#stealth edit i realized i fucked up the tense at some point OTL
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servant of death
ffxivwrite2023 05: BARBAROUS mercilessly harsh or cruel
lumelleâs having a really bad day. sorry. thatâs on me. lumelle & emet-selch. 3401 wc.
iâm not sure how to warn for this, exactly? but CW for discussion & most of the actual task for what the carers for end-of-life patients at the inn do. i donât think itâs worse than the SHB MSQ alisaie side but. yanno.
He was back again. Much to Lumelleâs personal dismay, he always seemed to appear whenever Alisaie left her side to go on patrol, which made it impossible to fully convince Alisaie of the presence of an Ascianâa Paragonâthis close to the crystallized Flood of Light. At least he didnât seem interested in doing harm to anything other than Lumelleâs sanity, and at least his presence here in the kitchen meant he wasnât off harassing Aâdewah in the carerâs dormitory.
Lumelle took a deep breath, and looked away from Emet-Selch sitting on the kitchen counter beside her cutting board as if he were Elwin and not a full-grown man in a hoity-toity, heat-trapping robe.
âGet off the counter before I decide to chop off your fingers and use them as eater bait tomorrow,â she said evenly, gripping the bone handle of the knife in her hands tight as she continued to cut up the last harcot for the topping.
âSo barbaric,â Emet-Selch sneered, but he did get off the counter, if only to loom over Lumelle as she continued her work. Lumelle had never particularly begrudged her Elezen-typical growth spurt not happening on time or quicklyâeven now she was only a few ilms taller than she was two years agoâexcept for when he did that just because he knew she hated it. âAnd even beyond your propensity to threaten violence and enact it, you seek to kill your friends before they become foe. Hardly becoming behavior for a hero such as yourself.â
âWhatever, Solus.â Lumelle took the biggest chunks of the harcot that didnât look mangled and set them aside on a plateâthe rest she stuffed into her mouth and chewed angrily before she wiped off her hands and turned to pry open the lid of icebox. The rule she had set for herself repeated in her head: donât let the Ascian win. He wants you to flip out.
Emet-Selch didnât seemed so easily deterred todayâor was it tonight? His shadow fell over her as she got the heavy, ill-fitting lid off the icebox and pulled out the chilled jelly with its accompanying jar of lemonette syrup. âI thought you would leave the dubious honor of such dirty work like cooking to your fellows. That Hume girl, if not your precious Scion. Feeling guilty, mayhap?â
She swallowed some of the harcotâmade a reminder to herself to ask Rhon Ron if he had any more left to sell, because these were really goodâand looked up at him. âYouâre in my way. If you really want to observe, get out of the kitchen.â
His face twisted lightly withâdisgust, maybe? Lumelle couldnât really tell; he looked at everything like that, save maybe when Lumelle caught flashes of him watching her cut through swathes of sin eaters, sitting bored in the distance with a stare sharper than any blade. Whatever it was, it was only there for a fleeting moment before he moved towards the kitchen doorway and said, âDo finish chewing before you say anything else. I have the time.â
âMy etiquette teachers would say the same,â she said, mouth still half-full. Donât bow your head; keep breathing normally. She put the lid back on the icebox, hoping whoever needed it next would be able to get it open, set the jelly and the jar to the counter, and then pulled out the key to the locked drawer sheâd borrowed from Tesleen. âI used to listen to themâwhen I was seven.â
Emet-Selch scoffed. âAnd how long ago was that, three years?â
Lumelle snortedâshe might have been angrier, if sheâd not spent most of her childhood expected to hold herself in a manner befitting a full-grown lady of the house and now found being childish almost refreshing at timesâand stuck out her tongue at him with her smile oddly stretched from the lump of harcot she was holding in her cheek. The petty joy of getting someone incomprehensibly ancient to stoop to arguing with her was about the biggest win she was going to get out of parleying with Emet-Selch.
âStill here?â she asked, twirling the key on her finger. Usually Emet-Selch would scoff and disappear back into the aether after Lumelle got him to stoop to playing along with her conversation instead of whatever he wanted.
Not now, though.
Emet-Selch snapped his fingers, and a chair appeared beside the doorway for him to sit in, crossing one leg over the other. âOf course,â he said, that perfectly-rehearsed smile that reminded Lumelle of the lords and ladies back home settling onto his face. âI meant what I saidâI have plenty of time to chat. Itâs not as if you Scions have made any dent in my plans, and at the moment I find this part of the ruined star particularly intriguing to watch.â
Lumelle swallowed the rest of the harcot to keep from frowning. She didnât want Emet-Selch to see the contents of the carerâs kitchen drawer, but she had little choice in the matter; he really was intent on seeing this part of Lumelleâs misery through.
She should have just stabbed him when he approached her after that cursed sin eater hunt, no white auracite be damned.
Unlike everything else in the Innâs kitchen, this drawer still worked almost as well as the day it was built. She slid the key into the lock and turned it without needing to use her strength like earlier with the icebox, and opened the drawer to see the contents split evenly between the carerâs stock. The glass bottles clattered with the movement, some rolling around freely. Lumelleâs eyes drifted to the folded piece of paper underneath the vials on her right.
She reached in and pulled it out. Unfolded it.
Dosage suggestions based on food type, amount, & patient body weight.
âAnd lo, the valiant knight turns her blade against those she swore to protect.â Emet-Selch sounded so damn smug, narrating from his shitty little chair; maybe heâd done it before from his throne in Garlemald. Lumelle wanted nothing more than to get her sword and pin him to it through the stomach. âMayhap a situation not so unfamiliar. I recall Ishgard determining her heretics based on a whim quite often.â
Lumelle bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to taste blood, the juice from the harcot still sticky on her tongue making it sting. âI never swore anything. Stop talking so loud,â she grit out. Which carer wrote this? They had the smallest handwriting Lumelle had ever seen, so teensy she almost felt the need to squint to read it. In liquids & syrups, one-fourth jar, 100 to 115 poâ
Emet-Selch kept talking at her. âAn oathless knight. How pitiful. Even the knights of Voeburt at least had some civility and honor about them,â he said. âThough I suppose what little honor you had left you over a moon ago.â
âIâll show you honor,â she muttered, wrinkling the slightly-yellowed paper between her fingers from how hard she was pressing them together. She hated thisâshe hated him. What did she everâwhy did it have to beâwhy couldnât he just go botherâ
Lumelle rubbed her eyes hard with her free hand when the letters on the page blurred and tried to hide the moisture on her wrist, pretending it was irritation from the light sandstorm. No. This was fine. An Ascian? Psh. He could be doing this to Aâdewah, and then sheâd feel so much worse. He could be in the Crystarium with Elwin and she wouldnât even know, but he was here.
She could be making lemon waffles instead of jellied harcot. She could be standing over a grave wondering how she was ever going to look at Alphinaud ever again. Maybe she was still really mad at her, but at least she was here. At least she could stillâ
I was fine! You should have stuck to the plan! Do you not trust me?!
âHaving second thoughts?â
âAbout thinking you had anything important to say, ever? Oh, sure,â Lumelle snarked, reaching into the drawer for the right bottle only to pause when the glass frosted over near where her fingers were. After a moment she grabbed it anyway, barely feeling the glass in her palm, and hooked the ring of measuring spoons on her pinky before she shut the drawer with her hip.
âPlease,â Emet-Selch drawled, his voice practically dripping with venom. Lumelle wondered, briefly, how Uriangerâs research into making white auracite with Il Mhegâs prismstone was going. âEverything I say and have said is naught but the unvarnished truth.â
That was what Lumelle hated the most. She took one last look at the chart before she folded it back up, looked straight at him, and said, âItâs certainly not winning you any points with me. Would it kill you to be kinder about it?â
As those last few words left her mouth, she knew at once that sheâd fucked up.
âHah. Kinder, like you believe yourself to be?â Emet-Selch gestured to his side, hand waving through the doorway and down the hall leading to the patientâs ward. âA sugary lie will not suddenly make you a hero, nor stop the Lightâs work. You chose to leave the girlâs side. You chose to abandon the plot laid out by your dear. You chose to leave her like thisâallowed her the long defeat of transformation rather than swift mercy at your hand. And now you will prove yourself cruel yet againâat her weakest, you will deliver her poison and end her. What kindness could ever reach something as awful as you?â
Her vision blurred again as she looked down at the counter before her, where she put the vial of poison and the measuring spoons. In her mind, she knew she couldnât take anything he said to heart, that he only wanted to hurt her for whatever dark purpose he was here for. He had done it before, out on the sands when sheâd stayed behind to make sure the horde would stay away, and Lumelle had let him. She had let him now, too. She thought she was ready for it this time.
It hurt more than the force of that dhruva-shaped sin eaterâs crystals slamming into her when sheâd chosen to protect Alisaie over Tista-Rae; the hurt swallowed her, so large and there that she couldnât decide whether to get angry and scream and rage or cry or curl up into a ball about it before she was there again.
The hunt.
The Inn at Journeyâs Head was essentially a field hospital. Lumelle had followed Alisaie here after the Exarch brought them and Elwin across the rift, and sheâd known by the end of their first day that they wouldnât hold up against any real force. Sheâd heard of bigger Ishgardian encampments getting burned to the ground by hordes of aevis and diresaurs and biasts before anyone could call for the Knights Dragoon, and they didnât make new dragons every time they killed. She and Alisaie could do some real damage, especially with Aâdewah there to back them up, and some of the carers knew the basics and acted as guardsâbut the sin eaters. The hordes they would hear about, sometimes, at Mord Souq when they were getting groceries.
Lumelle might have been raised in Ishgard and faced off her own hordes for her city, sure. This world still found new ways to scare her.
Tista-Rae had smiled and told her to keep her chin up. To keep doing what she was doing, culling as many sin eaters as she could on patrol with Alisaie. Sheâd come from the Crystarium when Lumelle had written a strongly worded request to the Exarch with a few others and said sheâd get the carers swinging swords like Lumelle in no time. Sheâd even made time in her day to help the patients get more active, fighting off that plastery stiffness awaiting them the only way she knew how.
They still werenât ready, when it was clear they had to go hunt the largest group down. There were so many.
In the sea of white-white-white, Lumelle didnât have the time to figure out which sin eaters were the really bad ones, the ones that could turn people, which meant she was just cutting through as many as she could. She was sweating through the scarf tied over her face to keep the dust and ichor from getting in her lungs, her mouth. Someone was screaming. Their line had been pushed back to forty yalms from the Inn. Tista-Rae and the Crystarium dispatch were fighting with her, in the center of it; her sword was almost glowing full white and dripping when she looked over her shoulder back to Aâdewah and Alisaie.
She didnât even remember what she saw, what was happening, if Alisaie was actually in as much danger as Lumelle thoughtâonly that she felt the panic take her and ran towards them, Tista-Rae shouting her name, and didnât get her shield up in time to block the crystals. The one that would have hit Alisaie hit her instead. Thank Hydaelyn for the Blessing of Light.
And at the end, after Lumelle had dove back in to finish her job slightly worse for wear, Tista-Rae had ruffled her hair and said, I getcha. Just give a girl a warning next time, hm?
Her arm was bleeding, Lumelle remembered. Sheâd wrapped it up with a ripped-off piece of her Elven partnerâs cape. She wasnât wearing her Crystarium guard chainmail because she had to send it back for repairs.
Sheâd been doing well. Tista-Rae had been smiling and laughing and dancing for a week or two after. Lumelle almost believed it.
Then sheâd got sick so fast.
The other carers were worried it had been from ichor poisoning, but Lumelle knew. Not how she was okay for so longâbut she knew the bandages in the bins were hers, knew her sword hand was her left and not her right even if she was ambidextrous, knew it wasâwhat she could haveâ!
She came back to herself and chose anger.
Lumelle slammed her hands down on the counter, hearing the spice bottles rattle. Pain lanced up the heels of her hands and up her arms.
âMaybe what Iâve done and havenât done is cruel. Maybe Iâm cruel,â she spat, refusing to look at Emet-Selch again and feeling that same impossible coldfire in her stomach as she did facing the Warriors of Darkness, listening to Jârhoomale speak so easily of poisoning Alisaie and then daring to shoot at Elwin when Lumelle was right there, âbut itâs a damn lot kinder to give them a chance to die as themselves rather than sit there, knowing their body will transform painfully and their mind will shatter from the twist, and do nothing but wait to let it happen.â
She waited for Emet-Selch to find his next venomous arrow, for the fire that drove her to drink dragonâs blood to be fed. Waited for the pain to come again.
When the silence kept stretching longer and longer like caramel strings, Lumelle opened up the jar of lemonette syrupâshe bent the metal lid in her hand and wincedâand measured out the right dose with shaking hands. If he said anything else, she really might do something bad, so maybe it was for the best.
The rest she did feeling distant from herself, every glass and metal thing she touched frosting over; the poison went into the jar, a spoon came out from another drawer, clattered on the jarâs rim as she mixed the contents in a rush. The syrup didnât look any different as her hands poured it over the jelly already in its dish, and probably didnât taste any different; the carers said the Crystarium put extra work into making it tasteless for them. Lumelle, knowing Tehraâir personally, wasnât as certain, but she didnât want to think about everyoneâs last meal never getting to taste right.
Only when she was putting the harcot slices on the top did she remember Emet-Selchâs unusual quiet.
She looked up again, setting the spoon into the jelly dish with a clatter, and found the Ascian staring blankly up at her⊠or through her? Whatever Emet-Selch was seeing, it wasnât her or her anger; he might as well have been on another shard.
She just had to walk through the door and sheâd be fifteen steps away from Tista-Raeâs cot, another ten to her longsword, but Lumelle knew better than to turn her back to an enemyâmuch less an Ascianâunarmed and alone.
âWell? No more âtruthâ left in you?â Lumelle leaned forward to prop her elbow on the counter to hold up her head, feeling more furious and vitriolic and awful the longer Emet-Selch sat there staring a hole in the side of her head. Something about his face seemed so⊠wrong. âSay something, damn you. Why do you look like youâve seen a ghost?â
It was as if he suddenly wanted to shatter everything Lumelle knew about him. He opened his mouth, eyes refocusing on her, but no words came. His mouth shut, and his once smug expression now looked like he was angry. Like he had any right to be.
Without so much as another word, he raised his hand, and with a wave he disappeared.
Well. At least she could let her eyes brim over with tears in peace now.
âDamn that bastard. Damn this stupid shard. Damn the Light,â she muttered, sniffling and trying to wipe all her tears away as they came only for them to freeze on her hands. Her anger shoved up against something in her heart and turned into the deep need to curl up in bed and spend the rest of the day crying, but she still had a dessert to deliver. Usually Alisaie or Elwin helped her pull herself back together, but Alisaie was still so mad at her and Elwin didnât even know how bad a day sheâd been having, from the carers telling her it was Tista-Raeâs time to go and Alisaie arguing with her to Emet-fucking-Selch showing his stupid face here.
What was that rhyme Tesleen told her about, again?
Warrior of Darkness, servant of death, take care of our souls at our dying breath...
âLet sinners and eaters of sin go with thee.â Lumelle sniffled a few more times, cringing at how awful her voice sounded now. Did she actually yell earlier? She hoped she didnât. Elwin always saidâhe said that she got scary when she yelled now, after the whole thing with the real Warriors of Darkness back home. That turning into a dragon for a little bit might not have actually been for just a little bit. âThat all may return to the sunless sea.â
She took another deep breath. Exhaled.
Could a Warrior of Light be gentle about death? Could she?
Her hands were hurting from how cold they were, she realized; she brushed her frozen tears off onto the tiles. There wasnât really a mirror anywhere in the Inn, as no one wanted any of the patients to accidentally see themselves, panic, and possibly turn, so sheâd just have to hope she looked acceptable. Carefully, so she didnât break anything else today, she picked up the jellied harcot in one hand and walked through the kitchen doorway. Emet-Selch left his little chairâit was actually padded, heâd put that much thought into itâso she grabbed it with her other hand and dragged it with her.
Fifteen steps, and she was by Tista-Raeâs bedside. Her dusty-pink hair was down from her bun, turning white at the roots and the tips, and her eyes struggled to focus on Lumelle when she turned the chair around and sat down next to her.
âHey,â Lumelle said past the lump in her throat. Her hands and her voice didnât shake as she watched Tista-Rae smile up at her distantly, nor when Tista-Rae glanced at the chilled glass in Lumelleâs hands and her eyes cleared, just slightly, in realization; she refused to let them. She had to face this with her eyes afraid and awake, even if it hurt. âSorry I took so long. Areâare you feeling up for dessert?â
#ffxiv#ffxivwrite#ffxivwrite2023#c: lumelle de lipine#emet-selch#elie writes#THIS GOT AWAY FROM ME. SORRY. ITS LONG#can u tell. i had a time writing this.#shoutout to xiv.quest for being a lifesaver that bit from tesleen at the end i saw on the script and it helped me finish#stealth edit i realized i fucked up the tense at some point OTL
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