anyway. Water helped. And rest. She slumped at her desk, waiting for Hlessi, a natural nomad who had stayed remarkably close over the past few years. Perhaps she wanted to be ready for this eventuality. Perhaps she, too, was simply getting old; fifteen years Ysabet's junior, but raw-boned, brittle. "Hlessi," Ysabet told her, that night, "we should get our affairs in order, here. I wish to see Inle. You always said... your people would allow you to return, did they not?" The meaning was understood. The end was near. It was right and just to die on viera lands.

Ysabet did not do her rounds, the next morning. She lay in bed, getting her strength back. And it was returning. The day after that, her preparations began. She sent a message to the steppe to call on Zaya, Ganzorig's daughter, and in the interim spoke with Yenve, once of Paharo. A steady and resolute Veena - it was a time to put aside old prejudices - who remained firmly in touch with her peoples' ways of knowing and being, while never looking back to the forests with yearning. She would be the new elder of this place, and help guide pilgrims until it was her time to pass on the torch. She accepted it as the honour Ysabet hoped she would, showing no emotion but determined stoicism. Zaya arrived, and Ysabet spent a month with her, showing her the duty. What it meant to keep the grove, and by extension, maintain the wellbeing of Dravania. "You are no mere warden," she said, "but a custodian of the land. Pass on what you can, to whomever you see fit. You are in every way my equal, and hold my trust." There were tears, that time. Zaya had only recently become a mother. Perhaps sentimentality was to be expected. Yet still there was more to do. Reaching out to Idyllshire, communicating the shift. Writing the last few letters to make the last of her influence felt. Days, then weeks were lost to administration. There always felt something more to bog her down, one more... excuse, not to go and face her end of days. So long as she was here in that seat, it felt as though she could go on forever... At last, Hlessi said, not unkindly, "If we are to leave, the sooner, the better. It would be a hard travel to make in winter." Her meaning, too, was understood. They had to leave. While there was still time. They set out the next day.

Twelve months had passed, and Inle was still... unsure of what to make of the one who had returned. Then again, had the commune ever known what to make of her, before her departure? It was good to see her again, though as ever there was that uncertainty, the feeling that to reach a hand to her was to grasp at spirits. The other one was arguably less curious. A foreigner to this place. She called herself Mrdja, of Camoa, a larger commune. Not unknown to those of Inle, but with little reason to deal with one another. She was too frail to work, but brought a vast wealth of knowledge. And children seemed to like her. Her contributions were noted. The two were inseparable, and treated each other in such a way that suggested they had been separated quite often; amicably, but often. Now was time to cherish every moment with one another. The end was, after all, in sight. And the winter twisted the final knife. Two more months passed. There were no more falls. She simply moved less and less, slowing down gradually, retreating inwards until the last time she crawled into her bed, knowing she would not leave it. Even still, she lingered quite comfortably for a time. Hlessi did not leave her side. They could always find something new to talk about. After... after... "A hundred and seventy-three years together," she croaked softly. The first words she had said in hours. This was the fourth night, under the covers. It would be soon, now. But her chest still rose and fell, and she could still meet Hlessi's eyes. "They were kind to us both," said Hlessi softly. "I know you yearn to wander." Ysabet's smile was crooked. "You have your own... last journey to make, eh?" It was a mercy on them both that Ysabet was the first. Parting would have been too painful, under Hlessi's terms. "At least this way," Ysabet murmured, "I get to be the selfish one, hm." Her eyelids were so heavy. But she could never tire of looking at Hlessi. Not even after... "A hundred... however many years." "The number does not matter." Hlessi pressed her hands around Ysabet's. "The time we had together will have to be enough. And it was. A beautiful thing, complete." Ysabet nodded. "I would like to think... the same, our lives? As, who we were? Hah... !" She coughed, feebly. "Never stopped. Never stopped wanting... one more day..." "It will have to be enough," Hlessi repeated, with a sad smile. "And it should be. Your soul was a magnificent thing. You shaped the world, my love. Such a burden to bear. There will be peace, for you. Waiting, one step further into the night." "Peace..." Ysabet took a soft, shuddering breath. "Yes. That... . . ." Slowly, her hand slipped from Hlessi's grasp and lolled at the side of the bed, knuckles scraping against the floor.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable #that was surprisingly hard to get through.

4 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Pitch

In which Ysabet Sable paints it black.

They had made good time since Ishgard. Ganzorig had to wonder at the point. The Grove had waited three years since Ysabet's flight; could it not wait hours longer? He made the mistake of bringing it up to her. The old viera chuckled, as she usually did when she had an excuse to keep talking. "Word may still outpace us. Now we have committed to arriving in this gloomy place, and to what end... ? She will know what my coming heralds, boy." "Her doom?" It seemed her type of dramatic flourish. But he had missed the mark, this time. She scoffed. "Her salvation, boy. If I am-- we are strong enough for the trial ahead. Though of course, she will not take it willingly." She pointed great Lairathr towards the setting sun. "I make it a day from the Grove, at such a pace. We'll arrive at twilight. Either we will reach her at her weakest, or..." Ganzorig did not like the way she trailed off. He had to tear at the bandage. "Or?" "Or," said Ysabet, with a crooked smile, "we will know just how strong she has become."

Sleep did not come easy, that night. Ganzorig tossed, turned, gave up to go find his master. Who, precisely, had given her that title? They had both stepped so naturally into their roles. There was no point shying away from it. He found her sitting atop a rock in a cramped-looking lotus, her mace laid out across her lap. "My student," she said, unsurprised. "Sleep slipped your grasp too, eh? Come, sit by me." He did. "Not for want of trying." "Ah, that's the first mistake. But it was good of you to seek me out." Did she wink at him? "Your people always found I could numb the most manic child to sleep with a few stories." "Your stories are fascinating," he said, dutifully. "But perhaps I never told them so well as they deserved to be told." She looked out towards the distance. "I was never so warm as most of my companions. Your great ancestor, among them. Do not let the legends make you forget they lived, breathed, laughed, were occasionally ridiculous. I should hate to be the only one diminished, having to live up to reputation in the flesh." They sat in silence a moment. "What did you think of them?" Ganzorig asked, at last. "I grew fond of them. Eventually." She chuckled again, without mirth. "We 'savages' had to stand together, at times. I envy that they were able to stay in touch with country, with their people. Yet, they helped me during my own struggles with the same, when I do not think anyone else would have understood." She looked across at him with those bottomless violet eyes, expression suddenly serious. "I have only known you a short time, but... they would be proud, I think. And, I hope, would forgive me for the duty I must leave with you." Not a good sign. "What duty is that?" The old sorceress took a deep breath. "When she drove me from the vale, before, she left... another shard of light. Buried deep within, corrupting me. She knew, I suppose, from my chronicles, that I was close to... turning, utterly, to the light. Hm." She smiled, grimly. "I dream, sometimes, of the creature I would have become. Flawless in every facet, greater in strength even than the primals. Gleaming like marble..." Ganzorig shivered. It had little to do with the cold. He knew what to do, what to say. "If it comes to it, I'll kill you before I let that happen." "Good. And if you cannot, then run." She turned back towards him, dragging her eyes over him, appraising. "Find Hlessi, and tell her my fate. Your part will be done. Do you pledge this?" He nodded. What else could he do? "Good. Then let us rest, while we can. Now you know the worst of it, eh? That should bring you some measure of peace." Somehow, it did.

On they strode, the next day, across hills and bridges, through shattered, neglected groves, past the grand young city of Idyllshire. It did not take long for Ganzorig to notice what was ill, as they moved further and further southwest. It started as a feeling, something ... off. Then, the details: the birdsong was muted, the rushes quiet. And, though the Sun moved in the sky as the day wore on, it did not quite seem to grow so dark as it ought. "We have our answer, then," said Ysabet cryptically. It took him some time to trace that back to last night's conversation. Something approaching twilight had finally sprung upon them as they reached the river where Ysabet had made her stand against her student's return. Beyond it, more and more of the land grew grey-white, like bleached coral. And then, he saw them - perfect marble gargoyles, slinking just out of reach. Just out of striking range. So they thought. Ysabet moved fast, her mace coming down like a thunderclap. Two of the trees the beasts used for cover lashed down, crushed their backs, evaporated them to so much chalk-white ash. Ysabet stepped back briskly, scanning the horizon again, watched the others flee. Back to their master. "Will she come to us, do you think?" Ysabet gave it some thought, then nodded. "Night is our ally. She will want to nip this in the bud." To Ganzorig's amazement, she settled down on a rock and closed her eyes. "What?" he asked, at last. "So why bother stretching ourselves to give her what she wants?" She cracked open an eyelid. "You should get some sleep, yourself. Your rest is your strength, no? Besides, you will not miss the show, once it arrives." "Eh? I don't--" Ysabet made a quick gesture, and his eyes rolled up to his skull as he collapsed on the ground.

Footsteps awoke him. Not just one set. He bolted upright, and found that Ysabet had considerately placed him in a bush. What was the situation? The master sat with her crossed legs hanging off the rock, almost girlishly, giving the newcomers a disinterested look. Who were they? More of the gargoyles, eight or ten of them, hanging a respectful distance behind their master. Their... shepherd, perhaps, a small, unremarkable young miqo'te in a plain white robe, just as Ysabet had described. The moon had risen, but it seemed like dawn. "I knew," said U'Lodea. She did not sound as Ganzorig felt a mad wizard ought. Too plain, too clearly the rural Thanalan. "I did not know how long it would take, but I knew you would come back." "Well, here I am." Ysabet chuckled, soft and mirthless. "So now you can forget this foolishness, eh? Let me help you." "Oh, master. I never did care for your inane jokes." "Few have. It hasn't yet stopped me." "What of the boy, there?" U'Lodea angled her staff precisely, unerringly, in Ganzorig's direction. The au ra began to sweat. "Replaced me already, master?" "We shall see. I required a witness." "Oh?" U'Lodea raised an eyebrow. Ysabet hopped off her rock with a grunt, dusting the road off her robes before at last assuming a posture that might be called warlike. "I will not have it said that I did not give you a chance to surrender, before I destroyed you." Now U'Lodea laughed, covering her mouth primly. "So presumptuous, master! Is there no question in the matter?" Ysabet shook her head. "You have made your choices. However bitterly I regret them, I cannot change them." She levelled her mace. "Goodbye, Lodea." U'Lodea's face twisted with rage, and at last, Ganzorig saw her unmasked. "You are an old fool, and I--" But Ysabet struck the first blow, driving her back with a vicious killing sending. U'Lodea was forced on her heels, a great aegis of light shielding her from Ysabet's torment. The shepherd ordered on her sin eaters, but it was little respite. Ysabet was unmasked, now, and grew stronger with every stride. Around her, the bleached grass glowed verdant, seeming to shimmer. The sin eaters shied from it, and tried to run, too late, as nature swept back to reclaim it, reclaim them, sapped the marble from their forms and left them as fleshy husks of creatures that had once been, that could feed the soil. "No!" U'Lodea cried, and struck back. Ysabet caught the first and second lance of light in a wall of stone that rocketted up from the soil to protect her, but the third struck her through the shoulder. She screamed, and for a moment... ... a moment that stretched on, and on... ... and yet, she remained herself. Shuddering, clutching her mace with white knuckles. The next blow could not land. The fourth skimmed wide, but now Ysabet was trapped on the defensive. She could not stay there forever. Something would break her. All that she needed... Perhaps it was predatory instinct that saw Ganzorig break from cover, hurling bolts of fire from his spear. Perhaps it was ancestral inspiration. But U'Lodea broke off her assault just long enough. Just long enough to drive an orb of glistering light through his body, passing like a ghost and yet seeming to linger. Everything glowed, everything itched, everything-- But Ysabet had only needed a moment. Vines whipped up from the floor, and they had her. Each flowered and wilted in a mad flurry of age, growing wildly and splintering into more and more, each lashing their way around U'Lodea. She screamed and thrashed, and screamed again as they began to grow thorns. Biting her flesh, driving through her skin, into her eyes, as the vines crushed her utterly... and then she was gone, the most that could be said that she was in there, somewhere, perhaps dead, perhaps worse. But silent, mercifully silent and still. There was no time to stand and sway gently in the breeze, pondering her own magnificence. Ysabet dropped the mace and forced herself to run. Ganzorig knelt, twitching, vibrating. There was too much... motion, trapped within him. More than he could contain. More of everything than he could contain. And Ysabet realised, as he looked up to her with white eyes and tried to form those two desperate words, 'help me', that she could not. Not here.

She carried him for miles. The night, at last, began to fall. Gradually, as though only just relearning the habit. The light receded from Ysabet, unable to approach her. She would not acknowledge it. She would not acknowledge her own agony, nor her body praying for her to stop. It was not an option. Not until she reached the Grove. She found it more or less intact, its magic perhaps too great for U'Lodea's corruption to reach. No matter. She could study it later. She needed a stone slab to drape the au ra over, her notes to research, her reagants. But of course her people had fled. Not far, some of them. News spread. By the next day, near a dozen apprentices had returned from nearby territories. Most had not left since the incident, praying every day for Ysabet to return. Many viera came back, too. Somehow, they had known. None were safe. All were drafted into the initiative. It took the better part of that day, too, before it was ready. A hulking golem that could, at last, sap the light from him. She prayed her frantic notes, a century old by now, and her fragments of memory were enough. The golem placed its hand, almost solemnly, upon Ganzorig's breast. He breathed, still. Barely. And the golem began to glow. The clay trembled, shifted. Cracks opened. Fragments fell. Ysabet, drained utterly of power, could only watch as it... it... ... held. And Ganzorig's eyes opened. One white, a single perfect blemish to pay testament to his trial, but the other its native indigo. Through cracked lips, he asked, "Why are there so many people here, all of a sudden... ?" Of course, Ysabet would never admit that she had cried. But it did not matter. There were witnesses.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable

3 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Veracity

In which the Warriors of Light are confronted with alternative facts.

"And, behold! As the Warriors of Light did venture into the heart of the Garlean lair, an abominable mecha-primal did bar the path! Each of its three maws did open to reveal a dozen cannon, and each shoulder bristled with a score of guns! And with a vicious swing of its claw, it did lay about it, and scattered were the Warriors of Light! And lo, spake the Warriors of Light unto the MechaPrimal: 'Do you truly think you have the power within you to overcome us?' For, combining the power of their hearts--" "What?" The minstrel's hand paused on the strings. Did he hear dissent from the crowd? He looked around, and only allowed himself to see enraptured faces. "Combining the power of their hearts, as they did, the Warriors--" "No. That didn't happen." Eyes turned, now, to the burly woman hanging by the bar. A heavy, unstrung bow leaned on the counter by her side. And lo, did the minstrel realise: Oops. The woman shifted across to look at him, staring through him. Patiently, as though explaining to a child, she said, "That weird emotions stuff didn't happen. Gaius talked at us for ages." "What did he say?" someone from the crowd asked. The woman scratched the back of her neck. Then she shrugged. "Wasn't paying attention. Was looking for weak points in the armour. Wasn't a mechaprimal. Just a big glowy thing. Built kind of bad. It fell apart after a while." She looked back up at the minstrel. "If you're going to tell it," she said, with the gravity of someone eminently capable of breaking his neck, "tell it right."

"Yea, the chittering beetle-hordes of the Gnath did part like a chitinous sea! For they did know: their doom fell now 'pon them, as the sun crests the mountains to drive away the night! Yet, as the Warriors of Light descended, they did wonder: could the insects truly be giving the heart of their terrible lair over? Nay... what awaited them there was a thing terrible to behold: an unthinking behemoth, terrible in aspect! Five tongues slavered between the gaps of a thousand teeth, as eight-score beady eyes did level on the heroes! And it did fall upon them with a ravenous hunger, and would the lady at the back kindly cease her scoffing." The lady at the back did not cease her scoffing. Instead, she stood, shivering against the cold, and removed the fur shako keeping her from dying of exposure in Ishgard's eternal winter. Two flax-furred rabbit ears came free, and flicked with irritation, and the minstrel swallowed. Oh. "You used 'terrible' twice in one sentence," she said. "Ironic, perhaps, given it is how I would describe your performance. Have you no respect for the truth, little man?" "Um." He had plenty of respect for the truth. He also had a roof to keep over his head. "I-" "The primal Ravana," said surely, regrettably Ysabet Sable, as eyes turned to her, "took on an aspect far more knight than dragon. It was a noble creature, in its way. It sang--" "Beetles do not sing," said the minstrel, strangled. Ysabet glowered at him. "Has it stopped you? No, it was only in Ravana that I found the knightly conduct that I had been lead to believe this frigid hellhole..."

"Yet, as they reached the heart of the Ananta, they were met by the serpentine seductress: Lakshmi, Herself! And though each of the Warriors of Light saw the most beautiful woman they had ever seen, and the more lascivious of their number did find their hearts unwilling to draw steel, the creature was, i'truth, a being of terrors unthinkable! Two heads did she have, and eight arachnid eyes 'pon each! Four sabres did she wield, with which she carved out her necklace of severed heads, draped over her ninety-nine swollen breasts! For today would be a most rough wooing indeed!" The inn hooted and hollered. They were loving this. And one of them, one rather better-connected than the rest, nudged the Ishgardian knight to his left. "Is it true? Did it really go down like this?" Severine de Belgrave kept a straight face the only way she could: by raising her glass to her lips to conceal her smile, drowning it in wine as she nodded frantically. At last, she managed: "Yes. Um. Yeah, no, that's precisely how it happened."

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable #oc: severine belgrave #oc: cwenthryth sadler

3 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Turn a Blind Eye

In which Ysabet’s past catches up with her.

Ysabet dreamed ... The arrow skimmed into the grass, but trembling hands nocked another. The circling wolves bayed for blood, awaiting an opening that would surely come. They would not dare attack a humanoid, most days, but this was different. Something in the land was riling them up... Another shot flew wide. One wolf pounced, then another. The woman stepped back with a cry as one's jaws snapped around her bow and the other around her ankle, and the girl behind her screamed-- There was a flash of light. The pressure eased, the wolves turned to slink away, but already the vines were upon them, dragging them squealing and whining into the earth to be drowned by the soil. "You are safe," said the Librarian, because she did not know what to do with the crying woman, realising now how close to death she had come. The girl only looked at her. Watched warily, as though a pack of ferals presented less danger than she. The Librarian stepped forward, in green and grey robes that flowed like water around her. Hydrangeas grew beneath her every footstep. The great two-handed mace she bore, a metal orb at the centre of two twining staves harvested from worlds far beyond, seemed almost to thrum with energy. The Librarian swept it down, now, to press against the miqo'te woman's leg; she shied away from the touch, at first, but her wound began to knit itself back together. So, too, the other, smaller cuts found along the long road to Dravania. "You were unfortunate," said the LIbrarian. "The beasts were driven mad with rage. A hunting party from Idyllshire slew the rest of their pack, thinking little of it. They thought only of their own peace of mind..." She quivered with anger a moment, before relaxing again, looking over the curious travellers again. "Who are you? Why come so far?" The woman did not yet have her composure back, but the girl... the girl did not look away. No longer than fifteen, the Librarian judged. "I am U'Lodea; this is my mother, U'Shanha. Are the rumours true?" She smiled. "There are so many rumours. Which have you heard?"

Ysabet Sable lurched upright. But then, she thought sourly, she was not Ysabet Sable now. Ysabet Sable would not have put up with being holed up in the cheapest room on the boat, with a wooden slab for a bed. Veis Camoa did. But Veis Camoa still, it seemed, got haunted by Ysabet Sable's regrets. "Why do you bother going by Veis?" Ganzorig had asked her. "Surely you could get what you wanted if you simply unveiled yourself." Ysabet chuckled, mirthless. "Nobody expects anything of Veis. Ysabet Sable? She lived a long, long time ago. And if you know enough about my kin to know how long they live, you still know what Ysabet Sable looked like. More pertinently, what she did not look like." "And what is that?" he asked innocently. She fixed him with a gaze. "You are very diplomatic, Ganzorig. Certainly she is not a fat old crone, with weary eyes and a silver mane." "You're none of those things, either." Ysabet tried not to look overly pleased. She failed. "Ah, but I was beautiful once. I know I am still... myself, Ganzorig. Do not mistake this for a greater crisis of confidence." She smiled tightly. "But, almost everyone who knew my face is dead. So it is easier to travel as Veis. There are... fewer humiliations, that way."

Ysabet dreamed ... Ysabet unapologetically picked favourites, and Lodea earned that status quickly. Such a fast learner. Such an eager student. One could ask nothing more. She was unusual, in the Grove. Most students came as seekers of knowledge, first and foremost, scholars whose training happened to be in a form of magic that relied heavily on nature, but with a far firmer hand than Gridanian conjury would ever endorse. Yet Lodea had come specifically to help her people by becoming a true warden of nature, no mere green mage. Life in the heart of the desert was precarious, and she dreamed of her people living in tune with the land, not merely surviving it. Little wonder, then, that Ysabet was all too eager to groom her for a role not unlike that she, herself, was trained for. There was a knock at her door, and of course, when it was Lodea, Ysabet welcomed it. She looked up from her books with a smile. "What brings you here, so late into the night?" Twelve years at the Grove had done much to erode formality. Lodea did not return the smile. Her expression had nothing to it at all. She sat almost mechanically opposite Ysabet, not quite able to look into her eyes, and Ysabet knew something had happened. News from home, perhaps. Nothing to pry for. "I have questions," Lodea said at last. "About your travels." "Go ahead." One of her favourite subjects. She dried her quill and set it aside, looking across earnestly. But where could it be going, she wondered? "About Norvrandt. Your... voyage across worlds." Bittersweet memories. "Yes." "I have read your Chronicles. They are... true, are they not? Only they seem unbelievable." "They are," said Ysabet, quite stiffly. "Every word." "It seems unfathomable. A great all-consuming Light, leaving a cowering land that welcomed the Dark. I wonder," she said quickly, sensing the need to get to her point, "what form that took? Ysabet shifted forward in her chair. "It bleached and rotted everything it touched. The land beyond what lived was simply called, 'the Empty'; not a trace of life or soul remained. A plain as barren as blank paper, nothing more." "At an extreme, yes." Lodea's eyes were bright. "But what of the creatures infused by light? They retained their form?" "A form. Yes. Sometimes, even a beautiful one." Too many memories. Even now, decades later, it sometimes felt like she could feel the light's corruption within her. "They became a thing unrecognisable. All that seemed left in it was hunger." "When it overtook them completely," said Lodea, insistently. "What happened before that? To the people who were infected? Your Chronicles are vague on--" "They became slow. Pacified. Blank. There was nothing that could be done for them, besides making them comfortable before they died. Why do you ask, Lodea? What purpose can this possibly serve?" She was sharper than she intended to be, but these memories were best left buried deep. Lodea gave it some thought. Then she said, "Nothing, nothing." Ysabet doubted that. "I only sought to further my understanding of the Light, and see how else it could be marshalled against the darkness. But, I see now what your experience has taught you." Ysabet nodded, too relieved by backing down to question the oddly specific phrasing Lodea used. "The Light is only a tool used minimally, Lodea. We respect its force all the more for knowing what it is capable of, unopposed." Lodea nodded, rose from her seat, and left without another word. Ysabet had thought that was an end of it. What had she said wrong? How could she have averted that which came to pass?

A boot hammered at the door. Ysabet groaned and dragged herself to her feet. It was not so difficult to find meek old Veis, this time. She had meant to spend this time being useful, teaching, but the exhaustion of the sail had turned her brain to mush. There was room for nothing but sleeping and, more often, failing to sleep. "We've reached Ishgard," said the sailor, muffled by the thick wooden door. "Captain wants all passengers out, now. We've cargo to take on." "I understand." Ganzorig answered for them both. It did not look as though he had slept; he did not quite look alert, and swayed slightly. "Are you alright, master?" "Everything aches." Which sounded enough like a yes for Ganzorig to guide her towards the surface. Her ears scraped against the door-frame as she hunched under it. Ignominy after ignominy! She cursed her fate before the blinding sunlight washed over her, annihilating all else. Old reflexes stopped her staggering off the pier and into the sea, at the very least. "Is it always this cold?" Ysabet laughed, mirthlessly. "For Ishgard, this is warm. Believe me." "Maybe for you..." She shifted out of her cloak and handed it to him. Immediately, of course, she regretted it. The cold cut straight through her. But it was better to have a thin velvet line of fur than scales, here. "Dravania is more temperate, you'll be relieved to know. We'd best make our way to a warm hearth. Get a proper meal and a real bed, eh? And a floor that isn't shifting." "I thought we'd be on the road already," said Ganzorig, failing to conceal his relief. "You got enough sleep for us both, I'd have thought." "Hah. That wasn't sleep, boy. That was passing out."

Ysabet dreamed ... Premonition. A gift of the Echo. Sitting upright in bed at an ungodly hour, hand instinctively reaching for her mace, Lairathr... It did not always just mean a bad dream. And if not, it meant time wasted if she did not prepare. She rolled over the empty space in her bed, which Hlessi drifted in and out from. It would be better if she were here now. Then again, it would always be better if Hlessi was there... for Ysabet. But Hlessi would not truly be Hlessi without the need to wander... No time to dwell on that. She shrugged into a robe and a heavy cloak, gently picked up her mace, and strode through the Grove. A small handful of students were awake, glancing her way as she passed. Viera pilgrims stopped their conversations to stare at her. She did not look back. Whatever it was that had stirred her, it drew close, now. Ysabet stepped out into the harsh winds of the plain, grimacing. She could... feel it, now. Not merely through the Echo, but the land, crying out at a great wrong. And in the distance, she could hear... ... laughter... ? A bright light flashed in the distance, like a passing comet. Ysabet pressed on in search of it. She could hear the more curious students following behind, pressing their faces against the windows. So long as they did not leave, there was no need to turn them back. Perhaps this was something they would need to see for themselves. And then she saw it. The light crested the hill, in the marble-white hand of U'Lodea Brill. Her manic eyes alighted on Ysabet. "I have done it! I found the way to tame this wild place, buried deep in those old tomes." "Tame?" Ysabet's eyes were focused on her hand. The flesh gave way, halfway up her wrist, to something that looked hewn from stone. She had seen it before. She prayed that... "To overcome the darkness with light! You knew the power, but you never had the will to use it! Look-- !" Two wolves crested the hill, then a cockatrice, then at last a drake. All moved slowly, yet... perfectly, as if at any moment one could stop and become a perfect gargoyle. The words came back to Ysabet. "You've... turned them into sin eaters." Her hands began to shake. "No! You wrote of creatures who only knew hunger and killed anything in their path! Look closer, master! They're... content, are they not? Pacified?" She remembered their look well. From the Inn, at Journey's Head. They did not know hunger, yet. They knew nothing at all. "They are something worse than dead, U'Lodea. You're too blinded by your own ego to understand." "My ego?!" U'Lorea snapped. "You said you would train me to protect my people! This is a selfless duty -- look what I have sacrificed!" She grasped her corrupted hand by the wrist. "But it would all be worth it, if my people could be safe!" "And you're too blind to see how the world cries out against this... this abomination! I did teach you, aye, but it was to a greater purpose than this!" "We do not all live centuries, master," said U'Lodea, coldly. "We were not all born hearing the Voice of the Wood. I cannot wait to learn your methods in the same manner you were taught. My people need me." "If they needed you, they would have been driven from the oasis long ago." Ysabet shook her head. "If this is all you think you have learned, then... then I am a poor teacher, indeed." "Give yourself more credit. You saw something in me. Let me ask questions, read tomes, conduct experiments you never would have tolerated from the rest." "Yes. I did." She had been a favourite. Another regrettable mistake, it seemed. "And it is time to make corrections." And U'Lodea saw, too late, the buildup of power. Ysabet did not move, merely leaned on her mace, but it was enough to unmake one wolf, turn it to dust, then the other. The drake reared up, and Ysabet at last moved, a flick of the wrist lancing a bolt of aether through where its heart had been, and it too dissipated to nothing. Perhaps something yet stirred in the cockatrice. It tried to flee. Ysabet destroyed it, too. Then she turned to U'Lodea, again the sorceress of old, majestic and terrible to behold, and stepped forward, a hand outstretched, the other around her mace. "Come with me. I will heal you. You must still learn--" There was a blinding light as U'Lodea lashed out, and the corruption burned into Ysabet's flesh. She let out a shout, pain and shock melding with her sorrow at this betrayal, her failure, and the voice inside her, the voice she had found in Norvrandt that had never truly left her, spoke again to beguile her... She was too strong for it, still. She cast it aside, saw U'Lodea staring, horrified, terrified. Was she more afraid of herself for being capable of these actions, or their consequences? Ysabet could not say. She had never, it seems, truly known her. She reached out again, but the girl ran into the night. She should have pursued. She should have... done what was necessary. But she did not have the heart, and simply watched her greatest failure go.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable

2 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Promises to Keep

In which Ysabet makes her stand.

Ysabet Sable's eyes were fixed on the endless sky. This was a truly barren land, too lifeless and hollow to even be cold. They had passed the realm of the Ea - Ysabet shuddered at the memory - but, after hours of scaling a road built on the bones of their comrades they found themselves... here. At the end of everything. Had life been scorched from the surface, or had nothing lived here to begin with? Nobody felt in the mood to lighten the mood with a joke. There weren't many left to joke at all. Urianger was dead. Y'shtola was dead. Thancred was dead. Cwenthryth was lost, and most likely dead. Estinien and Severine were dead. Some tried to stay positive. Ysabet merely tried to stay philosophical, but even that was a losing battle. The others had mostly gone to sleep. What else was there to do, in a place like this? Worse still, their destination remained further beyond. The machine-cult stranded here, boasting of their hollow conquests, engulfed most of the island. Ysabet had let the others speak with them. Listening was more than enough. Wretches who had lost everything in sight of perfection, and could see no value in the flesh, in life itself. They thought their vigil was vindication of their beliefs, and in this strange land, where belief carved open reality... And yet the cold metal would outlast the weak flesh, if it came to it. If they could not ascend higher, to the upper reaches beyond the drones, then they would be left to watch as Meteion got her wish. For once, she did not want to be noticed as she slipped away from the camp in the night.

She strode barefoot through the charcoal plains, shrouding herself in memories of Camoa. The feeling of fallen leaves under her heel brought her solace, but she let them guide her, as well. Life could not all be extinct. And if she could find the life, she could find the hope. The others needed that... This was no place to lie. She needed that. And she would find it, and through it, guide the rest. It did not take long to lose track of time. What did it matter, in a place like this? Nor could she be sure where she was, as it felt like every step she took placed down another mile of the plain ahead of her. It mattered not. She stayed disciplined, and did not think of the road behind her. Instead she thought of home, of love, of everything she fought for, and it gave her just enough to cling on, long enough to feel it. The faintest vibration of life. Ysabet redoubled her pace. Took long, loping strides. The constructs turned, seemed almost to stare, to at last grow alert. Some stood in her way. She demolished them with barely a thought. Now was not the time for delays. She sprouted a companion. The little blackbird began to taunt her. "Trying to run from your fate?" Ysabet laughed, a soft and ragged thing jostling up and down with her footsteps. "Think what you like." "Oh? Then why do I find you here, so far from your companions?" "There is something more important." "Life, in this barren land?" It seemed to chuckle. "You truly are arrogant. You think you are the first to search?" "You saw all you thought possible to see. I am untarnished by your pathetic nihilism." "You play the scholar well. Yet in your desperation, you chase dreams and wishes." Ysabet's pace began to slow. She was near, now. She could feel it, pulsing under her footsteps, calling to her. "It amuses you, I am sure. Yet the seed of life is real." "Stranded in a desert, it is only natural that you see an oasis. I linger only to watch you dig both hands into the mirage and pour sand into your mouth." "Perhaps." Ysabet had slowed to a halt, now. The seed was weak, buried beneath the scorched surface. It was real enough. She believed. "But sand can become water, in such a land as this." "But can it slake your thirst?" Ysabet smirked. "Shake your obsession with metaphor. You accuse me of arrogance? You could unmake me with a thought, but you would rather reason me into accepting annihilation? No!" Her words were as thunder, now. She began to grow with every step forward, as roots scythed through earth, vines grasping up to snake around her legs. "You watch us thrash about in this nightmare in search of novelty. And you will be satisfied! I will become the miracle that puts the lie to you!" The broken earth splintered under the force of her proclamation, as did her corporeal form. She had become a thing beyond her flesh, a monument to her own conviction. Whether the seed had been there mattered not, for what was now was a magnificent tree, lush with leaves and heavy with the fruit of an eternal spring, swaying gently in a faint breeze despite the vacuum of its surroundings. It reached to the heavens, cresting the rest of the Omicron husk-world, a bridge between hollow spaces. It was clear, now, that something lived on this barren world. Yet of Ysabet Sable, there was no trace, save a silken whisper in the wind.

#OC: ysabet sable #ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022

2 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Novel

In which Ysabet Sable finds ground she’d rather not retread.

Ysabet's bones ached. She was not decrepit. Approaching her two hundredth year, she looked a very graceful middle-age at most. It was undeniable that she had grown somewhat stout, with a couple of lines on her face and flecks of lighter grey on her charcoal-taupe hide, but while these were great causes of anguish for her vanity, almost everyone else she knew had been a skeleton for the past century. That considered, she was doing alright. But the years had taken their toll in other ways. Her body was not breaking down, but her bones had still suffered breaks of their own. One could still only be mauled by primals for so long. Now, even determined striding could be beyond her. It hurt her to admit she was tiring long before her student (when, precisely, had he become her student? Nevertheless, that was how she found herself thinking of him), and hurt her more to see him glancing at her with concern. At last, he asked, "Should we rest, master?" It was in a tone that suggested the statement really meant, 'you should rest, master'. "If you require it," said Ysabet stiffly. Ganzorig let the outrageous response fly past, slowing to a halt at a ridge. He sat there, looking out at the magnificent Ruby Sea stretched out before them, taking pains not to notice Ysabet's grunting as she folded up by his side. The gentle breeze rustled through their hair. Ganzorig thought about what Orn Khai had told him. Proud. Arrogant. Ornery. But ultimately, he had been urged to let her talk, and make it clear he would listen. "So. Boy." His name was Ganzorig. But patience was key. "Yes?" "How far have you travelled?" He shrugged. "I've been to Doma a few times." "Ahh." Did her weary eyes flash with a trace of mischief? "I remember the place fondly. Though it has changed greatly." "For the better?" Ysabet's mouth quirked. "Mm. It changed as cities do. Neither good or bad, merely natural and necessary. I remain fond of it, but returning was bittersweet." "I found your journals there, you know." "My chronicles," she corrected instinctively. A muscle memory built over the course of centuries. "Alright, your chronicles." "Did you buy them?" "Not at the prices they were going for, no." Ysabet looked pleased by that detail. "I was able to skim through a bit. Mostly I was curious about the Khagan." "Mmm. You're cut from a very different cloth." Ysabet hesitated, realising the faux pas. "Again, neither a good nor a bad thing. You're more level-headed, or I suppose, at least, have seemed it thus far." Perhaps he had an anarchic streak. She hoped it would not rear its head at an untimely moment. "You were close?" "Quite close." Ganzorig raised an eyebrow. "How close?" She waved him off. "Not so close as that. They made eyes at me once or twice, which was flattering. But, no, it became fairly clear they would do the same for almost any comely woman above a certain height. I cannot claim I was their closest companion, either. But we grew to understand each other, somewhat. I should like to think she was fond of me." "Guess I'm lucky I didn't buy the chronicles." "Hmph. I shouldn't just tell you everything. It would save me some trouble to buy you your own, when we get into town." "Do you have the money? If you were swapping tales for food on the steppe..." Ysabet frowned. "I offered what was most valuable, boy, to a people I respect. I have coin to spare for people who have not earned my time, which is far more valuable." Ganzorig decided that probably meant something like, 'no, she did not have the money.' "I'll get the rations," he said, in the interests of diplomacy. He set about the fire, igniting it with a puff of aether and pouring water over a pot full of dumplings. His positioning was careful, giving him a profile view of the sorceress as she looked over the sea. It was enough to pierce her facade of stoic calm, and see through to the core. Misty-eyed melancholy, the slight hunch of age and exhaustion. Her faded teal robe would had been considered finery, decades ago, but was hidden under her heavy grey cloak. Speaking of the past was a reminder of what she had once been, and how far she had fallen. She was too self-aware to take much solace in nostalgia. There were more questions. But the chronicles existed for a reason. "Why," he found himself asking as he returned with two wooden bowls billowing with steam, "did you write them in the first place?" "Mm?" She looked over - the facade was perfect now - and took up the bowl. "Ah. My little 'journals'." She shrugged. "It... changed, over time. As I did." "How so?" She frowned, though not from displeasure, as she thought back. "It was a long time ago. But I remember... I kept them from the start. I thought they would allow me a place to put my thoughts in order. It did help with that, yes. And the habit was ingrained by the time I... that it became clear I was involved in events larger than I. I knew someone was going to write on them. Then, I thought, let it be from someone who was there, doing these great deeds. So, they took on an eye to history." "I see." He did, sort of. "I had read histories that had come before. Often more revealing about the author than the time they wrote on. I thought there should be... a truth. Not one absolute. I have no doubt it is coloured in some way by my own biases," she said, though in a way that implied she was being charitable to entertain the notion she might be fallible, "but at least I was there. And I cared for the people there. My comrades. Friends, even." The words lingered. The facade cracked. Ganzorig thought he might do better prompting her in a safer direction, away from the dangers of nostalgia. "And before the chronicles?" Her guard snapped up. "I don't follow." "I mean, you said from 'the start'. Of your time in Eorzea?" "Yes." Too late to back down. "What about life before then?" Silence reigned for a few seconds, Ysabet staring right through him. Then, turning her attention back to the sea, she said, "Our rations shan't last us to Doma. We had best spend some time hunting and foraging. There ought to be enough to sustain ourselves off the land." Ganzorig was under no illusions. 'We' meant 'he'. He stood up with a sigh, regretfully shoving the rest of the dumplings into his mouth, and inclined his head towards the master as he left. It was the strangest thing. If he hadn't known better, he could have sworn she was close to tears.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable

4 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Row

In which Ysabet Sable has a nerve touched.

Hlessi belongs to @nerdlordholocron Strix belongs to @kotorswtor

This was not like the other times. It wasn't uncommon for Ysabet to clash with the locals and storm off. Or clash with anyone, really, and storm off. She was a creature inclined to high drama, sulking hard enough to make sure it could be felt in distant continents. She would take some time, less if she was humoured with attention or some more pressing crisis, and then she would return from her existential disappointment to the fold, just the same as ever. Her emotional tumult was tolerated so long as she could stay steady when it mattered. A charitable view might be that blowing off steam more liberally kept her from the full mental collapses that were the semi-regular state of many of her colleagues. But this was different.

Cwenthryth and Strix made for an odd partnership, if you hadn't grown up in Ul'dah. There, it was a symbol of middle-class or ganglord prosperity for a lalafell to keep a wall of highlander meat that could block out the sun. It wasn't quite what they had going, but a dynamic Cwenthryth, at least, was used to. In a snobbish, xenophobic city, it could be nice to have someone whose instinct was to squat down to speak on Strix's level. Cwenthryth's insight into the human character was limited, but she had a knack for reading reactions. This one did not take a knack. "Didn't go well, then." The mage shook her head. "Not that I expected anything different. That hard-head Fourchenault's an exemplar of these people, it's his children who are the outcasts. And even then, you remember how they started, no?" "Aye." "Still, I suppose we did what we could." The lalafell sighed. "We all tried to make our case, in our own words. It was clear enough that nothing would get through to them, though. I did not bother making my case long. You can imagine who did." "Aye." Cwenthryth was a good listener. Fortunately. Another sigh from the lalafell. It had more than a little pity in it. "The sad part was, it wasn't to puff herself up, or even just to vent her spleen. She really did think she could get through to them. Custom meant they could not remove her, but... some tried to shout her down, after a while. That did not dissuade her. She grew angrier, too. But she was one voice, and they could drown her out. And in the din, someone said... something--" "Something?" She dismissed it with a wave. "It barely matters. It didn't even matter to her, I don't think. It was the laughter that broke her. Since then, she's been holed up in her room." She rubbed her temple. "Listen, if she emerges, tell her to meet us at the library, won't you? We can't waste time here, especially now we know just how icy our reception is." Cwenthryth nodded, and watched Strix go towards the leafy library. Just wait for her to emerge. Simple enough. Hours passed. Severine wandered in, another deemed insufficiently academic / overly liable to throw a magocrat into the sea to attend. "Have you seen Ysabet? She's being asked after." Cwenthryth jabbed a thumb, figuring it wasn't her job to furnish Severine with context. All she said was, "She's brooding." "As ever." The knight sighed, and hammered at the door, in little mood for coddling. "You're needed at the library, Ysabet. Something about aether." She forgot precisely what it was, but in her experiences, the needs of sorcerers tended to be about aether somehow. But she did not welcome the attention, nor lash out against it. Her voice came somehow small and diminished. "Leave me alone to think." "What?" "Go. Just go." A pause, and the word came smaller than ever. "Please." Severine looked to Cwenthryth. Cwenthryth stared back. The knight shrugged, and walked off. The message had been delivered.

The sun had set. Ysabet had not come out to eat - understandable, in Sharlayan - nor to complain about the food, which was more usual. She simply sat, and mouldered. People had bigger concerns than massaging her ego. She would take care of herself and energe, as she always did. Nobody was quite sure when Hlessi drifted in, and nobody could be entirely sure it had happened at all. Ysabet did not even make a show of complaining. She sat on her bed, inert save for the careful claw turning pages in a weathered old tome. Hlessi stood awhile at the door. It was no hardship to watch Ysabet. But in time, she chided, "You're worrying people, Miri." A few obvious responses jostled for attention. Ysabet reached past them to find, instead, "I thought I was to admire these people." "Mm." "I thought I did. Scholars, keepers of knowledge... and they won't learn from it! What is the point in that? And they won't listen to anything that does not fit the narrative they want. Blind, wilfully blind. Ignorant." Ysabet sniffed. When Hlessi came over, slinking her arms around her midriff and settling her sharp chin effortlessly on the gentle slope of Ysabet's shoulder, there was no resistance. Neither could she sink into it, whole-heartedly. Eventually, Hlessi said, "This hurts you more than the Gridanians. Does it not?" Ysabet huffed. "The Gridanians... at least are humble. In a sense. They've been furnished with a thousand reasons for humility. They are true to their warped traditions. The Sharlayans? They claim to seek knowledge and free thought, but they are just as... they are worse than any of the rest. Blinded by their own fear. And when someone attempts to pull the scales from their eyes..." Gently, Hlessi's thumb massaged a circle across Ysabet's flank. The two of them fit well together, both in physique and temperament. "You thought them kindred spirits. Little wonder their approval mattered so much to you. Anger was fit for the Gridanians. But they could not truly instill doubt in you, could they?" Ysabet shook her head softly. Her earrings jangled. Hlessi lolled her head against Ysabet's flaxen cascade of hair. "They will learn. Or else, they were never truly worth your admiration. I know it is easier to think it than to feel, Miri. But try to let it settle into you. You are too great a thing to rise or fall on their judgement, no?" Gently, without doing too much to stir Hlessi from her perch, Ysabet shifted the book onto the bed, then turned at last to look seriously back into those bottomless pearl eyes. "I do not always feel it." "I know. The less you feel it, the more you say it. You have said it a lot, of late." Ysabet muttered an inelegant curse native to her dialect. "Am I so obvious?" "I have always read you well." More than a hint of mischief in that expression. "And you have always liked that in me." Idly, Ysabet reached around Hlessi's slim back, buried her fingers in hair. Her smile was tight. But she was, at last, smiling, and that was a start. "Stay with me, awhile?" "I will bring you food. Then, I stay." "Go in time. But linger awhile, no? Looking at you will nourish me." "You are ridiculous." Hlessi chuckled. But she did not take much convincing to stay, the pair locked in each others' gaze, locked in each others' arms. The day had been more chastening than she had thought possible, but she did not need to rebuild illusions. What she had here was more than enough to sustain her.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable #oc: cwenthryth sadler

4 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write22 - Attrition

In which they see each other through the storm.

Cwenthryth frowned. Black armour. White snow. Stupid. One thing to have spiked black shells for heavy infantry abroad. Not scouts, at home. They should know better. "What? What's wrong?" Severine hissed in her ear. Cwenthryth grimaced. "Nothing. It's just too easy." "You think there's a trap?" "No." She shifted onto a knee, nocked the first arrow, and took a deep breath. "I don't." The second shot was in the air by the time the first body fell. Severine was saying things. Cwenthryth blanked them out. It was easy enough. "It's done," she reported, when it was. "You're sure they're dead?" The viera was talking, now. She always talked. Stalking the scouts had been a rare moment of peace. Cwenthryth turned and stared at Ysabet. Eventually, she said, "Yes." The viera flicked an ear. "Then we'd best hide the bodies." "I know." Already, she had shouldered the bow and started her tentative path down the hillock. Damn the snow. She was far more sure-footed on dry land. "It would be unfortunate, after all, if--" "I know." She glanced back up the hill. "Do you think I don't? Stop talking." She set off again, hearing Severine chuckle as Ysabet stamped a foot in irritation. They followed, though. That was all she needed from them.

A sweep of the wrist from Ysabet, in the end, was all it took. Nothing so crass as hauling the bodies into a pit, when they could simply be covered over and left to feed the earth. The other two had trouble seeing it that way, but nobody wanted to dig in the snow, either. Severine tried to give Cwenthryth a meaningful look, but the marksman's focus was on the horizon. "It's done," said Ysabet wearily, stepping aside from the snow-cairn. "And none too soon," said Severine. "It's getting dark." Ysabet clicked her tongue. "No. This is done, but our work is not." She looked over at her comrades. "You can... you can't hear it, can you?" "What," said Cwenthryth, flatly. Ysabet closed her eyes. Her ear flicked again, dislodging some stray motes of snow. "One of their machines. A walker. You can-- I can hear it shake the earth with every step." "Our orders are clear," said Severine, with a sigh. They were here to secure the area in small groups, and that meant taking fights where they could. Better the picket line carry out night raids than let the full force of the legions amass by day. They all thought of the fire waiting for them at the camp. They were all fallible mortals. "Lead on, then," sighed Severine. "Faster we get moving, sooner we'll catch them."

They did not have to follow Ysabet's ear far, as it was not long before they saw the tracks beaten into the snow, long before the others managed to hear the belching of steam and smoke. Cwenthryth sighed. "Seven others." "Seven?" Severine scratched her neck. Odds they could handle, but not odds she liked. "One's trailing a leg." "Very reassuring," groused Ysabet. "No," said Cwenthryth. "It isn't." They followed the trail in silence, making good pace. Even Ysabet could lope at a determined, predatory pace, when her heart was set on it. The reason became clear. "It'll grow to a storm," she murmured. The other two did not ask for clarification. They simply walked faster. Dark as it was, they ended up smelling the clanking thing before they could clearly make the silhouette out. They were gaining on them. Slowly. "They should make camp. Slow down for us." Ysabet huffed. "They're pushing themselves hard, but you'd imagine they could still feel the cold..." "Maybe they know there's shelter ahead. An enemy camp." Severine looked to Cwenthryth. But what was she going to do, suggest they turn back? Besides, they'd faced worse odds than a score of Garleans, if it came to it... Cwenthryth just shrugged. "There's a ridge ahead. I'll get to it." "... And?" But she was already gone. Sighing, Severine unsheathed her blade, praying the steel would not glint in the night.

She slinked as close as she dared. Plenty of time to think. One dishonourable thought: convenient of Cwenthryth to take the path less likely to put her in the line of fire. Ysabet wasn't exactly champing at the bit to get stuck in, either. But, she had to acknowledge, that was not what they were there to do. Cwenthryth was good with a dagger or an axe, but a peerless archer. Ysabet could go toe-to-toe with all-comers with that two-handed mace she lugged around, but she was a sorceress first and foremost. Severine was there to forge the knight's path. And when the first man dropped with an arrow through the shoulder, she... forced herself to wait. Let them act confused, in their slightly mechanical way, before taking action. Another arrow flew, wide; it was answered by a scattered couple of gunshots. Their attention was focused, then. Focused in the wrong place. Now, Severine charged, choked down on a battle-cry to strike silent, carve down a straggler before anyone knew what was happening. Couldn't last. They knew where she was, now, standing in the centre of the clearing with a blood-drenched flamberge, whirling from soldier to soldier. One would make the mistake of driving at her first. She thought. They struck as one. One's stride was interrupted only by the arrow driving into her spine, but the other two forced her back into a clumsy defensive sweep. They continued to bear down with those cruel, heavy cleavers the Garleans favoured, and more came, sniffing around the edges, looking for a flank. She danced around a shot aimed for her legs, and saw the mech start to turn. Nothing for it but to lunge forward, driving into the cover her enemies represented, sweep them aside. It was not bloodless, but another lay dead at her feet. Vines cracked through the earth and snapped around her like whips. Severine risked a glance behind, saw Ysabet murmuring something under her breath, pausing only to brain a gunner with her mace. No time to savour a kill, the chukk-chukk-chukk of the mech's gun was firing, bullets carving a path through the rocks on Cwenthryth's ridge; they saw her go flying, landing cat-like on the ground. One soldier came to meet her and found a dagger in his neck. Severine looked around. More than seven. Easily more than seven. Had they met with relief, here? Seemed easier to believe than Cwenthryth getting the count wrong. She could scratch off another two with a couple decisive movements, anyway, clearing the field. By now the ambush was gone, they were simply fighting for themselves. Ysabet took the machina to herself, hurling three men aside with a gust of air from her sleeve, throwing curtains of rock before her to catch bullets meant for her, and with deceptive pace she was on it. Vines coiled around its leg, tearing it away to ground it, leaving a single hammering blow from the mace enough to smash it free, send the iron beast listing into the turf. That left Severine with the bulk of the men. She stepped back cautiously, warding off those coming for Cwenthryth, arm gashed but otherwise intact. They threw themselves forward, as if they already knew they were dead, simply wanted to make a mark on the enemy while they could. And they did. But as Severine lowered herself to one knee, grimacing and holding her guts in with a hand, she could content herself with being surrounded by those she had slain. There was no more movement in the valley, until Ysabet limped over. She had not escaped unscathed either, it appeared. "Alive," Severine reported. "More than seven," remarked Cwenthryth. Silence. "Zero now, suppose." Ysabet ignored her. "The storm's rising. No need to bury these, I shouldn't think." "We won't get back," said Cwenthryth, trudging to pick up her longbow, gingerly testing its integrity. "Need a shelter, then." "Got one," Severine gasped out. They looked to her, and she pointed. It was well-hidden, but an entrance to a cave, sheltered against the snow already pounding them. "Think we... saw where the reinforcements came from."

They hauled Severine to the cave. She did a credible job pretending her insides weren't tearing themselves apart, and the others did a credible job pretending to believe her. It was warmer, there. Not warm enough, but building a fire wasn't hard. Other than that, it was fairly spartan. Seemed like little more than a supply dump. Cwenthryth built a decent fireplace and lit it with a click of her finger - she was no mage, but shrugged when this earned her stares, saying only that Aeran had taught her a cantrip once - while Ysabet sat Severine on a hefty crate and fussed about her armour. "Got to be gone by dawn," said Cwenthryth, snooping around in the crates. "Yes, yes," muttered Ysabet. "Severine, help me with this, will you?" "Are you trying to unbuckle the faulds or fondle my backside?" Being impaled had frayed Severine's temper somewhat. "Don't flatter yourself." But they pulled the armour loose, between them, and tugged off her gambeson besides, drenched by blood and sleet. No time for decorum in the hands of a healer, who helped her to lie down on the crate and rested her hands on the wound, closed her eyes. The feeling of flesh knitting back together never got more pleasant, but it beat dying of exposure in the enemy heartland. Cwenthryth unstrung her longbow and laid it against a wall, before coming to crouch before the fire. "There's food," she reported. "We have food," said Severine, between groans. "For her, not you. She always complains about what we have. So, there's different." Cwenthryth shrugged. "What do the Garleans eat?" Ysabet patted Severine on the still-slick midriff and weaved her way over to the open crate. Another shrug. Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to impress Ysabet. With an indelicate sound, she rummaged around in her backpack. "The rations we have will do fine." Severine grunted and settled back onto a crate. They'd just ended a dozen lives or more, outside. Now, they were discussing the minutiae of field rations. Getting used to the wild swings between terrifying adrenaline and crippling ennui was the hardest part of war, she found.

Night fell, and something somehow darker still followed it. "A grim land," Ysabet observed. "I suppose, were I here, I might also think to build an empire abroad." "Mm," contributed Severine. "Invade somewhere with some sun." Ysabet yawned. She had ventured outside briefly, to place some sentry wards to her own satisfaction. Since their placement, there had not been a degree of tension in her, and the calm of her confidence was thankfully infectious. "Though not too much. I shouldn't like to find myself in Thavnair." "Heat's easier than cold," said Cwenthryth. It was an easy opinion to hold on a night like this. "You truly think so?" Severine raised an eyebrow. Ysabet must be bored to be looking for opinions from Cwenthryth. "You look like you overheat easy," said Cwenthryth. "Mm." Ysabet pawed at her eerily velveteen skin. "The layer of fur doesn't help." "Sure. There's that, too." "You have to look for insulation where you can find it," said Severine, philosophically. "We aren't getting it from these blankets, that's for damn sure." Cwenthryth levelled her stare on Severine, certain she was missing the point, but damned if she wasn't going to feel it out regardless. "I'm not going to grow fur." "Why not?" muttered Ysabet. "Their rations have." "In my early days learning the trade in Ishgard, after... the changes. It helped to hold someone close. Let you warm each other up." She took a moment to stare at the floor. "It... helped, if you had that level of trust in each other." It had generally been an if. But it had also generally been freezing, to a point that made you trust people. Cwenthryth's stare was unflinching. "You want me to hold you tonight." Maybe. Yes. It was damnably cold. "I would not object, if you chose to." Cwenthryth's eyes flicked to Ysabet. So did Severine's. Spend enough time in Garlemald and a great sorceress could so easily be relegated to the status of a weighted blanket. She did not, truly, expect Ysabet to sigh and say, "Alright, then. Gather closer."

They rode out the night and the storm, listening to each other breathe, feeling their heartbeats thrum. And at dawn, they were gone, hauling everything worth taking, leaving only the wreck of a warmachine behind half-buried under snow to suggest they were ever there.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable #oc: severine belgrave #oc: cwenthryth sadler #6.0

3 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14W22 - Miss the Boat

In which Ysabet Sable begins to appreciate the value of opening up.

Felicity is @kdrawssometimes ’.

Ysabet Sable had done what she needed to do. Saved the world, sure. The universe. Got out alive and uncorrupted. Said her farewells, and did what she had to... What she thought she had to do. But it had been true, what they said. She never really could go home, again. She always thought, in her arrogance, it would be different for her, somehow. That the world would bend for her. Had she not done enough? No. She had not. She could never. She was no longer viera. The enforcers on Camoa's fringes had been at pains to point this out to her, and her gut still stung from the arrow Kjva put there. The thought brought back the pain, brought her back to the present. She grimaced and rubbed her midriff gingerly. Where was she now... ? Ah. Yes. She'd come back as soon as she could to Limsa Lominsa. It was not home. She did not have a home. But she had lived there for a time. That would suffice, so long as there was a drink - a strong one - in hand. This was her third. Fourth? Fourth. Staring blankly into the middle distance, she didn't notice the familiar face - or, well, that wasn't quite hanging in her eyeline, but that was beside the point - until it had coughed once or twice in her direction. That brought her to the present. Just about. The click, click, click of rounded-off nails brought her eyes up to a smile. Ysabet supposed she said something intelligent, like "Eh... ?" "Ah, so you really are in the land of the living! I was getting worried there for a moment." Felicity swung herself into the seat across, steepling her hands under her chin. The first Eorzean Ysabet had ever met, and the captain of the ship that took her to these shores. "It's been far too long. I wasn't expecting to stumble into you in port, like this." Too long, indeed. For Felicity, two years; for Ysabet, closer to five. The sorceress roused herself to make conversation. "My work took me far." Felicity raised an eyebrow. "The rumours I heard were that you were stretched out on a bed at Revenant's Toll." "Ah, well. You'd be amazed the amount of god-slaying one can get up to, in dreams." She forced a tight smile. "I had hoped to find you earlier, myself." Felicity slipped a flask from her belt, unfastening the lid with her teeth as she kept remarkable focus on the viera. Ysabet wondered if she seemed off-balance or out of sorts. She did. "That so?" "I sought passage to Ivalice." Ysabet shrugged. "Then back. The endeavour was a mistake." "How's that?" Again, the twinge in her gut acted up. "You can never go home again, that's all." "Depends on the home, eh? Guess you'll need to find a new one." "Easier said than done, I fear." "It sounds like what you need, even so." Ysabet wrestled with that for a while. More than she was meant to. At last, she looked up with a crooked smile. "You didn't really come here to trade in philosophy with an old woman, did you?" No. She did not.

Muscle memory took them to a private room and left their clothes scattered across the floor. They left each other a tangle of limbs, slowly unpicked by gravity. Ysabet, in time, tried to roll off onto her back, but she could not muster the energy. Easier to surender to inertia and slump down, pressing her sharp cheekbone into Felicity's soft belly. It felt good to lie here. Listening to the cycling of her breath. She felt present in a way that had been hard to come by, in Norvrandt. She had not stepped across the void in full, but been torn from herself as little more than a ghost. She had been able to walk, and speak, and touch, and most critically, fight. She had consumed food, and felt something akin to hunger. But her body was locked stubbornly into some sort of stasis, and she never quite felt in tune with it, enduring years in a state of low-grade dissociation. No wonder, then, that she had wanted to go back to Camoa, where there was such connection between her and the land underfoot. She had always felt so in tune with herself and the world, there. And now... and here... No, she thought. Stop, she thought. Navel-gazing would get her nowhere. Sitting around and feeling sorry for oneself was for the lesser races. Everyone she knew, it seemed, had taken time to allow themselves to be overwhelmed by their circumstances. Shown it in different ways, perhaps. Aeran had shut down. Cwenthryth had simply vanished for a time, and returned when next of use. Yangir had, memorably, exploded. But not Ysabet. Ysabet was strong enough to cope with being ripped away from her life, dumped in a strange foreign world, and left in a narrowly-wrong parody of the grove she'd grown up in. Ysabet was strong enough to cope with years without her companions. And of course, strong enough to cope when they showed up at last, exhausted and with eyes only for the next step on the way to saving the world once again. After all, what had Ysabet done to be regarded with any warmth? Had she not always asserted her distance and superiority? Was this not what she wanted? So why, now, was she holding back tears? She did not belong. Not with the Scions, not with Norvrandt. She had always - always - known at the back of her mind that none of this was, truly, her place. She could always go home, if it ever got too much. Well, so much for that. But perhaps she could make this her home, still. It was not too late. She just had to start engaging with it. Perhaps with gifts. Perhaps, when given a clear invitation to speak on travels that had been painful to her, she should not blow them off. With effort, Ysabet crowbarred herself up, sweeping her legs across to sit. She reached over with a careful, elegant claw, and pulled stray strands of hair away from Felicity's eyes. "I'd like to tell..." Her words trailed away, as she heard the faint kitten-purr rumblings of a snore slip between Felicity's lips. A wry smile. Perhaps this was neither the time nor the place. But the thought was right. It felt right.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable

4 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14 Write ‘22 - Lovely, Dark and Deep

The first of three.

It was important to stay in touch. It was important to keep community. The three viera sat perched in the highest boughs of the canopy. Lanky, raw-boned Thrjs clutched onto the trunk with what passed for timidity among them. Short, wiry Kjva squatted, alert to danger, a sturdy recurve bow close to hand. Elegantly vespine Mrdja sprawled, idly shining an apple with a thumb between bites, her posture suggesting no twist of fate could be so cruel as to send her tumbling to the floor. This was a special place, and it was theirs. Decades to roam the woods had meant a bored crew of apprentices had been able to find the best view of the sunset, where the warm orange glow raked across the leaves as it peeked down underneath the hill-line. It was beautiful. A sight one could never tire of, shoulder to shoulder with the friends you had known for a lesser race's lifetime. And... yet. Thrjs giggled, seemingly at nothing, but Mrdja could sense it was in her direction. Mrdja looked over, askance. "What?" A mote of impatience bled through. She never liked being the butt of the joke. That was a task she much preferred to delegate. "You did it again." "Did what again?" "So that means I win, right, Kjva?" "It isn't fair," griped Kjva. "You're her mate. Of course you notice the little things." "Then why did you think you knew better, hm?" "What's this about?" Mrdja asked, head darting between the two. Thrjs gave her an indulgent smile. "You sighed again." "Again?" "You always do. These days. Whenever we come here," Thrjs' gesture was thoroughly unnecessary, "the moment the sun comes down the other side of the valley, you... 'ahhhh'." "Thrjs! That's obscene!" "Not like that! It's a sigh," insisted Thrjs, petulance starting to bleed in. "It's true," said Kjva. "As if you're looking for an answer." It was unusually profound, for Kjva. Both the others looked to her, and even she looked surprised at herself. "Answers?" repeated Thrjs. "What can be the question, if the answer is over the valley?" "I don't know," said Kjva, the philosopher. "There's nothing over there. Nothing worth knowing," said Thrjs. Mrdja smirked. "What?" Thrjs looked over. "It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself," said Mrdja. A mistake. Their eyes were back on her. "I," said Thrjs icily, "am not." "Really?" Surprise slipped into Mrdja's tone. "I mean... can you... you don't really believe that. In your heart of hearts. Do you?" "I do." Thrjs' heels were dug in, now. She was even forgetting that she was supposed to be skittish around these heights. Kjva looked anxiously between the two of them, wanting to be anywhere but between the two of them. "The mayflies are cruel and venal and irrelevant. And blind to their place in the world, too. Always striving. No matter what has to die." Mrdja could not hold her tongue. "You know them well, eh, salve-maker?" "I am a mere herbalist, yes. Which is why it's so ridiculous I'm having to talk sense into you, of all people!" Mrdja scoffed. "'Sense', you call this--" "Ljda will not live forever, Miri. Someday, you will become the custodian of these lands. Will you have us abandon them?" "Of course not!" "Or will you abandon us?" Mrdja flinched as if struck. But the moment of genuine pain that cut to the bone passed in a flash, replaced by that hollow mask of wounded dignity. Kjva extended what she thought was an olive branch. "There can be no question of that," she said. "You were chosen for a reason. Ljda's judgement cannot be questioned..." "I've put my duties aside long enough, for your sakes," snapped Mrdja. "But I shan't fritter more time away, here." "Miri, wait," said Thrjs, and extended a hand, but Mrdja was already gone, leaping elegantly down from branch to branch.

Wind rustled through the trees. Never quite the same, twice. If you listened - truly, listened - you could hear the subtle difference in the ways the winds could sweep through the leaves. You could find ways to distract yourself for centuries, here, where Mrdja's shoulders shook gently, and not all from the briskness of the breeze. She did not The newcomer's sardonic chuckle would have identified her before her arrival, but the Word had furnished Mrdja a thousand ways to discern Ljda without that. The tread of her feet on the forest floor, even the way the wind swept between her calves. "I thought I would find you here." "And so you have, Ljda." "We of the wood are all creatures of habit. And I was there when you were born." Ljda chuckled. "I would like to think I know you better than most, my apprentice." "Mm." "Since you discovered this clearing... this is where you have come, whenever you've thought you needed to be alone." Though that was not precisely the word. One could never be alone, in the grove. So long as one heard the Wood, and only outcasts could not. "And, most of the time," Ljda said, sitting by her unresisting apprentice's side on the broad grey stone, "you have been correct! And I have been thankful enough to be rid of you, from time to time. You get so insufferable when you are restless." The power of Mrdja's sulk could be felt in distant galaxies. "But," said Ljda, her slender hand resting on Mrdja's shoulder, "I do not think it is right for you. Now. There are some things you must hear." "I'm not going to abandon my duty," said Mrdja, her voice thick. "No?" If Mrdja had been less caught up in her own head, she'd have caught the amusement in Ljda's tone. But then, had she been less caught up in her own head, she'd scarcely have been Mrdja. "Thrjs must have come to see you. Didn't she?" "Oh, yes. Your partner was trembling throughout." Ljda chuckled softly. "She is very brave for one so skittish. A remarkable woman." "Hmph! She doesn't... she lacks imagination." "Does she?" "She thinks that it's sinful just to think of the lands beyond! But it can't be, can it? There is no harm in, in thinking. In looking, either! For if we were not meant to look, then the Wood would wall us in, would it not?" "It might. Then again, that may be crediting it too much." "Regardless. You must know I am devoted to the training you've given me." "Oh, yes. A brilliant student, Mrdja, that cannot be taken from you." "And I don't intend to squander it." "I know you'd never do that." "Then... then..." Mrdja wracked her brain. Now she was the one who seemed to lack imagination. "Then why are you here?" "Please, apprentice. Get your head out of your knees and look at me." Mrdja did, and saw that Ljda was smiling. She did not resist as her master reached across with a thumb and gently wiped away the moisture from her velvet cheeks. "Thrjs cried, too," she said, softly. "She worries that a woman she dearly loves is a bad viera. She fears that more than being without you." Mrdja had enough presence about her to look hurt. "Listen to me. You are many things, Mrdja. You are arrogant, self-centred and easily wounded by the slightest perceived cut. But you are not, and you can never be, a bad viera. I know you would suffer eternally in the confines of the village, doing your duty to the Wood and to your people." Mrdja nodded. The tears were starting to come back. "And you would suffer," repeated Ljda, softly. "Always looking to the horizon. Always wondering, 'what if'... ?" The idea of it cut to the bone. "I would do it," she said, raspily. "Because I must." "Hah! And there's the arrogance, again." Mrdja's tears were interrupted by confusion. She screwed her nose. "Eh?" she said at last, intelligently. "You are my chosen successor, yes. But do I look on the brink of death? I can train another. One better-suited to the task." "But that could take--" "Do I look on the brink of the veil, Mrdja? I will not be taken before it is my time. The Wood will not let me go, if it would truly be the end for this village. I know you would serve well, Mrdja, that is why I chose you. But you are not the only one who can. And while sometimes, yes, I may want to clip your ears, I could never, truly, wish you harm. And there could be no harm greater to you, I think, than to let you trap yourself here in the name of duty." At last, at long last, Mrdja allowed herself to hear what Ljda was truly saying. "You think I should... you really think I should go?" "I do." "Could I ever return? I know the law of the Wood and the Word, but--" "No." One word. Flat, cold, harder than the stone they sat on. "But. Travellers, they sometimes--" "On the fringes of the Wood, yes. And almost coming home is worse than never reaching it. You will understand, I'm sure, someday. Whether the hard way, or not." Mrdja shivered. That made it starker. That made it final. ... Yet, she had lived here more than eighty years already. What new was there, really, to bring her back? What kept her happy? And she found that, after all, it was not so difficult a choice. She needed only permission, not clarity. Slowly, Mrdja nodded. "Thrjs?" "She will... not understand. But she will recover. And, I think, find someone with whom she can be happier, herself. Someone whose eyes are not cast towards the horizon, hm?" Another nod. "Have strength," said Ljda. briskly. "Best be off tomorrow, before you lose your resolve. We can't have you breaking down in front of the whole village, can we?" "The whole... ?" Treacherous memory flooded back. She remembered the last to leave. The Wood had told her. The Wood had told them all. A branch had snapped, weakening the tree. As she had watched the outcast go, she remembered hating her. But she could not remember the name. "But you won't be forgotten," Ljda said. "Not by anyone who matters to you. The Wood's thrall over us is not so great a thing as that. So go, little Miri, and make yourself known."

Mrdja could feel the eyes on her as she walked. She had made it as far as the fringes of Camoa, slipping between the shadows of the wood, before she was caught. This was not true, not quite. Some had been stalking her from the start, those whose duty it was to patrol every inch of the land and to ensure its safety. And slowly, steadily, the scrutiny had grown. Mrdja made no attempt to acknowledge it, as she trod her lonely path. She pretended not to hear what they whispered under their breaths, murmurs piercing through the gradually softening Word of the Wood. With every step, the accusations grew stronger. After a while, new voices joined the chorus. Deeper, softer. Male, she realised, and wondered if her sire was among their number. The whispers of the Wood grew dimmer, and the murmurs of its stewards grew more distinct over the din. Some wondered if she sought out a man. Some proposed it was a duty on Ljda's behalf. Others bickered, some daring to whisper that, perhaps, she was not looking back, while others insisted that could never be the case. "After all," she caught Thrjs say, "she would never leave me behind." Mrdja bit hard on her lip and forced herself forward, so blinded by determination she did not even realise she had crossed the threshold. There was not the grand confrontation she had been been bracing for, however. It did not satisfy her sense of drama, but she did find herself relieved that nobody had... she framed it as, nobody had the spine to face her. Which was fortunate. She was not certain, if it came to it, she would have had the spine to leave. "It had to be done," she muttered to herself, as the last voices of the viera faded behind her. The whispers of the forest slipped away from her. She did not grasp at them, even as the last of them sloughed off, left her diminished, a duller, lesser creature than she had been. Even so, she did not look back. It was too late to make a difference. The world was quiet, now.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable

3 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write ‘22 - Onerous

In which Ysabet Sable remembers what passed for domestic bliss.

There was always a breaking point. You could always trace it back to somewhere. But it wasn't always the one you expected. Mrdja Camoa's breaking point came staring into the bowl of grey, brown, precious little texture and nonexistent flavour that passed for her beloved's cooking. Settling down with Thrjs had been the easy option. They'd known each other since they were leverets -- which didn't really narrow things down, since everyone in Camoa knew everyone else in Camoa and nobody else -- and along with another, Kjva, naturally banded together as a set of three children in a people that did not proliferate especially prolifically. Thrjs was trained as a salve-maker, Kjva as a hunter, and Mrdja taken under the wing of the grove-keeper, Ljda, groomed to become the next spiritual leader of the commune. Mrdja had a flight of fancy for Kjva, a fluttering of the heart that refused to go away. But Kjva's obliviousness to Mrdja's increasingly unsubtle advances did ultimately come to a head, when the hunter told Mrdja lovingly about how she had stumbled on a male in the outskirts of the woods, told Mrdja of their tryst in needless detail, failing to notice the gradual erosion of Mrdja's expression, culminating in the apprentice keeper striding off into the woods to sulk for a week. Ljda had to come out and drag her back by the ear the whole way. So Kjva and her man had their own leverets, and got to see each other most years. It was an arrangement that seemed to make them happy enough, to Mrdja's amazement. Where did that leave her? Well, Thrjs was... well, present, and eager, and comely enough. In some moments, Mrdja wondered if it was unfair. In some way this was settling, she knew. But she did not know what love felt like. Perhaps this was the extent of it, and it helped keep her grounded. But... ... there were limits. And she was looking at them, right now. "So," she said, to distract herself. "How... progresses your work? Darling?" "It is as it should be," said Thrjs, ever ready with that proper Camoa answer. "As it should be," sighed Mrdja wearily. "Do you take satisfaction in it?" "In a degree commensurate to any task well-performed, for the good of the commune." Mrdja looked at her for some time. "Yes," she said eventually. Thrjs smiled down at her in that special patronising way she had. "Does the food displease you, Miri?" "No," lied Mrdja. Thrjs threw her a sceptical look. Mrdja made a show of poking at the stew with her spoon, but could not hide her grimace when it made an alarming glooping sound. The salve-maker sat down opposite her, clasping Mrdja's long hands and staring deep into her intense, violet eyes. "It is meet and proper that food be plain, lest we grow too fond of it and take more from the land than we need." "We're part of the land, too," mumbled Mrdja. "You should leave the philosophy to the grove-keepers." "Well, what would you have me do?" Thrjs' patience frayed. "Let me cook." "No." Thrjs had a line in the sand. "I'm begging you--" "You went out to those shameless Dalmascan merchants and traded all their spices!" "Spices are good! They make food taste of... of anything!" "And then you dumped them all in the pot--" "Well, next time I'll--" "My tongue burned for weeks, Miri!" "Oh, so that's what this is? Punishment for... for over-enthusiasm? I wanted you to be happy!" "I'm not punishing you!" "Not punishment from you, punishment from the Gods!" "Oh, you are so dramatic!" "I'm dramatic?! You're telling me I'm dramatic while you roll your eyes back into your skull?!" "You know who isn't dramatic? Vtjn's not dramatic. Vtjn's got her head on straight! My mother tells me, ohh, you should settle down with a nice girl like Vtjn who doesn't have her head stuck in the clouds all the time--" "Oh, Vtjn's head is full of clouds!" "What does that even mean!!" "I'm saying she's stupid!!!" "You're stupid!!!!" It wasn't clear how it reached that point, but less than twenty minutes later they were having the best sex Mrdja had had in years. But even then it was mostly because Thrjs wasn't doing her usual 'dying starfish' impression. And Mrdja still went to sleep hungry that night. It was still a shock when she left the village within the year. But perhaps the signs had already been there.

A decade later, Ysabet Sable - traveller of worlds, savior of nations, supreme sorceress, and noticeably broader in the beam - stared at the loaf of sawdust, which seemed somehow to be staring back. Tiny air-bubbles and flaws were stitched across its surface, forming mangled constellations wherever she looked. She knew others were staring, too. Anticipating a reaction. It was no secret that Ysabet had grown accustomed to the good life in her time in Eorzea. She liked to eat, and eat well, and her picture of 'eating well' did not have room for this... 'archon' 'loaf'. She'd had a brush with it before when, unaccountably, some of her fellow Scions had requested it be made. She had taken one look at the ingredients, raised an eyebrow, made a face and a remark that it sounded like her wife's cooking, sweeping off into the wilderness as her companions reeled with the revelation she had apparently been married. But nobody had tried to make her eat it, then. Experimentally, she scraped a long nail across the top of it, and grimaced as it collected grist like chalkdust as it went. But she supposed it was there in front of her. She supposed she was a guest. She was not going to be... impolite. Somewhat gingerly, she picked it up, and broke off a segment in her teeth. Urp. It was a new experience, at least. And Ysabet always treasured new experiences. And she was wrong, before, comparing it to Thrjs' cooking, which had merely been aggressively bland and so oversodden in its own steam that it had crumpled in on itself under the pressure of being blown on. This was different. This tasted of ennui and disappointment. It was a symphony of almost-flavours in homeopathic quantities, just barely strong enough to cancel each other out, leaving only the fascinating sensation of feeling less hungry with absolutely no other feedback. Oh, no. Not quite. She could feel it sticking to the inside of her mouth, drier than sand and looking for the relative oasis of her palate. Fruitlessly, she tried to pry it loose with her tongue, but to no avail. It was only the first bite. The first of what threatened to be dozens. She could not bear it. "Excuse me," she said, and took her leave to go plunder the gardens for plump fruit, juicy grubs and, if it came to it, bark. Just not the loaf. Anything but the loaf. Well, perhaps she could be a little dramatic. But the circumstances warranted it.

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable

3 notes · View notes

pyrrhesia · 2 years ago

Text

FF14Write ‘22 - Cross

In which pride precedes the fall.

Close to a century ago, the keeper of the Ashleaf Grove had saved the world, and she wanted everyone to know it. There weren't many other survivors left of those tumultuous times. The master's race alone kept her going, seeming eternally young. She approached two hundred, if she was to be believed, and showed few signs of slowing. Perhaps she was not as spry as most of the others of her kin. Eternal youth could keep the wrinkles from your skin, but it couldn't undo the damage of decades tramping the world slaying Gods; no, those days were over, for Ashleaf, for the Librarian, for the Chronicler, for whatever of her names she chose to wear. But 'Ysabet Sable' was the one on the history books that she claimed to have written, and while those who could verify the account were gone, they had passed down to their children who had passed down to their own that she was who she claimed to be.

The Grove stemmed from a great library, sheltered under the canopy of a grand old tree, something more than an oak. Walk a few hours south from Idyllshire and it can't be missed. But it has the energy of a place where curious travellers and children go and never return from. The library was there long before the tree. Legends tell of it infested by monsters, its knowledge thought lost, but what is clear is that it was swept clean and put to purpose. Scholars could at last enter and rediscover what had fallen into obscurity. At first they came for the books, but later, word spread that the undying sorceress who maintained them would take on students. All one needed was the right talents, for sorcery and for flattering her considerable ego. A few even stayed on, those able to withstand her demands. The tree came afterwards. Why it exists, what precisely its purpose is... the viera keep that close to their chests. But it's what brought them there. They each left their homelands for their own reasons, most never able to return, but not all were able to push regrets aside. To find a place with some little of the old sylvan magic was a comfort. So it went, for cycles upon cycles. Scholars came for knowledge, pilgrims for apprenticeships, stray viera rogues for nostalgia. And though the Librarian seemed idle, the wilds around Idyllshire grew verdant, and flourished mysteriously free of fiends. Lifetimes passed, with that as the way of things. It seems now a golden age. Hard to believe it was just three years ago.

Her name was U'lodea Brill. It took a special sort to think they could master death, and she was very much that. She carried the shadow of her past with her at all times, and moreover the attitude that it made her special, as though it had cracked open her limits. The master of the Grove could hardly turn such a woman aside. She loved herself too much to despise arrogance in another. Indeed, perhaps she was charmed. Certainly, Brill was curious, and knew what she was curious for. Sable had, by her own accounts, walked worlds, even walked into the void. If any woman knew how to transcend death, it would surely be her. Sable, for her part, was flattered by questions, and by Brill's ability to rise to any challenge she was set. For eight years, Brill took up knowledge like a sponge took up water. Power followed. It took sixteen more for her to return. She had not yet found her answers, and the suspicions that Sable held them had festered into certainty, over time. If she did not have the answers - and the answers must have existed - then where else could they be? Perhaps. Perhaps. Nobody can truly say for sure what was in her mind, certainly not her legions of the dead. The phantom threat loomed over Idyllshire, some lives lost in the skirmishes. And word came south. A chill ran through the great library. Any threat over the region threatened the sanctity of the Grove. And those who had known Brill, the most brilliant of pupils, could imagine the threat she could pose. The old master rose to her feet, and retrieved the great mace Læraðr, the grand relic she bore from the old era, carved from the timber of another world far beyond. She told her charges to take flight towards grand Ishgard, and not to return until they heard news. Yet some would not go. Loyalty or curiosity kept them at her shoulder. "Come, then," she said. "But keep your distance. This fight is not yours, and I do not need your protection." But were she to fall-- ? "I will not fall."

They met by the river, within view of Idyllshire's walls. The miqo'te in a plain robe white as snow, taking a shepherd's affect, the viera in soft greens and greys that meshed into the landscape. Wherever her feet fell, hydrangeas grew and bloomed in full over the course of seconds. With Brill marched only death and decay. Brill asked again for the knowledge she sought, but she would not be made to beg. Sable shook her head. There were worlds far beyond their own where one could cheat death. But there was no true life there, either. Perhaps she let herself speak too long on the nature of death feeding life. Brill had prepared her first blow, and when she delivered it, smote the great sorceress with a searing bolt of pearl-white lightning. It seemed, for a moment, that she would not return to her feet. Yet she did, casting her smouldering cloak aside, and unleashed a cascade of sorcery; from the teachings of her own master in the forests of Camoa, from the forbidden tomes she had kept jealously from the outside world, from stars beyond the sky. The land itself rose up to aid her, sweeping aside the walking dead as they begun to cross the river in defence of their dread mistress. Yet Brill had not been idle. The river boiled and turned on Sable, sweeping over her. The dead broke through the mountain. And...

... a chilling gust of wind swept across the Steppe, and through the viera traveller sitting by the campfire. It brought her back to the present. She looked around, saw children sleeping all around. When had the sun set, exactly? She shrugged, and brought her tale to a close. "To put it short, complacency and rust brought the master low, and the apprentice drove her from the land. The pilgrims scattered to the winds, and so I find myself here." "I wanted to hear about the battle!" a remaining child whined, between yawns. The traveller smiled at her, only slightly strained. An elder chimed in. "Thank you for your tale. You're welcome to sleep here. It would not do to leave you exposed to the winds at night." "I appreciate that." "Sable used to come here herself, you know," said another voice. The traveller looked towards him, a quiet, attentive one caught somewhere between a boy and a man, and bright eyes that seemed oddly familiar. "I'm sure she did," said the traveller, wearily. "Perhaps I should feel flattered to walk in her footsteps." "She was a friend of my ancestor. The Khagan, Yangir." The traveller smiled again. Tightly. "What did you say your name was?" His look was knowing, his smile sly. The traveller wondered how. The traveller had not covered her tracks as subtly as she thought. It had bled through, evidently enough, even without any knowledge. Having that knowledge was all but cheating. "Mrdja." The woman sighed, and rose to her feet, grimacing at the clack of a hip. "Just Mrdja. An old woman, now, who should get some rest, eh?" "And what brought you here?" "Goodnight, child." She hoped that would be an end to it, but she knew it would not be. And perhaps, some small part of her welcomed it. After all, Ysabet, she chided herself as she tossed and turned under her blanket, you've spent quite long enough sulking...

#ffxiv #ffxivwrite2022 #OC: ysabet sable

5 notes · View notes