#so all we get is this lousy placeholder header!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[windupnamazu]

like the hands on the clock, they'll go in circles back to their places

ffxivwrite2023 #06: ring a small circular band [...] worn on a finger as [...] a token of marriage.

Lunya/G'raha. Endwalker finale. 1143wc. Content warnings: kinda gorey descriptions? ⮞ Fourteen years ago, a little girl learned something from the man who would give his life for hers.

"Mister Kichirou," Yeyema began, tugging at the sleeve of her guardian's haori as they traipsed down Ruby Road Exchange together, the old man's steps slowed to keep pace with the young girl's smaller ones. "Why's your ring got so much aether in it?"

Kichirou's face lit up with delight as they drew to a stop at the intersection of the road and Emerald Avenue. "You can sense it, little moon? That is my wedding ring—it's filled with my late husband's aether. It is all I have of him now."

"Oh." She looked upon the ring and its crystal setting with a new kind of sympathy and curiosity. "It feels like there's almost enough aether in there to make a whole person."

Her grandfatherly guardian laughed, but it sounded kind of sad. "That's because there is—he passed before we finished the full transfer. Maybe if we had done it sooner he could have been healed." He chuckled more when she tilted her head cutely. "The rings were a failsafe, of sorts. Were one of us gravely injured, we could return each other's aether back; a unique token of love, trusting another with our life literally in their hands."

"You can really do that? Transferring that much aether into such a little thing?"

"There are many old spells lost or forbidden to modern mages," Kichirou told her, in that mysterious tone he oft used when she tried to poke too much at his life before Eorzea. "If you're truly curious, I will tell you of its fundamentals later. But first, shall we pick up your snack from Momodi-san?"

"Cookies, please!"

They don't expect the first of their missing Warriors to return in the state that she does.

The teleportation spell releases her on the floor of the Ragnarok with a whisper of wind and a flash of light that draws the attention of all the waiting Scions on the ship. G'raha Tia is the first to his feet at the sight of white like starlight, a wail erupting from his mouth when he takes in the state of his wife. Majj and Einar join the chorus.

Uncountable bruises bloom like twisted flowers across Lunya's face and upper body, the light of her freckles dimmed like clouds smothering the stars, but most concerning and terrifying of all is a vicious gash nearly splintering her in twain from her shoulder to opposite hip, blood seeping through the pearl sheen of her coat and black lace barely containing her insides. Her breath is so shallow it's hardly there at all as her twilight and crystal eyes gaze blankly into nothingness, and her white hair spills across the steel floor drenched in her crimson.

"NO!" G'raha's voice breaks as he falls at her side, hands glowing with healing magic even though a voice at the back of his mind tells him it's for naught. Never before had she come back to him in such a grievous state; of all the men and monsters she's faced, only one managed to strike a blow to her in this way, and Meteion hadn't said she and the others were left with him.

"Focus, G'raha," Y'shtola orders in a soothing but stern meter, but even her hands are shaking as she pushes aether into the open cavity of Lunya's chest, coaxing sinew and skin back together as fast as she can as Theodaux redirects organs where they need to be. Alphinaud and Ahnji hover; they can't expend all their healers at once when there are still Warriors yet to return, no matter how much G'raha wants to beg them to help her or how much they want to help themselves.

"It isn't enough," warbles Theo, sweat beading on his forehead from exertion as he leans against his staff. "There's too much to replace and she's losing what's left fast."

"Short of a whole person's worth of aether, I am not sure what we can do," Fleuriri murmurs, resting a hand on the Elezen's shoulder. "And seeing as she's already received a full foreign transfer once, I can't say how her body might handle another attempt."

Gods. He wants to cry. To kick and scream and curse and tear apart the universe for trying to take her from him. G'raha scratches groves into his wrist, a nervous habit turned frustrated, but as his fingers slide down to his wrist he remembers.

"Her aether," he says desperately, turning to Y'shtola. He pries off his wedding ring, crystalline and glowing, and shows it to her. "I have her own aether—enough to make a whole person, she said. The spell she used wasn't anything we know."

Y'shtola's eyebrows shoot into her bangs as she regards it before settling in grim determination.

Lunya blinks pitch night and stars from her eyes to find the ceiling of the Ragnarok. The twins are the first thing she sees after; Alphinaud has a steady stream of healing tethered between her stomach and his nouliths and Alisaie is pacing back and forth, muttering furiously to herself. The second thing she sees has all the residual fear she hadn't realized she was holding onto drain from her body in a heartbeat—her husband is crying, which won't do at all, and she fights against the heavy weight of her body to raise a hand to his face.

"My lodestar," her Raha weeps, grabbing her hand in his and pressing it to the curve of his cheek.

Voice creaking, she wonders, "Is everyone all right?"

"You're the last person who should even ask," G'raha huffs, but he smudges away the tears at the corners of his eyes and squeezes her left hand in his own. Distantly, she notices she's not in her robes anymore, bandages winding around her chest and stomach instead. Her husband's covered in blood that can't be his own and his wedding ring is gone and Y'shtola is across the room downing mana potion after mana potion, swaying in place as Majj does his best to steady her. She gets the feeling she knows exactly what they did.

"Thank you, sinta ko," she murmurs. "I'm sorry."

"Don't."

The ship explodes in a flurry of sound as another Warrior arrives in a haze of pink fur and blood and the others rush over to administer emergency healing yet again, but to G'raha and Lunya they sound a million miles away when he kisses her brow before pressing his own to hers.

"I would do anything for you," he reminds her. "I gave you my life just as you gave me yours, so I'll remind you a million times if I must. Just—live for me, Lunya. Don't apologize—just never do that to me again."

"I promise," she says, twisting his engagement ring around his finger. They'll have to make him a new wedding ring now. "And that is one I truly intend to keep."