#oduyanga solongo

[lorspolairepeluche]

happy birthday to the epilogue of The Dawn Star, my stupidbeautiful terriful longfic about How Oday Got Over Their Awful Childhood And Dead Husband By Unwillingly Going Home, Falling In Love, Nearly Dying, Realizing They’re In Love, Kicking Their Brother-In-Law’s Ass, And Kissing Two Guys

which obviously I’m using as an excuse to plug it bc I still like it a lot

[lorspolairepeluche]

How it started:

How it's going:

Hey... hey anyone with wolships or other FFXIV ships (since I know not everyone's characters are WoL).

Show me your "How it started // How it's going" can be gpose, art, writing. I just want to know about your ffxiv ships. Can be OCxOC, OCxNPC, Polyships, multiships, or anything else I didn't account for.

[impossible-rat-babies]

oc-tober day 11 - oduyanga solongo (they/them) for @lorspolairepeluche !

[lorspolairepeluche]

Fun fact: Alphinaud and Alisaie are (legally) (on the Azim Steppe anyway) Oday's kids.

It was an impulse decision in the wake of Fourchenault's disowning of them at that meeting in Gridania to speak up and ask for a point of clarification -- not on Sharlayan's decision, but on Master Fourchenault's other, more personal reason for the meeting. "You are...relinquishing all familial claim to Alphinaud and Alisaie?"

"They are no longer part of my house."

"Indeed. Then I see no reason to not make their adoption into my family official, should they consent." They spared Fourchenault not another glance as they turned to the twins. "Do you?"

Alphinaud and Alisaie kind of just...stared for a second, but they both recognized that gleam in Oday's eye as the particular kind they got when sticking it to some uppity bastard for the sake of their loved ones. So they both nodded.

Oday nodded back, face never changing from a mild, diplomatic expression, and looked back to Fourchenault. "Then, Master Leveilleur, I must ask you to hasten your exit. You have insulted and demeaned beloved and respected members of the Solongo tribe, and as its khan, I cannot abide such behavior toward those in my care."

Fourchenault, as Fourchenault does, kept his composure, asking only a clipped, "...I beg your pardon?"

"I believe you heard me, ser." Oday folded their arms, never breaking eye contact. "You're upsetting my kids."

(This was supported and made slightly less ridiculous of a situation by literally all of the Warriors of Light leveling stares on Fourchenault that all had the same intense degree of our kids now in them.)

After the meeting, as they went to prepare to battle lunar primals, Oday said to the twins, apropos of nothing, "Let's get ice cream after."

They did, indeed, treat Alphie and Alisaie to ice cream, and Oday talked with them about their childhood for the first time. They explained that their mother disowned them too, in all but name, and they had an honest heart-to-heart about forging your own path when your parents turn their backs. Finding those who will support and care for you and whom you will support and care for in return, working through the grief of distance from those you looked up to. Oday had been through the lack of support and love from those who were supposed to care for them, and they were absolutely not going to let that happen to these two. And they assured Alphinaud and Alisaie: "That wasn't performative, that declaration. You are Solongo now, and I am honored to be a part of your family and to have you as part of mine. Beyond that, I'm your godsdamned friend. You know you can call on me when you need me, 'cause I love you. That hasn't changed. Never will. This just made it official. Made me honor-bound to love you. Easiest promise I've ever made."

It was less "official" than other Steppe adoptions, but the twins are legally, on the Steppe, Alphinaud Leveilleur Solongo and Alisaie Leveilleur Solongo, first children of the tribe and most beloved of Oduyanga Khan, and if Oday takes anything seriously in their life, it's found family. They made themself a steadfast support for Alphie and Alisaie, counsel (such as it was) and guardian.

[lorspolairepeluche]

For the FFXIV ask: 2, 3 and 24 for Oday!

2. How did they acquire their Echo?

Acquisition and activation of Oday's Echo were two different things. Acquisition was much the same as any other: a vision of a meteor shower that lit the sky on fire. Activation was...much more traumatic, given that it happened in delirium and fever after being whipped within an inch of their life by a man who had been entrusted with their well-being and who thought he was doing the right thing to put them on the right path! Oops.

3. Does their Echo function like it does in the MSQ? Or is there a twist to it?

The Echo itself functions much as in MSQ, though Oday and the other usual suspects can also share their own memories, or ones seen with the Echo, with each other and, after some practice, with others, even those who don't possess the Echo. It's the Blessing that's different, as it created an empathic bond between the six of them -- each can reach out to another, no matter the distance between, and they know when each other is in distress.

24. Does your WoL have any phobias? 

In the sense of "irrational fear," no. Oday's fears are all very reasonable, given the trauma both before and since becoming a Warrior of Light! People they care about dying! Helplessness! Suffocation! It's all perfectly understandable, if sometimes a little exaggerated.

wol asks

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question for ffxiv folks

answer in the tags: what's your WoL’s (or WsoL’s) battle tag/title? outside the tags that achievements get you and like named npcs will have titles over them in battle, e.g. "haurchefant of the silver fuller" or "magnai the older" or "aymeric the blue.” or one of the canon/ingame/achievement ones!! i’m Interested. tell me about hydaelyn’s favorite kids.

[lorspolairepeluche]

Word spreads in Gangos of a strange Ishgardian knight, here as a representative of both Eorzean and Eastern alliances. A certain Hrothgar gunbreaker, returned to Bozja to fight for his home, hears about this oddity and hurries to find this knight.

The knight is grey-skinned and white-haired, accompanying the hero of Eorzea and the khagan of the Azim Steppe. He has a bearing to him, proud and sharp, that the gunbreaker recognizes from a viscountess he knew long ago. “Pardon me. Are you Ser Thybaltier?”

All three of them turn to see this Hrothgar cutting a brief bow. Thybé is wary and can’t pin down exactly why, but he has a growing suspicion. “I am.”

The Hrothgar pauses before he introduces himself, eyes solely on Thybé. “My name is Amvros Ruzikasch. Do…do you know who I am?”

Thybé’s chest fills with so many emotions that it takes him a few seconds to say, “…Yes. You’re…my father.”

They get to know each other over the course of Bozja’s fight for freedom. Part of that bonding comes, of course, in the form of Amvros training Thybé (and, because they pick up quick that Thybé is unsure around his father, Oday) in the art of the gunblade. For once, Thybé becomes skillful quicker than Oday, though that’s partially because Oday isn’t there all the time. Amvros says approvingly that it’s Thybé’s Bozjan blood showing. Thybé isn’t so sure, but it’s still…nice, to have something in common with his father after so long not knowing each other.

Oday does what they can to help Thybé — they know he’s uncertain about his place in the rebellion, unsure of himself as a son of Bozja. (Said help includes wolf-whistling every time they see Thybé in new Bozjan armor. "HOTTTTT." "Oday please my father's right here." "AMVROS YOUR SON'S HOT." "ODAY PLEASE.") It helps that Amvros warms quickly to Oday — he thinks at first he’ll need to give the shovel talk, but he very quickly becomes the dad who leans over to his son and says in a not-so-quiet whisper, “I like this one. Keep ‘em.”

Thybé feels about ready to burst with pride when Amvros is named one of the Blades of Gunnhildr -- a reward for the skill and diligence his son inherited.

Their first real discord between father and son comes when Thybé finds other soldiers taking verbal potshots at Misija and comes up behind them to ask, "the hell's going on here.” When Marsak is explaining to Oday (and Ressaunt probably) about the class stratification in pre-empire Bozja, Thybé calls him on even obliquely using it as an excuse for the soldiers’ behavior. Thybé knows what it's like to be the soldier the others look down on for an accident of birth. When Misija reveals herself as a double agent, Thybé’s reaction is much along the lines of, “what did you expect when you let her fellow soldiers treat her like that without immediate reprimand and stockade time?” It’s the first big fight between Thybé and Amvros when Amvros tells him off for siding with a traitor, and the acid tongue that gets Thybé into arguments with Oday makes an appearance. Thybé throws in Amvros’s face the treatment he received in Ishgard because he was a bastard half-breed. "Because my father was, and I quote, a feral tomcat from a shithole that Garlemald conquered and then forgot about."

Oday tries to bridge the rift -- though they know Thybé better, they've been learning about Amvros and his home as they learn the gunblade from him. They can relate to both sides -- both as someone systematically mistreated for no fault of their own and as someone born into the closest thing the Steppe has to aristocracy.

Father and son haven't fully made up by the time the Resistance storms Castrum Lacus Litore -- by the time Misija reveals the true nature of Save the Queen and enslaves the minds of the Blades, including Amvros. The defeat leaves Thybé in anguish -- he understands Misija, yes, but the darkest part of his soul is screaming for hate and vengeance for stealing the father with whom he had so little time. Oday grounds him -- they rarely leave Bozja for a while after that, participating in both frontline fighting and planning for future battles. For a time, Thybé takes the place he's used to at Oday's side. It's easier for him, and both of them know it, and both of them know that he cannot remain in that place forever -- not here in his father's homeland.

The time comes when the Resistance corners Misija and the tempered Blades in the ruins -- when Misija escapes into Delubrum Reginae. When the Resistance follows them in and faces machines that speak in dead voices and wield familiar weapons. The voices are mostly indistinguishable, and Thybé tries to convince himself he hasn't known his father long enough to recognize Amvros’s voice anyway. He doesn’t quite believe it by the time they face off against a warped something that carries Amvros’s gunblade and speaks with a flat version of a voice that he does indeed recognize.

After the battle, Oday brings him back to Gangos. I say they bring him back, because after the battle is over, Thybé is in no fit state to be alone. They spend the night in Oday's tent, pitched further away from the camp than usual. As soon as the tent's closed and Oday gathers him into their arms, Thybé buries his face in their shoulder and weeps. He shakes for hours, even after his tears are gone, and Oday strokes his hair and sings softly to him, sharing in his grief as tears slip down their own face. Ressaunt joins them to sit silently and simply be there. After all, Oday and Ress have both lost fathers.

Thybé renews his resolve, and it's a long while more, but he is his father's son and his mother's, and he will see this through. And when finally Bozja is freed, when the IVth is pushed from the land, Thybé sees it with new eyes. His father's homeland. His home too now. Amvros's last bequest to his son: a free Bozja.

(A pair of small epilogues come during Endwalker and afterward: At the memorial service at the Swallow's Compass, Hien speaks of a few people who are not Doman, including: "Amvros Ruzikasch -- who strove for freedom -- never gave up on the wish to see his homeland, and every land, free of tyranny, and he never gave up on the love he bore for his son." And when Oduyanga Khagan invites representatives from allied nations to the festival in Reunion the week before the Naadam in which their successor will be acclaimed, Marsak arrives from Bozja to see his friends, and he brings the last effects of Blade Ruzikasch for his son.)

[lorspolairepeluche]

[Ysayle telling Alphinaud about the ruins in Dravania and how they were built when dragons and Elezen were at peace]

Estinien: Hmph. You claim this as evidence of our harmonious past? I was taught that these buildings were constructed by heretics, in honor of your Dravanian masters. This rubble inspires no such awe in me.

Oday: Look, dragoon -- do you wipe your ass on the carpet when you visit someone else's home?

Oday: You're the guest here! Shut the fuck up.

[lorspolairepeluche]

oh. ow. [dawntrail spoilers, oday stuff]

the convo between gulool ja and zoraal ja as zj is dying....echoes of oday and their mother.

"why do you weep?" khulan zoraal ja asks.

"because it hurts," oday gulool ja says. "because i don't understand why it had to be this way. why don't i know you? why didn't you want me?" (why weren't you the mother i could have had, the mother i should have had? why did i lose my mother too when i lost my father?)

"how could i be a mother father when i was left alone my own spurned me? i was left with he left me nothing. no love. no throne. no family. no legacy. nothing. and so I had nothing to leave you." (i left my home, my work, my family, my everything, for the man i loved, and then he died and i was left with nothing but you. you who looked like him, who laughed like him, you who were not him.)

"why does that matter?? couldn't you have just been there??" (if i was so much like him, why couldn't you have loved me too?)

and then "but i leave behind that which i've [made] by the sweat of my brow. it is yours to embrace or spurn." (your father's axe, retrieved from the bottom of the azim khaat where i threw it after he died. if he could not wield it, no one would. but you will. you are the legacy he left me, and not once did i ever appreciate that.)

and BESIDES THAT, oday's pregnant! oday's about to become a parent, and they are so afraid to repeat the cycle that wounded them. they've already broken part of it -- getting past altan's death, finding love again. but the only parent they knew hated the very sight of them. if zoraal ja feels, like oday does, that his only parent left him nothing...what does oday have to leave their child?

but oday's healed over the years since khulan's death. zoraal ja has had thirty years to stew on gulool ja ja's apparent abandonment of him, and the wound it left in him gapes and bleeds and rots. thirty years with no opportunity, no effort, to return and ask him. if he had...if he had, maybe he would have learned that his father loved him.

the themes of family are so tightly wound in this storyline, and i need to Bite Something.

next up: themes of rulership and responsibility and protecting your people and NOT FUCKING OVER OTHER PEOPLE TO SAVE YOURS, SPHENE.

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if you get bingo, congrats! you probably have a snarky dumbass xaela determined to become your friend and/or get into your bed!

[lorspolairepeluche]

15 Lines: Oday

Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture the character/personality/vibe of the OC. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you're free to include those as well!

"You aren’t wrong. It is a sorry fate. I would know. But it is not my fate here. No — very few in my tribe made the effort to love me." (The Dawn Star, ch. 4)

"I was once forcibly apprenticed to a storyteller of my tribe, in yet another effort to turn me from the path I wished to walk. It lasted less than a year. Perhaps I did learn some from him, in the end. It would have been hard not to — he never shut the fuck up." (The Dawn Star, ch. 9)

"I am going to kill [Thybé]. Don’t worry yourself — his life is forfeit to me for several other things too, and he likely plans to kill me for just as many, but we have many a task to see done before we ever get around to actually killing each other." (The Dawn Star, ch. 13)

"I have stood in the presence of three Suns — and they have stood in mine." (The Dawn Star, ch. 13)

"I am Oduyanga! I am the Sun’s bright star! I am the widower of Altanaran, radiant Sun and khan of the Oronir! And I have come home, little brother." (The Dawn Star, ch. 13)

I knew when I was younger that I would die in battle on the Steppe. It’s just coming later than I thought it would. And perhaps a little less gloriously. [...] Perhaps it is glorious to die like this." (The Dawn Star, ch. 18)

"They’re [Magnai's] older sisters. A height advantage is worth bollocks to them. Do your pleasantries, Hien. If you would have the Oronir as allies, these are the women to convince." (The Dawn Star, ch. 22)

"You don’t have to prove you’re returning to your old self by telling me how Daidukul’s dick tasted." (The Dawn Star, ch. 26)

"The way every warrior did not hesitate to rush to battle together like that… Perhaps that is how it should be. Rivalries will never die, of course, but…they should not divide us so." (The Dawn Star, ch. 26)

"Hey, sun. I’d call you by name, but ‘Altan’ usually comes out of my mouth in a roar these days, when my daughter’s doing something she knows she shouldn’t." (The Dawn Star, ch. 27)

"Hey, with all the trouble Lord van Ballsack Better-Than-Thee gave me — on two separate, near-apocalyptic occasions — I think I deserve to annoy you once in a while." (Day's End)

"Then, Master Leveilleur, I must ask you to hasten your exit. You have insulted and demeaned beloved and respected members of the Solongo tribe, and as its khan, I cannot abide such behavior toward those in my care. [...] I believe you heard me, ser. You're upsetting my kids." (this post about Oday adopting the twins)

"Moogles, great one, are vastly different from the people I escape by visiting Zenith." (this post about places the usual suspects go to get away)

"Look, dragoon -- do you wipe your ass on the carpet when you visit someone else's home? You're the guest here! Shut the fuck up." (this one about the dravania road trip)

"And if the Fury’s people can give hope and a new dawn to someone as hopelessly dark as I was when I first came to the Holy See, then I know that you, those people, can keep what you love fixed in your sight and your hope firmly in your hands, and you can keep walking to that dawn together." (from their speech to the ecumenical council during the endwalker role quests; it's not posted anywhere)

(thanks @camelliagwerm for the open tag; tagging @bladeverbena bc i wanna see some bnuuy lines; @solipseismic to reignite the three-way ping-pong we had going on that one time)

[lorspolairepeluche]

On the way to Ishgard to surprise Ressaunt, Aymeric, and Thybé for Starlight Celebration post-6.2, having started with Hien in Doma, kidnapped picked up Estinien in Thavnair, and dragged along picked up Gaius and Allie from Werlyt...

Oday: Esti, quick, you've gotta teach me Starlight Celebration songs. And also the rude versions.

Estinien: I don't know any.

Oday: Bullshit you don't. You've been friends with Emmy for half your life, and he was a fucking choir boy.

Oday: And there's no way the Temple Knights don't have three dirty versions of every church hymn.

[lorspolairepeluche]

Each of the usual suspects has their places they go to disappear for a while. Zieh'to hides out in the Manufactory (where Stephanivien has given instructions that anyone come looking for a Warrior of Light who doesn't want to be found should get only a shrug and a vague answer and should certainly not be directed toward the sooty greasy Miqo'te poring over blueprints); Doenlona just takes her airship, turns off the locator, and fucks off into the sky for a bit (Cid has to invent a whole new type of locator, but she doesn't usually disappear when she's really needed); no one can find Ves in the Shroud or Dravania or the Sylphlands if Ves doesn't want to be found. Thybé has his mother's house, of course, but if he needs to truly be alone, he'll go into the wilds -- Yanxia or Thanalan, possibly Mor Dhona.

The others know when one of them doesn't want to be found, and they won't pry. The bond will let them know if one of them is in distress, so they're content to live and let live unless they've been really worried about someone's emotional state.

Oday, for their part, sometimes goes to the Forgotten Springs or the Brotherhood of Ash -- places where they can simply be a fellow warrior and put aside the khagan and the Warrior of Light and everything else for a while. But most often, they go up to Zenith. They can feel Hraesvelgr near there, and the resonance between them comforts them. They don't call him -- knowing his steady, solid presence is enough. They camp there for a few nights, drill the basics of their myriad weapons -- no magic, no aetheric maneuvers, just the movements. Axe, sword, lance, bow, gunblade, perhaps even a katana if they ever find the time with Hien to learn. They help the moogles care for the place too, chop their own firewood, hunt their own game. They always bring tribute for Hraesvelgr and leave it at the summit.

And, after seeing them there several times, Hraesvelgr's reawakened curiosity gets the better of him, and he flies down to the lower level on which Oday is camped. "Mortal."

Oday puts up their lance and bows -- a gesture they reserve for only those they hold in the highest respect. "Great one."

“Why dost thou come to this place? I have seen thee spend a turn or two of the sun here, many a time.”

“I find the solitude calms me when I need it most. The chill in the mist washes away my confusion and doubt.”

“Solitude, thou sayest, yet I see thee converse with the moogles when they arrive to care for the place. And I have seen thee help them care for the tower, as well.”

Oday laughs. “Moogles, great one, are vastly different from the people I escape by visiting Zenith.”

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Aymeric: I, for my part, owe you an apology. When last we met, I did willingly loose an arrow at your heart. Can you forgive me?

Estinien: There is naught to forgive, Aymeric. You but acted in defense of Ishgard, as is your duty. Were you any less single-minded about it, I would not follow you into battle -- nor trust you at my back.

Oday: ...So I also don't have to apologize for aiming my axe at your head right after?

Estinien: Wrong. From you, I want an apology on bended knee.

[lorspolairepeluche]

Oday's horns (just Oday in general, really; they use their horns as a proxy bc their horns are what hurts when they get overloaded) are particularly sensitive to draconic aether. No word yet on whether this is from wishing, exposure, or just a quirk of aether or genetics or Hydaelyn.

The first time they noticed was during the first battle on the Steps of Faith, when they started having a hard time because they kept hearing voices they shouldn't hear, screaming for vengeance in a language they shouldn't understand. Over their time in Ishgard and Dravania, they got more used to it, talked with Estinien about it (their sensitivity wasn't as strong as his was with the Eye, and he refused to let them touch the damn thing no matter how much they asked), learned the beginnings of DRG and harnessing the aether they were sensitive to.

At Azys Lla, as the Gration fires on the Excelsior, even as the barrage pounds at their senses, Oday feels something -- someone -- else approaching: Hraesvelgr. Other factors have contributed to Oday being a bit...unstable by this point, and being mid-airship-battle, their horns aching from the Eye, the great wyrm, and the primal all at once -- when Shiva is blasted from the sky, Oday does something very stupid.

They jump off the ship after her.

Their arms close only on an armful of light, and their despair is so intense that the other usual suspects who have reconnected the bond actually feel it waver and disappear for a moment.

And then a massive, warm body swoops under them and catches them on its back, and Hraesvelgr snarls at them for being monumentally fucking stupid. But he also tells them, She did what she must, and she felt no remorse for it. She would not wish for thee to weep, and nor does my beloved.

He deposits them back on the ship, and LITERALLY EVERYONE is on Oday in a second, yelling at them for being a moron once again! But they're alive, and they have Ysa's and Hraesvelgr's wishes with them, and Oday goes into Azys Lla determined and righteously furious.

(Cid: She gave her life because she believed in us. We owe it to her to see our mission through AND TO NOT BE FUCKING STUPID ABOUT IT, ODAY.)

[lorspolairepeluche]

1.0-era oday, violently widowed less than half a year ago, exiled from home, with a load of renewed trauma and a whole new continent to fuck up on: