#this is why no one likes garleans

[elliewiltarwyn]

the danger

(i guess could also work as the angst prompt for wolshtola week 2025!!)

[desertdragon]

The saddest thing whenever I visit Forgotten Springs is how uncomfortable you can tell most U Tribe are having their isolation disturbed and their land forcibly opened by outsiders, "put up with their grasping ways" as U'mollpa says, and then in the distance of the skybox is the giant Saucer casino that they don't even see profit from despite it being on their ancestral land

[tinolqa]

god I haven't mentioned it enough here. Myths of the Realm is my enemy. easily my least favorite 24-man- or rather it's my least favorite raid series of either type.

probably made worse by pandaemonium being genuinely very good? the contrast was stark.

weak answer to the question of the twelve's nature, very unambitious and mediocre visual designs that were largely too married to visual fidelity to boring statues and card designs. some real disney's hercules shit. there were some innovative or appealing elements here and there: nald'thal was genuinely great visually and conceptually, I actually respect the concept of making menphina a magical girl instead of a generically hotsexy love goddess, byregot's halo of nails, uh... the models for thalaos and perykos looked good? but overall they were a bunch of very boring idealized humans.

and my god eulogia is the ugliest thing. eulogia might actually be the most hideous execution of a concept in the game yet, you might as well just clip all of the models of the twelve into each other and play their animations at once and get the same effect. zero elegance, zero thoughtful design. it's actually shocking to see in a game where we got perfect omega as a raid boss once upon a time. even eden's promise, while superficially a hot mess, is a hot mess because it pays homage to extant depictions of artemis! art history is why it looks like that! eulogia looks like the artists were asked to recreate knife dad from monster factory using ffxiv assets.

and you might ask, well, are the mechanics of the fights better than the boss designs? absolutely not. week one aglaia was a little fun, because there being a chance of failure to people not knowing the trick of the meteors in the rhalgr fight or panicking during the nald'thal scales instead of just deliberately failing the mechanic to waste everyone's time. gear creep destroyed any chance of interacting with most of the fun bits of aglaia, and they didn't repeat that "mistake" in the other two, which were boring and easy from the jump. just an absolute void of challenge or chaos. why even bother putting mechanics into your raid at that point, apparently that's only for savage.

and the rewards... boy I hope you like ugly yellow-gold saint seiya armor and generic draping faux-hellenistic robes and vague suggestions of togas. I hope you fucking gluttons for endless less-problematic rehashes of ancient greek mythology like gaudy costume jewelry and sandals and meaningless neoclassical flourishes. did you want gear that might look like something your character would wear in a city they've visited or that has a connection to a historical aesthetic? I guess if you make believe you can stretch a tenuous bond from this tacky armor to the uniform robes and masks of the ancients. ostensibly. since we all know the ancients didn't have a societal taboo about ornamentation or making your clothes individualized or anything.

so what did we achieve? did we learn anything? turns out the twelve were real all along, but also powerless except in the specific context of having flashy anime duels with the warrior of light. it's VERY important that we say they aren't primals, because primals are only summoned by primitive subhumans like the ixal and the garleans. but we do need you to fight them to return their aether to the star because... they're definitely not primals! no. not primals. primals are fake gods, and the twelve are *aetheric constructs* based on *real people* made by *hydaelyn*, which means they're good and Not Primals. the mechanic by which they visually reflect the beliefs of their followers? definitely not the same as the one that does that for primals. their nebulous dependence on the faith of eorzeans? totally unrelated to primals, because it's apparently important for the ego of the players that *their* god is real and not fake, which makes them ontologically good and righteous.

and it's definitely satisfying to find out that the goddess whose name gave weight and gravity to the reveal of the warrior of light's past incarnation and their name... is called that because she was a failed candidate for that role? she's a consolation prize sun goddess?

for that matter it's definitely satisfying to find out that the twelve are just recreations of venat's boring ancient friends, who are largely nameless and have no significance to you or your interaction with the past aside from a mediocre sidequest. oh it's so thrilling to know that the god of crafting used to be hytholdaeus's coworker. this would mean so much to me if he had any role in the setting beyond a skill name and a rock sitting in an overworld zone.

admittedly it would also suck for the reveal to be "actually eorzea's gods did create the world and are all-powerful, boy it sure is silly that those delusional foreigners are out here worshipping kami and manusya and mrga and primals which are all FAKE, as opposed to us (non-beastman) eorzeans who have the literal mandate of heaven"

but surely there's a more elegant solution (ambiguity, leaving questions instead of a glut of answers, not making this raid series at all). was this really the best they could come up with?

[onwesterlywinds]

I've been thinking a lot again about the implications of the title of "viator" translating to "traveler" (prompted by Writing Things), and while there's been a lot of discussion about its relation/parallels to Azem, I feel like I've seen a lot less, if anything, on how "viator" plays into the overarching narrative of Garlean imperialism as well. For a relatively small detail, it's honestly one of the things I really think Endwalker did really well in its portrayal of Garlemald and Zenos.

Throughout XIV's history, we've been shown countless perspectives for why the Garleans invade and occupy other nations, whether it's [insert Nael's Bahamut tempering], Gaius' claims that peace can only come from a strong leader, the racism we see entrenched in Garlemald's colonial rule in Stormblood, etc. Endwalker, however, doubles down on the role of Corvos in Garlemald's history and elevates it to a founding narrative: the idea that the Garleans are justified in invading other nations because they themselves were driven from their own ancestral land thousands of years ago.* This is by no means the full scope of Garlean history (as just one example, Return to Ivalice posited that many other Garleans are likely descended from the technically-minded people of Goug), but it's still very consistent lore-wise and thematically for Endwalker to present the Garlean people's expulsion from Corvos as a creation myth for their empire, and the way this plays out in 6.0 MSQ lets us see the extent of the damage that that myth has done to those who have made it their worldview.

And introducing the term "viator" at the end of that arc as the name for the Empire's most loathed, reviled, and shunned class - the exile - ties into this idea so well: the greatest punishment the Garleans can give for one of their own is to make them a wanderer - to ensure that person is forever denied the home that they prize so highly in their society. This is a classic example of scapegoating, which has deep connections to empire throughout history and Western literature.

It's also such a fitting conclusion to Zenos' relationship with the Garlean Empire, too! One of the reasons I've loved Zenos as an antagonist since 4.0 is that despite treating the workings of imperialism as beneath him and irrelevant to his true desires ("Ala Mhigo and Doma and Garlemald be damned!"), he has a sense of entitlement to the peoples and lands of Ala Mhigo and Doma - and to you, the Warrior of Light! - that is extremely Garlean. The fact that (to paraphrase Lyse) he did all that just so he could feel something is what makes him such a perfect antagonist for Stormblood in my book. But to the Garlean people, that lack of care for his homeland - be it because (their own) people were tempered/killed from his actions, or the very sexy patricide/regicide, or that he caused the Empire itself to fall into ruin when he "should have" succeeded Varis - was to them the greatest crime he could commit. To put it another way, he probably would not have been named Zenos viator Galvus if he had first been Zenos zos Galvus.

And despite me forever lamenting the fact that the 5.X-era plot thread of Zenos having dreams about Amaurot never actually went anywhere, even that ties into his eventual role as viator: the only place with which he has ever had any real connection is gone forever.

Which makes a grave at the end of the known universe feel almost fitting in its tragedy.

(*On a serious note: While I do think the writers were intentional - and, mostly, thoughtful - around leveraging imperialist rhetoric, the fact that this particular framing is often used to justify an ongoing genocide is one of many reasons why I would be very happy for future Garlemald stories to stay on pause for the next few years.)

[picaroroboto]

Do you remember that NPC in Garlemald who, when you approach them, seems to have war flashbacks to the WoL killing dozens of their fellow soldiers at the Praetorium? I don't understand why some people make light of this moment, or brush aside the fact that in canon the WoL has killed a lot of people. Yes, it's usually Garlean soldiers or Beastmen or others who intend to harm others, and it's almost always in the name of justice, freedom, protecting others, the greater good, etc. But they do still take lives.

Chances are some of those soldiers they've killed are ones who believed the Empire's espoused goal of controlling the world in order to protect it from greater threats like Primals and Ascians. It's a disgusting and patronizing idea, but if you're someone who's grown up in a war-like nation you might have no reason to question it. Hell, Varis believes it wholeheartedly even though Emet-selch repeatedly tells him that he founded the Empire only as a trigger for Calamities and Rejoinings. The thing is that the Garleans believe they're doing the "right thing" too. So do the Ascians, if only for the "greater good" of their own people to the exlcusion of everything and everyone else. And everything that the Garleans and Ascians did in the name of their beliefs and greater good is wrecked by Fandaniel and Zenos, who proudly claim not to believe in anything and scorn ideas of right and wrong.

In the end, what makes you "the hero" and them "the villains" - what, if anything, makes you better than them? It's not that you don't kill or harm people, because you do. It's not just that you kill presumably less than they do, because measuring lives as numbers is a disgusting thing. We could say that it's simply because the narrative always sides with you in the end, but that's a really boring and unsatisfying answer.

The answer for me and my WoL at least, is to understand that he's not so different from his enemies. Having a "good reason" to kill doesn't make you justified, and believing you're on the right side of history doesn't make you the hero - that understanding itself is what makes sure that he won't make the same mistakes as the villains.

[tallbluelady]

Okay, it took me a week, but I can now articulate why I feel such dissonance the instax camera in my Final Fantasy game: it doesn't have belts. It's not a dissonance of lore - the world of the game is one that has flying airships and wireless headset microphones, the tech is conceivable - it's one of aesthetics. The airships are more often than not shaped like seafaring vessels with wings and the wireless headset is studded with crystals. Those two examples have, for a lack of a better term, have been Flinstone'd into Eorzea's eclectic aesthetic. The camera from the emote has not.

I remember seeing a poll to where the camera came from in universe and I couldn't vote on it because it just looks too incongruent. There's no Allagan node or tomestone iconography, no Garlean steam/dieselpunk darkness, no crystals to carry aetheric content, nothing! It's entirely greebleless in a universe that relies on greebles to keep the aesthetic coherent in it's wild eclectic world.

The camera itself looks nice and likely fits a Fujifilm designer's aesthetic. It's just that it is just one that doesn't match the world of XIV. It disappoints me that there wasn't any effort put into making it match at all (a decal skin for the camera mayhap?). The animation is really cute and I'm glad it made it into the game but I just wish the camera had some consideration for Eorzea's aesthetic.

[uldahstreetrat]

Im trying to take note of real world influences in XIV for some projects going forward, like languages used in areas (French names in Ishgard, Roman terms in Garlemald) or like in aesthetics I suppose (like Radz-at-han in particular reminds me of Istanbul), and I'd like to hear others' thoughts about those kinds of influences that they've noticed

(little more context on things im working on under the cut)

right now this has a lot to do with things like stamps lmao I have in fact gotten kinda into stamp collecting now and I'd like to design some for XIV areas based on similar irl counterpart countries? like regular stamps and stuff like a sort of Garlean version of US postal war savings stamps? so having irl countries to reference for stamp styles would be helpful to like figure that stuff out

and honestly all of this is just part of making a physical copy of Q'ihnn's journal more complicated than it needs to be but never let it be said that I dont have a love of unnecessarily dense world building

plus by having a list of reference countries I can also build out other kinds of like, souvenirs? in the journal from the places visited across msq - a lot of things I see people keep in journals, especially travel ones, are stuff like wrappers or other packaging, pieces of maps, receipts (that's its own rabbit hole ive gone down), ticket stubs, and other various little paper things along with photos and drawings (which are much easier to manage in comparison)

cause a lot of this shit doesnt extensively exist within the game often beyond a mention in a stray line of dialogue or two so there's advantages to having irl cultural and historical reference to make something that feels real - plus im often off in lala fantasy land in my head because im stuck at home a lot, im not exactly well traveled, so im sure its easy for me to miss especially like language use in certain areas (I didnt even notice how French Ishgardian names were until someone else made a joke about it, it just doesnt occur to me)

like some of these influences are fairly obvious, right, like Doma and Kugane being Japanese inspired and Greek influence around Sharlayan (which the Greek/Roman dichotomy that Sharlayan and Garlemald have going on is its own whole thing I could go into btw they're so similar yet different in such interesting ways) - but places like Ul'dah?? not a clue. Ala Mhigo? no idea. The Crystarium and Eulmore in the first??? oh I'd put my head through a wall trying to thing of a real world counterpart for reference

granted now having said that someone is going to point out something obvious that I just entirely missed some way or another lmao but like that's why im asking, right? anyway if you have nerd ass thoughts too just hit me up

[golmorehotgirl]

I remember you mentioning not wanting him to be another young viera, but how old do you headcanon Dancing Green to be? I'm curious to hear all your headcanons about him tho (about his age *and* anything else).

Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this!! At first I wanted to marinate him a little longer but then I decided to just wait till the spoiler ban was up so I could talk freely without worry!! That said all information proceeding is going to be all my own headcanons! Also want to give a big shout out to my friend Manda who listened to me blab nonstop about this Green menace and I owe so much to for their input here and there!!

I've kinda spoken about this before but I don't tend to really give exact ages for my viera characters because after a certain point of living for centuries I imagine it all starts to blend and they themselves would have a much different viewing on it then we would. I tend to think of it more in terms of like infant/child/teen/young adult/adult/elder like phases of life. That said, after thinking a lot on it I like the idea that if he were a pre dome baby (I'm coming around to post too negl..) I would say probably in his 30's. I don't think he was too old when the Dome appeared around 7 or 8 at most. I say this because I would like him to be old enough to remember what life was like before as it's important to my characterization of him and who he is/what shapes him. I'm coming around to post dome for the simple fact rotating him and Eren together in my mind, and especially with Tavi thrown in there, there's so much room for exploration!! I was talking to my friend Manda the other night and was formulating this idea of using the three characters to show the effects of losing your home to an imperialist machine like they all three did. Tavi who lost it metaphorically because she left to fight against Garlean occupation in whatever way she could and in so doing, though her home was saved from it she lost it all the same as she can never go back. She's in a sense the "pre" person who's experienced this and knows the sacrifice and trauma of it. Erenville is really the "present" as he's in real time lost his entire home and we see the trauma unfold and how it affects him and essentially in a blink of an eye makes him a relic of a bygone era and how he would cope with that. Then you'd have DG who's the "post" he's the product of growing up in a society that's been alienated and fractured. Like I said there's so much to be explored there!! But, but, but! On to other stuff lol

In my Headcanon city his town was lost during the merge and he only has a few surviving members (I like the idea of him having a younger sibling left tbh) and grew up in the Outskirts and left when he became old enough to go live in Solution 9 due to there not being many opportunities out there. I imagine he felt very isolated and lonely and was taking whatever work he could find and while walking through True Vue passed by a disco and saw these people congregated together in this space that was so lively and focused solely on the now and joy and was enraptured. After going there he starts playing up his persona in a bid to fit in due to not wanting to feel alone anymore and it being a great outlet for his love of dancing. I like to think that since he was a young child he loved to dance and that he was nicknamed "frog" due to his leggy stature (he's max height after all!) and (this one goes specifically to manda bc it's just so cute) and he was always "dancing and hopping around." This is why he chose the toad for his feral soul! We can glean from his clothes he's obviously quite proud of being Shetona and wears it in the most flamboyant colors possible which I love. I do think he’d keep shine off the shetona housing items mentioned in game during the DoL quests in his home. When I finally got my hands on crimes and popped open the hood on him I noticed they gave him the eye option that gives a smoky look around his eyes which I think is a very smart choice as it looks like dark circles around his eyes and could give off the impression of someone running themselves ragged to maintain the lifestyle he is. I do think it's that but also as I noticed when I was looking at him in gpose it looks a lot like smudged eyeliner too

so I was like "hell yeah add that to the list." I also think he paints his fingernails (metallic green ofc) I also knew from the start his hair was from the new neon colors they implemented in Sol9 and got curious on what his natural color is so played around and I really love a darker green for him tbh!

He would feel it needed to be more flamboyant and go neon lmao man who moved to da big city and bleached his hair ....

For the reason he joined Arcadion I think he'd play it off as like wanting to be rich and party the rest of his days away but the promise of having a set future and one he could take care of what remaining family he has left in the outskirts (as it's very dangerous out there and wants to get them out of there) with it. I do wonder what makes him feel as though he's not enough on his own though!! I really hope we'll eventually get a bone thrown to us someday on that. I do think he tends to be rather lonely and is actually quite quiet when out of "performer" mode. Also I love the idea of him being very into music and he makes it himself although he's too insecure about his original stuff to put it out there but he does mix his own music for his fights!

And I think that's about all I have outside of ship stuff so I hope you enjoyed!!!(You when you ask for headcanons and I throw a dictionary at you ...LMAO SORRY!!)

[myreia]

Nightbloom

Rating: Mature (for heavy themes) Pairings: Wolmeric Characters: Aymeric, Aureia (WoL) Word Count: 3,365 Summary: Ala Mhigo rises in a chorus of celebration. But high above the city in the Royal Menagerie, Aureia faces a dire understanding of herself, where her secrets have led her—and what it means for the man who loves her. Prompt: v. song | music Notes: Set at the end of Stormblood, spoilers for the base expac. Content warning: themes of war and trauma, a brief mention of a miscarriage Read on AO3

The drums beat.

The city roars.

And a nation blooms to triumphant life.

High above the labyrinthine walls, Aureia sits in a field of red, legs crossed and hands in her lap. Her staff stands tall by her side, wavering in the wind, the tip driven into the soil like some bizarre mockery of the Garlean flags that once claimed this land for itself. She should have left the Royal Menagerie bells ago when they carted the body away, but she has remained, unable to bring herself to descend into the maw of the Eorzean Alliance waiting below.

From her vantage point, she has watched Ala Mhigo swell with victory. She has seen the sun set, staining the sky bloodred as Garlean banners burned. She has seen the moon rise and the stars come out, like shining beacons guiding the way. She has heard the crescendo of a thousand cheers in the streets, the chorus of voices joined in song, the flood of music cascading through every inch of the city. Soldiers and civilians, Ala Mhigans and Domans, Eorzeans and Ishgardians all joined as one, crying out to the dawn of this new era.

With the city reclaimed and any surviving Imperials thrown in prison, the celebrations have begun in earnest. The city thrums with music and dance, food and drink, good friends and even better company. Everyone who knows anyone—regardless of their role in the siege—has converged on the capital, keen to join in on the festivities and to chance a glance at the famed Warrior of Light who just brought Zenos yae Galvus to his knees.

She could join them easily. Head down the stairs, smile and nod as if nothing was wrong, accept the adoration of a thousand grateful souls, like any good hero should…

But she is ill-suited for a party—especially one where the Ala Mhigans have put on their finest. If she leaves now, her makeup will be the ash smudged on her brow and the dried blood splattered on her chin. Her dress, her ripped and stained combat leathers. Her jewellery, the scuffed ringbands fraying at the edges.

So, she stays in this field of flowers with her eyes on the horizon, ignoring the rhythms of the city as she turns to the north-east.

To Garlemald.

To home.

Farewell, my first friend. My enemy.  

“Bastard,” she spits. “You greedy fucking bastard—” 

Footsteps trudge against stone behind her, their rhythm recognizable in a heartbeat. She closes her eyes, ignoring the sting of tears prickling in the corners. Blame it on the wind and the dust. There’s little reason why she would cry when her heart has turned to ice.

“Aureia.”

Aymeric’s voice washes over her, warm and firm. For the first time since mounting the steps, she feels at peace—as if his mere presence has washed all her fears away, and shielded her from any others yet to come. For a moment, she can feel herself rising in a rush, tripping through the sea of red flowers as she flies into his arms—

She blinks and finds herself on solid ground. She never left.

“You came to find me,” she says finally, staring ahead. The mountains loom in the distance, black against a brilliant night sky.

“Aye.”

“Waste of time and a waste of going up and down those stairs.” A lump forms in her throat. Of course he came, it is in his nature to. This has been the way they’ve been for a while now, ever since she traded Ishgard for the front. Garlemald grinds her down and shatters her, and he’s left to pick up the pieces. How many times have they done this song and dance now? How many more times will he be willing to play his part? “I’m better off alone.”

His sigh whispers on the wind, faint and fragile, as if it weren’t for her ears. “Come with me, Aureia,” he calls. “You cannot remain here forever.”

“I can. I haven’t finished.”

“There is nothing left to finish—”

“I said I haven’t finished!” Her neck cricks horribly as she wrenches herself around to look at him, ruby eyes dark with simmering with rage. “I said I would take Zenos’ head and I haven’t fucking done that, now have I?”

“Aureia. You cannot.”

“I can—I still can! If not him, then the next one up on the chain of command, and the next and the next until I get to the Emperor himself. By the gods, Aymeric, this isn’t finished until every last Galvus and all of their underlings are cold and in the fucking ground.” 

He watches her impassively, an immovable mountain to her roaring wind. Once, she would have taken his silence as confirmation that he was listening. Now, she isn’t so sure. The subject of Zenos has consumed her for weeks, setting a blazing fire within her that burns without abandon. The mere mention of the prince’s name has been enough to derail her completely, stoking her rage into an uncontrollable beast.  

Zenos would love to know that he has had that affect on her, wouldn’t he? Bastard. That fucking bastard who got the last laugh, who looked her in the eye as he took her vengeance from her.

One cut was all it took.

One cut and she watched him bleed out, the promise of her future going with it.

The drums beat, their rhythms rolling distantly above the city walls like thunder. Music to dance to, or music to march to? Perhaps it’s one and the same. It doesn’t take much for her to imagine the sound of a thousand soldiers marching across polished metal floors to a beat very much the same as that one. Tonight may be Ala Mhigo’s first night of freedom, but the Empire was here for twenty years.  

Aureia shivers. A feverish chill runs down her spine and she wraps her arms around her knees, pulling them into her chest. Somehow she’s both too hot and too cold. Black mage’s paradox. “I’m sorry,” she mutters. “That’s not the answer you wanted, was it?”

“Would it matter if I said no?” Aymeric replies shortly. “You seem to have appointed yourself the expert on how I feel about certain matters, all without the need to consult me.”

She chews her lower lip. Shit. They’ve barely traded words and already she’s pissed him off—well, as pissed off as someone like Aymeric can get. She misses Thancred’s directness. At least he has the decency of cussing her out and telling her off instead of giving her this polite veneer of passive-aggressive disapproval. They still fight these days, but it burns out quickly and they return to normal. But with Aymeric… gods, she doesn’t even know how to have an argument with him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you? You keep saying those words, but the more times you say them, the less you mean them.”

“I’m sorry, I—” She cuts off, flushing red. Blowing out a sharp breath, she shoves her fist into the ground, fingers tugging at a patch of bright red flowers. The stalks pull up easily and she shreds them one by one, like a child set loose on their parents’ garden. “I need to be alone. It’s better if I’m alone.”

“Aureia…” His voice is impossibly calm. Where once she would find it soothing, now she finds it patronizing. “You have kept your solitude for too long now. I’m concerned for you—”

“Thanks. Take your concern someplace else and go.”

“No.”

“Why not? There’s a whole party taking over the city. Go get drunk like the rest of our friends and celebrate. You deserve it.”

Aureia yanks up another handful of flowers and tears their petals one by one, crushing them in her fist like some sad version of the game the Corvosi girls used to play in the barracks at night when their sergeants weren’t looking, giggling and falling into each other as they eyed the boys across the room.

He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not…

Intimate relations in the infantry wasn’t encouraged, but they had ways of making it happen anyway. Even in the Imperial military youths will act like youths. She didn’t. She had no interest and showed no interest, to the point it became some sick joke among the bullies of their squad—regardless of gender—to see who could get into her trousers first. Thankfully none of them ever tried in earnest. She became adept at ignoring the squeaking cots and the muffled moans, rolling up in her bedroll and using ambient aether to block out the noise, pretending she wasn’t seething with jealousy at the connection her squadmates all seemed to have found.

And then she turned seventeen and she was whisked away to the capital. A specialized unit, her mother said, with her brother and herself at the head. To be sanctioned by the crown prince himself… if she could prove their worth.

She twists a petal between her fingers and pops it off the step. He would have been around fifteen at the time. Bold and strong, already well on his way to be the most terrifying and bloodthirsty general the Garlean Empire has ever seen. A child honed to be a killer.

And now he is dead.

Funny what seventeen years of hell will do to you. Where are those old squadmates now? Dead too, most likely. Maybe she killed them herself and never knew it, at Castrum Meridianum or the Praetorium, Baelsar’s Wall or Doma Castle, Castrum Abania or even here today at Ala Mhigo.

Or they’re prisoners of war, if they’re lucky. Maybe they’re like Fordola, shoved into a prison cell with an enchanted collar slapped around their necks.

The flowers ripple behind her. Her ears prick up and she straightens, muscles tensing as she senses Aymeric’s approach. Quietly, he kneels beside her and presses a hand to her cheek, turning her head to face him. He meets her gaze with silent fortitude, every inch of his expression etched with the yearning to understand but the inability to make sense of it. She can’t blame him for that. How could he understand? She’s never given him the information that would allow him to. He’s missing half the story and is still left to clean up the mess.

Her heart pounds, a painful ache squeezing tight. Gods, she loves him for that. His patience, his compassion, the way he keeps trying long after someone else would have given up on her. But this is one truth he can chase but never catch.

He’ll be chasing it forever.

She closes her eyes.

“Aureia,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”

“I… I can’t—”

“Look at me. Please.”

“I…” She sucks in a breath, teeth scraping her bottom lip, and with a cry, collapses into his arms. He holds her as she sobs, gently brushing her hair back from her face. She shakes, heaving breath after heaving breath straining her lungs, a wave of nausea coursing through her. The more she cries, the sicker she feels, and all the while the air sings with the beat of those damn drums. “I can’t do this anymore, Aymeric. I can’t. I—”

Aymeric pulls her closer and kisses her forehead. “There’s nothing else to fear, my love,” he murmurs. “Your enemy is dead. Ala Mhigo is free. Is this not the outcome you were hoping for?”

It’s not. He fucking killed himself. “It… I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

She curls into him, hiding her face, and presses a hand to her mouth as she forces down the nausea. A lie. Another bloody lie. She thought this would be the day she would let all of this go, bury her past and be done with it forever. She anticipated it so strongly it dominated every thought and every action, driving her to bloodlust and vengeance’s sweet call.

While the Alliance planned for Ala Mhigo’s freedom, she planned for her own.

Zenos was the last person alive to know her roots. The only one to make the connection between the infamous Imperial signifier who betrayed her country and killed her own, and the famed Warrior of Light. She still shakes with horror recalling the raid on the resistance camp, his hulking form emerging from the flames like a demon from the abyss. He knew who she was from the moment their weapons clashed—the same soldier he fought in that arena at the Imperial palace nearly two decades ago, the same soldier who electrified his spirit and charged it with the thrill of the fight.

He did more than just remember her. He devoured her—her essence, her very being. No one came as close to fulfilling him as she did that day in their youth, and no one else had ever since. Fighting him at Rhalgr’s Reach gifted him a taste of the thing he craved most.

It was then that she decided she had to kill him personally. Her hand, no one else’s. The logic was simple: kill Zenos, and she kills her past.

And she failed.

By refusing to give her the satisfaction of killing him herself, he has cursed her to live in terror. Terror that she is a Garlean through and through, terror that she can never be free of it. The threat he posed may be gone, but there is another one simmering beneath the surface. Instead of burying her secrets, she has dug them up and thrown them out into the open, like a graverobber exhuming a corpse and scattering the bones.

It is only a matter of time before the Alliance starts asking questions.

Aymeric strokes his fingers through her hair. “I cannot pretend to understand the trials you have undergone these past few moons,” he says quietly. “Fury knows that I have been absent for many of them, and by Her grace I wish I had not been. If I could turn back time, I would have unshackled myself from Ishgard and ventured at your side. Faced him with you at Rhalgr’s Reach.”

Aureia chokes, the sweet, sick rise of nausea burning in her chest at the mention of the raid. Their relationship has never quite been the same since. It wasn’t the bruises or the scrapes or the broken arm, but everything that came after. Sitting in a pool of her own blood, listening to the chirurgeon tell her something she never thought possible… In the blink of an eye, she was pregnant and then she was not. The shock and grief and overwhelming confusion that pulled her into the depths like a riptide, mourning something she never wanted in the first place.

If Thancred hadn’t been there, she would have lost herself entirely.  

Lucia told her Aymeric was mad with worry when he heard of her injuries, but what would he have done had he known what the chirurgeon told her? This bold, kind wonderful man, who loves her more than anything and longs for all that is supposed to entail—marriage and family, when the time is right. But the time is never right, nor is it what she wants. So, perhaps it was wrong to keep the truth from him, but she would rather he never know.  

There are many things he is better not knowing about her.

Too many.  

“I’m glad you weren’t there,” she mumbles, her face buried in his chest. “He would have targeted you to get to me.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” He pauses, his hand gripping her shoulder. “There is no way to know the what ifs and the what could have beens, nor should we. It is over. It is done. He may not have fallen by your hand, but perhaps that was a blessing. Vengeance is a hungry beast that cannot be sated by one death alone. It demands and it demands until there is nothing left of you.”

Her head jerks up. “Aymeric, I’m not Estinien.”

“I did not say that.”

“Nor am I Nidhogg.”

“I did not say that either.” He looks down sharply, his fingers falling from her hair. “But you must let this go. I know how this siege has weighed on you, but you cannot keep walking down this path—”

“Why?”

“Because I am terrified of what it will do to you.” His expression hardens. She has never seen him afraid—not when he handed himself over to his father and the Heavens’ Ward, not when they faced down Hraesvelgr together, not even when he turned a bow on Estinien’s possessed body when Nidhogg attacked Falcon’s Nest. But this? This is his true fear, isn’t it? Fear that he is losing her. “Please, Aureia. I love you more than words can say. But you cannot hold onto this anger and rage forever—”

“I can.”

“You cannot—” 

“Don’t patronize me, Aymeric!”

She shoves away from him and rises to her feet, stalking across the flowerbeds to the edge of the menagerie. Beyond the walls, an orange glow rises from the city below. Lights from the celebrations flood the streets, flickering in the moving shadows of dancers and other revellers. The fires of revolution, of a kind. From up here, it almost looks as thought the whole city is burning.

The music swells, the beat driving on and on, pressing painfully against her ears. If this were any other night or if she were some other person, perhaps he would ask her to dance and she would accept—a dance alone for the two of them, atop a city witnessing its rebirth.

But it is not any other night.

And she cannot stop being who she is.

The wind picks up, tugging at her unbound hair. Blinking back tears, Aureia opens her fist, tossing the crushed petals into the breeze. They spiral away, out over the battlements, and vanish into the dark of night.

“Aureia.” Aymeric’s voice calls from behind her. He’s close—close enough for her to sense his presence, yet far enough away that the distance between them is tangible. Cold. She misses his warmth, the days when she felt his embrace could shield her from the world. “Come with me.”

She stares ahead, the music raging on. “Is that an order, Lord Commander?”

“No. It is a request.”

“Then my answer is no.”

He is silent for a long time. Then—

“Do as you will.” His tone is short and sharp, as if speaking to an unruly temple knight who has spoken out of turn. “If you insist on refusing my help, then do as you will. I cannot stand by and watch you destroy yourself. I will wait at the bottom of menagerie for you. If you do not meet me there in half a bell’s time, then I will know your answer.”

Anger flares within her, burning bright. “If it’s an answer you want, I can give you one now—”

“Half a bell, Aureia. Either come or do not. The choice is yours.”

Aureia stares out across the city, her fist pressed to her heart as Aymeric walks away. In her mind’s eye, she can envision herself turning around and chasing after him, throwing herself into his arms with tears in her eyes and an apology on her lips, clinging to him as he carries her out of the menagerie and down the sweeping steps to the city beyond. Her heart aches for it, urging for it to come true. It would be so simply, to go to him, to run to him and hide, to turn her back on the truth that haunts her from the very horizon.

But she cannot bring herself to move.

In the wake of his ultimatum, he has left her with a single question: what does she give up? Her relationship? Or herself?

Nausea and bile rise in her throat.

She turns, running from the battlements, and collapses in the flowerbeds. She vomits, again and again until her throat is searing and her lips are cracked and her body has nothing left to give.

Below, the music beats on and on and on.

[pillowfriendly]

"the Crystarium isn't what gets Kethry to reevaluate her anti-government stance?" no <- i am hereby inviting you to tell us what kethry thinks about the crystarium. BLEASE. i'll get us both coffee

(guess whaaat i got sidetracked in the middle of writing and sent to my drafts folder and instantly forgor about. SORRY)

☕☕

soooo as you know. maybe. i forget what ive said out loud or only thought about real hard. kethrys about 2 marbles away from losing em all at the end of sb. getting yoinked into apocalypse world where the crystal tower is mysteriously the center of a city lead by a guy who is Not (definitely not! he insists!) G'raha really does not help.

is he a clone. a descendant. an ascian puppeting the body. this exarch guy, who really really seems like he's holding her friends hostage, wont say. and kethry, who has been on the stalemate'd frontline against garlemald for months being the violence incarnate that zenos thought she could be, has HAD IT with city lords throwing her at their problems. this one won't even tell her what's going on!

he does seem to truly care for his city though. and that's leverage. oop there goes one of the last two marbles. she goes to the support structures under the crystarium and slams the shit out of the biggest one she can find to draw the exarch out. she'll make him fight, corner him, beat out all the answers she wants!

turns out the whole place is extremely fortified and also you shouldn't try to fight a nuclear-powered wizard under his own nuclear tower. :/

she doesn't get what she wants out of this; the shb plot moves on. and as she comes to know the people of the crystarium, people sheltering from a harsh and dying world but who are somehow still kind, and generous, and hopeful--the reality of what she tried to threaten sets in. so the main reason why she doesn't re-evaluate her opinions because of the crystarium, is that the guilt that dawns on her about it takes up too much space.

especially in the months of recovery after she kills emet-selch, living with these people who not only had built and defended a home here, but brought as many people as they could in and fed them and clothed them and gave them work and made it their home too--she loves them okay!! and she had tried to crash part of their home into a goddamn ravine because she was frothing mad.

the implications and possibilities of government become more salient in retrospect when she sees how the populace acts in garlemald. the garleans are also living through an apocalypse, but largely abandoned by their leaders, considered a resource at best. this is more what she expects, but there's REALLY no time to be considering all that in EW. so it's not until lion king vacation time that she really considers that the concept of an organizing state body MIGHT be okay. maybe. sometimes. within limits.

[viiioca]

ok i gotta ask does estelle have any particularly strong feelings or judgments on hien? i know a lot of people find him pretty one-dimensional but im imagining estelle would have something to say about the way he views his duty, specifically when he agrees to destroy doma castle. just the contrasts and parallels between ishgardian and doman nobility.

oh that's a great question that i haven't really thought much about (SORRY HIEN I LIKE YOU I JUST DONT THINK ABOUT YOU OFTEN). apologies to doma & hien fans who have a strong grip on them because i'm not going back to check lore and dialogue and thinking about this super hard so we're flying by the seat of my pants. we are in vibes town. long ass answer under da cut

i think estelle certainly has some strong opinions about doma (she has strong opinions about mostly everything) that would transfer over to hien as the presiding head of state. it's a high-context society that is strongly conservative, patriarchal, hierarchical, and standing very much at the precipice of significant social and political change, so it's easy for her to draw parallels between the two. and i think that while hien is similar to aymeric in both personality and role within the state, there is a passiveness to hien's politics that she would find frustrating as well, because the state has subsumed a significant portion of hien's identity, which is partially cultural (the expectation that a good and honorable leader submits wholly, body and spirit, to the needs of his people) and partially personal (being raised under a garlean boot means that identifying as doman and being as doman as possible was critical to resisting oppression).

it makes him reactive rather than proactive, and while he can rise up with a ferocious set of teeth to protect his people, he seems to be leaving matters of social & cultural rebuilding up to the people themselves, who are struggling for stronger guidance beyond their immediate material needs. the people are his foremost concern (in a way that is genuinely quite progressive for a conservative culture, sacrificing tradition and artifice for continued human life and spirit), which is an admirable and genuinely desirable trait in a leader, but it comes at the expense of a coherent and cohesive vision for the future that he can lead his people towards.

which is to say: when it comes to droving the herd, he is more of a sheepdog than a shepherd. that temperament works fine (??) for established city-states like gridania and ul'dah, but as we see with ala mhigo and ishgard, states in active recovery require a willingness to aggressively pursue solutions. (i think it helps ala mhigo, too, that raubahn is balanced with lyse; like hien, raubahn is very much a sheepdog type of leader projecting strength for ala mhigans to look to, but it's lyse who has a genuine vision for ala mhigo's future that she actively pushes towards. hien doesn't really have a similar council he can look towards for the same sort of perspectives and division of labor, which is possibly why he taps on foreign contacts for guidance, e.g. the side-story where he invites g'raha to doma to discuss corvos & its recovery from garlean rule.)

estelle likes hien, so she would be diplomatic about this. but her concerns are plain. doma produced yotsuyu; it was not strictly an act of particularly villainous individuals (though they were), but also a culture that is perfectly complicit in the abuse of women and children, and a state that afforded no protections for them. what are his plans for this, then? how can he use his power and status to enact policy to minimize the chances of this happening again? what are his plans for future governance now that the threat of garlean reinvasion has passed? for a man who loves his people, and for a people who have spent the last few decades with no voice in government nor any power over their own futures, would it be proper to restore the monarchy and its layers of nobility where the smallfolk again have no hands on any lever of power? -- not quite needling, but more than clear about her Certain Political Opinions, and her displeasure about particular injustices that might find themselves repeating without a stronger plan. she's certainly not shy about her own politics and would absolutely press hien to become much more certain in his own.

[eemamminy-art]

You have turned me from a Zenos hater into a Zenos ambilaventer keep posting and you might manage to turn me into a Zenos lover

If you already hated him though is me drawing him really going to make that big of a difference? 😩 Like I know I give him a fat ass and extremely delicious nose in my artwork but now I feel compelled to give you my tedtalk on why I like zenos lmao

This is about to be really long and also contains spoilers for stormblood, shadowbringers, and endwalker

This might surprise you but I like Zenos for his characterization and storyline in the game itself! The fanart is just kind of a bonus. He's one of many examples in Stormblood of a character that is shaped by their experiences, though I think it's not told as successfully as it is for like, Fordola, Arenvald, or Yotsuyu, because a key part of his backstory was locked to a short story in a print-only book (which I think is out of print now). The most you see of it in the actual game is this blink and you miss it line from Lyse at the very end of 4.0:

(Dialog from the quest "Stormblood", patch 4.0)

What really, really appeals to me about Zenos though, is that he is the personification of depression and that really resonates with me. He has anything he could possibly want, he has accomplished a great many things, but he feels completely hollow inside. He's miserable. He slaughtered countless Domans including their leader and felt nothing, commanded to do it by his father because (as shown in that short story) he only ever was acknowledged to even exist to his father when he practiced violence. So it's a given now, that's what's expected of him and that's all his life is. He's completely desensitized.

He finds one thing that makes him feel alive, that is the warrior of light challenging him, and it becomes his sole focus. Nothing else matters but chasing that high, because every single other thing is a low. After being bested by the warrior of light for the very last time, faced with probably prison for his crimes, he decides to die by his own hand on that high note rather than go back to the drudgery and misery that is everything else.

It's why in endwalker he can be swayed to do something good at the very, very end. He doesn't have a moral compass because he was shaped into an attack dog by his father, he sees "righteousness" as an excuse for war. Because I mean, what else is Garlean propaganda but righteousness from their twisted perspective? He asks Jullus if he would be happier had he a good reason to kill so many garleans after killing his own father— he makes it plain that death is death and there is no justice or good or evil in his eyes. He did have a reason, and it was that his father's use of black rose would likely kill the warrior of light, the only person or thing that gave Zenos any joy in life. Later, it was that Fandaniel dangled the idea that the warrior of light would be attracted to the slaughter and would come running to stop him so he killed more people during the civil war after the emperor's death. But he doesn't need to say that that was why. The reason doesn't matter, he knows the action would not change no matter how it was justified. Even if it was a "good" reason, death is death.

(Dialog from the quest "The Time Between the Seconds", patch 4.0)

(Dialog from the quest "As the Heavens Burn", patch 6.0)

I often see people take Alisaie's part in that scene as her convincing him to be a better person but that's really not what happens. He knows if he takes that action that others perceive as good and helps to stop Endsinger, he could have that high again in facing the warrior of light one more time. He could find joy and meaning, even for a fleeting moment. Then once again end it all because he fears returning to the low monotony of life. It's all over his dialog, especially in Endwalker. The dialog at the very end where he asks the warrior of light if they feel fulfilled, I know is meant to be a bit more of a meta question toward the player themselves, but I'd like to think it's Zenos comparing how different his outlook is to the warrior of light's. The warrior of light has many things keeping them going, whereas Zenos is drowning in despair with only one bright spot that he is constantly chasing time and time again.

(Dialog from the quest "Friends Gathered", patch 6.0)

those three tiny lines can hold so much zenoswol yearning in them AAAAAAAAAAAAA I AM not well

I personally still feel like there was room for him to survive that and to be gently guided into more and more good and try to undo some of that conditioning but I think he might be too polarizing of a character for him to become a permanent ally in canon. Much as I would love to see that! I have to wonder if the mentions of him in the 6.X patches that bounced between positive and negative were testing the waters, but I will leave my tinfoil hat aside because this post is already WAY too long lmao

I understand why people dislike him: they think he enjoys murder because he does it without "a good reason", they don't like how obsessive he becomes toward the warrior of light who is an extension of the player themselves, they don't like that in Fandaniel's scheme in "in from the cold" Zenos is the one inhabiting the warrior of light's body. Totally get it, totally understand.

I'm just saying I see the complexity to him and I find it compelling. Just as I found the overwhelming grief and despair that motivated Nidhogg or Emet-selch or Elidibus to be compelling. I think what people miss though when you like an antagonist is that feeling empathy toward them means you don't feel empathy toward the people they harmed, or that you somehow agree with what they did. But really, I just love seeing these characters that are faced with such tragedy or misery that they start to lose sight of right and wrong. They're driven entirely by emotions. For a story where emotions are literally power, I think it's a really interesting angle to take with the antagonists of that story.

Man, where was I going with this? 😂 I just love Zenos... I don't think I will be convincing anyone to like him who doesn't already, and that's not at all my intent. I just thought I'd share my perspective a little bit after getting this ask!

[rainofaugustsith]

These lines right here sum up why I feel FFXIV has much more superior, nuanced writing than the Star Wars franchise.

Star Wars has you believe that one side is right regardless of what they do, and the other side is so evil, rotten to the core in every way that their entire people, planets. culture, language, religion - everything - should be permanently erased if they can't be converted to an entirely different culture, language, and creed (And don't get me started on how they conveniently made the Sith alphabet - again considered terrabad - virtually identical to the Hebrew alphabet). It's a very black and white, dogmatic view that IMHO hearkens back to the evangelical belief that only one point of view gets to go to heaven, and if you don't believe that, resist converting and want to hang onto your identity, you're going to hell. And you're certainly going to hell if you point out anything questionable the other side has done.

What you discover in FFXIV is nuance.

Every single job can be used for good; every single job can be used for evil. The heroes of one story are the villains of another. Every heroic gesture comes with a very real price. Nobody is beyond reproach, and that includes the player character. Actions one person takes for the greater good can lead to devastating damage for others.

The "get back to nature" white mages rule a city-state where xenophobia rules the day and the elementals run a reign of terror. White magic executed without proper training can be fatal.

The black mages who congregate in a hall for the gods of the dead have an alliance among the marginalized tribes that spans all three city-states and saves Eorzea from calamity. Black magic executed without proper training can be fatal.

The Dark Knights dedicate themselves to protecting those who need their help, and teach that one's dark side isn't something to vanquish, but something to hear, acknowledge and make peace with.

The Dragoon story shows that one's archenemy can become one's ally - or consume them.

The fearsome reapers who treat with the dead are actually helping the downtrodden.

The community working hard to keep the peace and move forward in a productive way are ex-pirates.

And so on. Nobody is expected to forgive those who have wronged them. Atonement is seen as something that involves work on the part of the perpetrator, not the participation of the survivors. But atonement is there and in several cases characters do better.

Any thoughts that any group in Eorzea needs to be eliminated are eventually dispelled completely. Marginalization of various groups is something that eventually does need to be answered for, and is presented as a problem, not a necessity. When Eorzea finally marches on their nemesis, the Garlean Empire, it is on an aid mission, not conquest. There are no attempts to convert. Just to help.

Both Garlemald in Endwalker and Ziost in SWTOR deal with the issue of murderous possessed people. In SWTOR, the Republic - remember, our "good guys" - response with Saresh is to send an invading army to increase the hurt. In FFXIV, the Alliance's response is to send an army to help, with Scions striking out into the snow and into the smoldering ruins to rescue anyone they can.

If you asked me if I would live anywhere in a Star Wars universe, it would be an emphatic HELL NO. But FFXIV? I feel like they are at least striving for better, with common ground and peaceful co-existence, and everything is nuanced.

[unionizedwizard]

actually to develop a bit further because i Have thought about it. so irma grew up in ul'dah with an adoptive family who kept reminding her of the fact she was beholden to them as an ala mhigan refugee (and in a much better position than any of her peers could hope for). the fact her status & cultural identity were kept hidden from public opinion was considered as a favor they were making her. said family was an arrivist and ambitious merchant couple so they made a huge show of worshiping nald'thal and giving generous alms to the order (while not taking irma with them or allowing her to go, which is why she never officially enrolled at the thaumaturges' guild despite being a full-fledged black mage by now). i also headcanon that due to the political situation & the capitalism-flavored anti-refugee sentiment/xenophobia prevalent in ul'dah until late/post stormblood at the very least, and considering the deep religious sentiment embedded in ala mhigan culture & particularly the refugees we met (the little ala mhigo episode & attempted rhalgr summoning come to mind), rhalgr as a deity has been undermined and disliked in ul'dah - you know how it is with "religious conflicts" - his cult being associated with the lowest classes & basically the undocumented migrants being used as little more than slave labor for the 20+ years of garlean rule over gyr abania, and therefore associated with ideas like "savagery", "foreigners", etc. i also have the feeling that the fact the cult (and order) of nald'thal being quite transparently a political organization (they're in charge of maintaining the roads throughout thanalaan!) makes the very sincere (and somewhat extreme, in certain cases) beliefs of rhalgr's followers a bit "quaint" and "primitive" to them - like the cult of the fury in ishgard might seem a bit "too much" for the average sharlayan whose reverence of thaliak is more of a symbolic & practical thing than anything else. the very idea of "destruction" must appear as unsavory and inelegant to the average ul'dahn by ARR in my opinion, especially when THEIR deity is an elegant metaphor: a double-deity of both death and commerce - everything being passed around in one fluid, harmonious motion, unlike the raw strength and more "basic" aspect of the meteor imagery

all this to say that, considering this is pretty much all she knew about her origins, irma has always clung very tightly to her religious practices & the worship of rhalgr, mostly inwardly. when she starts practicing thaumaturgy on her own and realizes channeling lightning-aspected spells feels like second nature to her, she (joyfully) concludes that rhalgr favors her and that he has heard her prayers. it also brings a measure of comfort about the fact she can't cast/channel healing magicks, because it seems to confirm her (vague) assumption that she's been chosen to become the destroyer's hand in eorzea. this religious foundation + a similarly vague, unexplained feeling both prime her to become hydaelyn's champion and so she leaps into the role immediately without asking questions during ARR, complete faith & unbreakable devotion, the whole deal

she was REAL mad when the whole "the ascian taught us how to summon rhalgr as a primal :( sorry" plot beat happened LOL. supreme impiety & blasphemy in her eyes, and the fact she can very much understand where they're coming from makes her even angrier out of a feeling of helplessness

[xenodile]

On the one hand, I definitely get the perspective some people take of "the actual adults involved let Alphinaud down" in regards to the Crystal Braves, but I don't like it because it feels like it's trying to minimize Alphinaud's wrongdoing or absolve him of responsibility, and it's kind of insulting to treat him like he's well, a stupid kid that was in over his head.

Like don't get me wrong, he was up to his ears in the politics of Ul'dah and that's definitely a lot to put on anyone, especially someone as young and inexperienced as him, but the reason he was able to get into that situation at all is because, for the purposes of the story, Alphinaud is an adult. Like I see all the time the sentiment "why is this teenager allowed to do all this" and the answer is that in the setting, that's old enough to have independence and make important decisions! As far as everyone else in the setting is concerned, Alphinaud's a grown man that is just as qualified as anyone else to be doing the things he does! If he was just a loud mouthed kid, he wouldn't have the ear of Eorzea's military leaders or the Scions.

Whether you agree or not with the narrative decision to have 16 be the age of adulthood aside, the point is that Alphinaud should have known better. He is genuinely very smart, he knows politics and strategy, he SHOULD have anticipated his enemies trying to sabotage his plans. The Crystal Braves happened not because Alphinaud was ignorant, but because Alphinaud was arrogant. There WERE people telling him something was fishy, Riol was looking into it, the Monetarists' investments were brought to his attention, but Alphinaud didn't do anything about it because he was convinced he was invincible. He believed that if anyone tried anything, his troops were fanatically loyal to him and his enemies couldn't touch him. He had it in his head that he had solved the Primal Problem and created the weapon that would enforce Eorzea's peace forever, and he convinced himself that the Warrior of Light was his personal attack dog that would be there to kill anyone that got in his way. And worst of all is that no one could dispute this! His agents found a Garlean spy in the Immortal Flames, his personal action found Cid, saved the Scions, and turned the tide against the XIVth Legion. It would not have mattered if everyone around him was warning him about the coup, he wouldn't have believed it. The reason it hits him so hard is that he was so deep in his own ego as the savior of Eorzea that he started ignoring the corruption around him, and forgetting that his decisions affected the lives of dozens if not hundreds of people.

Taking that responsibility away from him to blame Thancred or Y'shtola or Minfilia or whoever just because they're older than him does a disservice to his character and the story of XIV as a whole.

[musesofawolf]

Day 1 - Cruel

@daily-writing-challenge

Cruel.

That was what he was supposed to be.

Bryn supposed that perhaps that was what all soldiers were supposed to be, but reality hardly fit what it was supposed to be. He shifted ever so slightly, sliding his hand down his side, to his hip, and gently brushing down his shirt, covering the slightly exposed skin that the snow was chilling uncomfortably. It was one of those things where he had to weigh the danger of moving and being spotted versus the danger of leaving it be and having it chill him enough to shift at a worse time. Since he was yet to see or hear the convoy of Garlean supplies, or their forward scouts, he had decided to risk it, taking the time to settle back into the snow and letting his white patterned uniform blend him seamlessly into the white snow.

Cruel. It was a good word to describe war in general, or particularly the Garlean Empire. How many innocents had they killed? Kidnapped? Experimented on? How many countries had they taken over and ruled with an iron fist? And now, now as they crumbled from their own civil war, they wanted...mercy? He glanced to his right, at the old, wooden Allagan rifle under his right hand, and carefully shifted his hand to brush snow over the brown stock, working his jaw as he took a deep breath, and settled back into waiting.

It was amazing, he mused to himself by thought alone, that he could hide his six foot frame so well with just some well thought out patterns and clothes, all the way down to his white boots, and sometimes, he still worried the camouflage was not as good as assumed. Yet every time he used it, he remained unseen. And seeing was believing.

The convoy was late. Typical. But it gave him more time to think. He frowned, mulling that word over in his mind again. Cruel. Was he as cruel as the enemies he fought against? The beast tribes that summoned their gods, the Garleans, was he any better than them? Or was he just a soldier like them, killing for a different side? He didn't like that thought. He decidedly disliked that thought.

There was a difference between cruelty and necessity. And the deaths he dolled out were not cruel, they were necessary.

That was what it meant to be a scout.

The first hint that the convoy was close was the vibration of machinery and hooves through the frozen ground, and the scout's silver eyes widened. They were close, and he shoved his face into the snow, hiding his face, his breath, and leaving just a sliver of his eyes to watch between the snow and his cap. And just as he did so, he caught the glimpse of black armor as the convoy rounded the corner.

Yep, they had machines with them all right. Those two legged walkers, flanking the lead cart, ready to sprint with their weird winged sides despite their inability to fly, and mounted gun that would tear him to pieces if he was spotted. It would be quick, at least, but that was hardly a consolation. Bryn wanted to live, which was exactly why he was silent, and didn't move a muscle. Besides, he wasn't interested in the heavy machinery. No, he cared about the supplies.

They had learned a few things about the way Garleans' handled their convoys, how certain wagons of goods were covered, or how ammunition was left open to the air. His silver eyes scanned each one, keeping a mental tab as the foot patrols on either side of the carts strode by, their uniforms pressed to neat perfection, and the hauling machines that pulled each cart churning along without a care. They pulled a lot more than a chocobo could, that was for sure.

Five carts of food, three of ammunition. A standard shipment. He had even made a note of how many foot soldiers and attack machines there were. It would be simple for the ambush squad to take. He just had to get to-

He froze. Had he twitched? Had the snow shifted? He wasn't sure, but he could see the Garlean soldier, rifle over his shoulder, staring towards him. Over him? It was hard to tell. He didn't even breath, didn't dare move his eyes from where they were locked on the man's face, as he stepped off the path and stumbled through the deep snow towards Bryn.

Shit.

It was a boy. The closer he got, the more obvious it was, and Bryn felt bile rising in his throat. He couldn't be older than fourteen, fifteen, his eyes flicking about with nervous energy, wearing a uniform a size too big in a way that tugged at his shoulders, and tripped him around his ankles. He knew they were desperate, knew they had conscripted men from their captured lands as young as thirteen, but to see it?

And for a moment, he saw himself in that fearful gaze, recognized it for what it was. Remembered the terror of turning thirteen in Ala Mhigo, the threat of being forced to fight for a country he had no ties to, and the drive to escape. Bryn had run, and when he ran, he swore vengeance for the lives stolen. Yet here, in front of him, drawing every closer, was a stolen life.

The black boot crunched down into the snow two paces away, and still, Bryn didn't move. It would be a simple matter to surge up, to grab him by the throat, break his neck before he could make a sound. The convoy was already past, the distant rumble of their armor droning ever quieter, and yet, Bryn didn't move. He waited. He watched. He stared up at the kid as he shuffled closer...and then suddenly turned, muttering something, and jogged to catch up with his squad and convoy.

Two steps, and Bryn wouldn't have had a choice.

Two steps.

Ten minutes later, as he rose from the ground with achy limbs, brushing off the snow from his clothes and rifle, he stared down the road towards where the convoy had disappeared, and he sighed softly.

That was the difference between cruelty and necessity. Two steps. And maybe, maybe he had waited to prove something to himself, to be able to say something about himself. Taking off his cap, he shook off the snow, his short cropped black hair spiked from the hat, and he looked back towards the convoy with a grim expression.

Brynhorn Fiske was not cruel.

And he sighed, turning to wade through the snow back towards the rendezvous place, knowing full well that his report would likely get the kid killed anyway. War was cruel.