#oh DAMN they hsould have got fish and chips together

[elizabethrobertajones]

FFXIV Write: Day 28, Vainglory

conversation between two people I rotate in my head constantly :3

post-EW setting, I guess after the Erenville Tales of the Dawn. Just G'raha and Erenville talking about weird fish.

They sat side by side on a harbour arm, legs dangling over the water. A cardboard box of the Last Stand’s finest chips between them, and a healthy dollop of sauce to dunk them in.

Conversation had been plentiful between G’raha and Erenville but a comment from the curious Gleaner about just how much wildlife he saw still bore traces of Allagan meddling had set G’raha talking excitedly about things he had learned in his studies, things the Scions had uncovered, and stuff that Frog had told him from her own expeditions to fish in the weird pools of Azys Lla to satisfy her own curiosity about Allagan horrors. Apparently she had a whole journal full of sketches that would turn most people’s stomach after some time spent up there surveying what had managed to scrape out a living in the aethereochemical pools the Allagans had left behind.

It certainly seemed that if Erenville was to spend more time with these strange people, he would seem to stumble by fate or just their sheer determination onto many weird creatures far beyond his suddenly meagre experience. And, he was learning, their lust for adventure was matched only by Allag’s ability to create abominations for them to stumble over.

“What inspired such an empire to create these things?” he asked, gazing out to sea and thinking of the creatures that might lurk within, monsters unaccounted in its depths.

G’raha stared thoughtfully at his burger, having just taken a huge bite. It took him a moment to chew and swallow, before he answered, “Hubris.”

Erenville raised an eyebrow at him, and took another chip, with a healthy scoop of sauce.

“Frog told me she saw a glimpse of Amon’s laboratory through his own eyes, and they were simply making things because they could. Because they were bored. They had a great purpose sometimes, reasons for some things, the animals we still might eat, but so much of it is simply waste for the sake of doing it.”

“How existentially grim.”

Their conversation dipped, until Erenville looked up and around at the city behind them. “How do we know we’re not –”

“It’s best not to think about that, and simply to do the work to ensure we’re not.”

“You’ve thought about this.”

“How could we not? We had been so excited to bring Frog here, and we saw our city through her eyes – saw her realise how we who had chosen to leave had done so for our reasons and our memories of Sharlayan were of happy childhoods before we understood more of the world. But after it all, I do believe our people redeemed ourselves to her. You helped the most.”

Erenville inclined his head in a modest nod, but he had a bright smile. He picked out another chip, and laughed quietly to himself. “Just as the Last Stand is the last bastion of food culture here, so the Scions were for Sharlayan as a whole.”