#until the Scions eventually picked him up~

[knnichs]

RISK

He never believed in Christmas miracles. But if at this moment right now was his only chance–then he will desperately cling onto it as if it was the only thing that mattered in his life.

c. kinich x gn!reader

t. childhood friends to lovers, mild violence (abyss attack, but very short,) no use of y/n, cliche tropes YES i know is it really a knnichs work if theres no cliche stuff, wc: 3.4k

merry christmas, @papiliotao !! i was your secret santa 🧑‍🎄 this is a bit lengthy but i do hope you like it 🧡

Kinich certainly isn’t the type to befriend others.

Not unless it was something formed out of a transaction–or a commission. In this case, his friendship with Mualani was only formed because she was looking for a battle advisor to train Kachina against the wilderness, she said. In the end, he had grown rather fond of them, and gained two new acquaintances that day.

Outside of that, Kinich doesn’t exactly recall when he befriended other people. Sometimes a few people would pass by him while he walked around the tribe and greet him, it is quite embarrassing to say that he doesn’t remember half of their names, if they had never become one of his clients.

You, on the other hand, haven't disappeared from his mind a single day ever since middle school.

BEFORE THE NIGHT FALLS

He remembered the exact moment he got to know you. When his parents had left him as a kid, Kinich went to find a place to live and settle down as he did his work. He had just found shelter in the Scions of the Canopy, and under Elder Liek’s guidance, he was to go to school. Even if he hesitated, he was eventually forced to, the Elder wouldn’t let him help out around the tribe without it. There, he learnt about heroes and their morals–I mean, he questioned it: why would they do something when they wouldn’t profit from it?

In those classes, the other kids would make fun of him. Point at his ragged clothing made out of animal-skin, comment on his dirty feet, since he was always barefoot. You, always his knight in shining armor, called out their behavior and told them that they weren’t being nice. 

Truly a reason of all time, he thinks. Those kids would surely quit their teasing simply because they weren’t being nice.

But he appreciated the gesture. You stood in front of him–arms on your hips, you were determined to drive them away so they could stop picking on people smaller than them. He just looked up at you, (with what he hoped it wasn't a blank expression) curious why you decided to defend someone like him. He had nothing to offer you–he had no mora, no luxurious items. So, why? 

He wanted to ask you before the day ended. Following your footsteps until you were in the middle of the bridge. From there, you would learn his name was Kinich, and he would know what yours was (along with the reason why you decided to ‘protect’ him from that group of kids.) From there, you two would grow quite fond of each other over the years.

He knew he had always adored your kindness, even if it was towards people you barely knew–you somehow always managed to bring a smile to their face and a full heart to come home with. Once, he saw you help a crying child find their play sword–you knew nothing of her, aside from her name, of course.  You found that their sword was thrown all the way down to the river below, it was far from saving–the wood was scratched and torn into halves. So, ‘as any normal human being would do’ (in your words,) you spent the next few hours creating a makeshift sword for them, one that had star stickers and a ribbon wrapped around its handle. 

The kid came home happy to their parents, of course. Boasting about how wonderfully made their new wooden sword was and how this was the first step for them to join the pilgrimage. Her parents only shared a look that was saying ‘thank you.’ You simply smiled and waved, leaving them to enter their home as the kid rushed inside. 

That was all you got, simple two words anyone can utter, and you were happy. You didn’t get mora, you didn’t get any sweets, nor did you get any special treatment. Thank you, it was all you’re going to get for something you spent hours on.

It would be a lie not to say Kinich wasn’t puzzled by your behavior. Somehow, even after he had long graduated from Elder Liek’s class he doesn’t understand. Why do you do these things for free? If that were him, he would have charged them an enough amount of mora just because the work took hours already.

Later on, he would realize you did this simply because you think some things in this world are worth doing–no matter how much it would cost you. And a few years after, just before the next pilgrimage, there was an abyss ambush that almost ended with you hurt.

The sky was dark with a purple fog sabotaging your vision. The smell of smoke from a fire slowly starting to grow, its ashes filled your lungs and burned your eyes. You take another shirt and ran—ran from your home, and the tribe. 

Kinich was away at the time, blissfully unaware of the attack until it was already resolved. He doesn’t quite recall what he was doing before it. All he remembers is the feeling of his heart dropping to his stomach as he heard the fellow tribespeople say you were missing. Had a rifthound laid its claws on you? Where were you?

He would grapple across the forest, letting the branches scratch his skin as he travels, his heart rate increasing at the thought of you getting trapped, wounded—or dead, even. He can’t let that happen, not when he hasn’t told you everything.

Thankfully, he found you seeking refuge in a cave nearby. A few saurians found their way in your arms, a baby yumkasaur fast asleep on your lap.

“Are you hurt?” Kinich steps towards you, observing you quite intently for any injuries you may have gotten. You shake your head, petting the yumkasaur on its head. 

He finds a spot beside you, slouching as he can finally relax, at least a little. He still has to help out later with the damages. Fix a few tents that were broken, check up on the other tribespeople—but you were his top priority.

“I’m fine. Are you seeing this little guy? So. Cute.” You say, only sparing him a glance in his direction before focusing on that yumkasaur once again.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Cute.” 

FEAR

His friend group which consisted of only two people (excluding the dragon he carries around,) were only Mualani and Kachina. Those two were the only ones who truly understood Kinich’s method of maneuvering around the battlefield, pricing commissions, haggling–really, a few tricks in the book he has, they know about it. You’re no fighter, nor are you an errand person, you don’t know how to do any of these, so seeing Kinich do it himself may be surprising enough for you–but it’s really something he does normally.

You do know how Kinich thinks. How the little gears in his brain move, the quick shift in expression before it turns back to his resting face, how he truly feels in each situation–you’ve learnt how to read him. It may just be because you have good observational skills (which he dreads, for multiple reasons) or the two of you have spent enough time with each other to know what the other is feeling with a single glance, either way, Kinich isn’t as comfortable with it.

You can read how he felt, and he’s never felt that vulnerable in his entire life. He felt like no matter how much he tried to run from you, somehow–there's always a somehow with you–he still can’t hide anything from your ‘prying’ gaze. You know what makes him tick, what makes him smile, to the point that he wonders if you know how he truly felt about you. 

If you can read minds (and gods, Kinich hopes you can’t,) he wonders if you’ve already heard of the things he mutters to the moon at night, and the sun at day. Have you heard of the sacred promises he keeps close to his heart? That he would guard you until his dying breath? That under the moonlight, there was nothing he would wish for more than your presence beside him. Grounding the poor boy's heart in the moment only you two share. 

If you somehow have the power to look at someone's past memories, would you see the times he would pick up the guitar collecting dust in the corner of his room, play a cheesy love song from years ago and hum along to the tune thinking of you? There are far too many times he somehow finds a way to make a situation about you. It could be when he’s about to bungee jump, he finds himself tightening the harness a little more because he knows you wouldn’t want to live in a world without him. A few times when he’d go on commissions and look at the flowers, sit on the top of the cliff and watch as the sun set thinking how much more magical the moment would be if you saw this with him. Would you think it was pretty? How would the sun’s rays reflect on your eyes? Will it glow the same bright color that you bring to his monochrome world?

Sa isang munting harana, para sa’yo.

This meager serenade, just for you.

He can’t offer you anything. Nothing but his entire soul—his vow, to protect you, no matter the cost. Even as he bears the name Malipo, just a smile coming from you would already be more than enough for him.

And maybe someday, one day, he would have the courage to tell you the truth he’d been hiding all these years.

‘PRESENT’ TIME

“Kachina, there’s a few stockings on that table over there. Could you get it for me?” Mualani sat atop a chair, trying to hang decorations for your group’s Christmas party. It's not anything big, it wasn't meant to be that extravagant. All of you would just celebrate the holiday as it was, like what you did every year. 

The fireplace burned through the night, its flames becoming the main lighting of the room. It was bright enough for Mualani to see what she was doing exactly, and warm enough that it felt like a normal sunny day in Natlan. It was often cold during the winter, and although it doesn’t snow, the temperature does drop a little colder than usual.

“Here you go!” The girl handed four stockings–all personalized with your names embroidered on them. In green was Kinich’s name, yellow for Kachina, blue for Mualani’s, and yours in purple. With that in mind, you noticed a light green line of thread that resembled half a shape–curved at the top, and straight at the bottom. Kachina had a few sparkles on hers, and Mualani had the shape of a shark. You shake off the detail, deeming it unnecessary anyway.

Mualani gave her thanks and hung up the stockings all in order–her’s, Kachina’s, Kinich’s, and yours.

“This place is definitely starting to look lively. How much time do we have left until midnight?” You asked, sitting down on the world’s comfiest couch. 

“About an hour, we still have time to set up the bonfire outside too.” Kinich looked at the clock–it's frames decorated with reindeer antlers and a small yellow bell. You smiled at him, whispering a small thank you, and looking back at Mualani (who you were quite worried about, since you’re sure she might fall over the chair at any point.) Kachina was also quite occupied, scouring the place to find… something. 

After a bit more adjusting–the stockings were set up, the cookies are almost done, a few dishes have been spread out on the table already, and the marshmallows are just on the table. Perfect, there was just one more thing left.

“Shoot. Hey, uh, can you and Kinich go get the fairy lights? It’s by Altahua’s net.” She climbed down from the chair and faced you, “You know her, right? Yelafath?” 

“Sure do, I’ll just leave my bag here–watch over my stuff!” You say, placing your belongings by the place you sat on the couch. “Kinich, let's go?”

Outside, it was much, much colder than usual. The wind blowing accompanied by the amount of water that was near the tribe was enough to make you shiver. You and the boy made your way to the shop, you’ve only conversed with Yelafath maybe two or three times? But so long as you mention Mualani’s name, you’re sure that it’ll go okay. You rubbed your hands together and brought them to your mouth, huffing it in hopes that it'll magically turn warm. Hearing the sounds of clothes shuffling, you turn to your side and see Kinich already handing his jacket to you. 

“Quick, before Ajaw gets sick of being locked up,” He muttered. 

“Afraid he’ll tease you? Oh, what a softie you’ve become!” 

“Just take it.” He stands behind you, stretching out the fabric to make it easier for you to slip right in. You were getting warm because of the jacket, it definitely wasn’t because of him.

And it all falls back to silence once again. Save for the sounds of waves crashing and the occasional gust of wind. You don’t mind the quiet, actually, and Kinich wasn’t the type to keep on talking all the time either–preferring to be blunt and straightforward. But this is different, it wasn’t because he had ended a conversation too early that you don’t know what to say so it would continue, because you loved hearing his voice, you loved hearing him talk whatever was on his mind. His attitude towards it sometimes made you upset, feeling a little distant with him every time it happened, but you do know it was just the way he does things. The quiet that falls upon the two of you is comfortable.

All of it has to come to an end, eventually finding the shop. You hopped to the counter, calling for the girl who was arranging things in the crates.

“Evening, Yelafath! Mualani mentioned that she had fairy lights with you?” 

“Fairy lights? Oh, I don’t think she gave me any, sorry.” She looks around the shop, looking for something to give you, but shrugs instead. “I wish I could give you something similar, but we have nothing, we’re also closing for the day.”

“Ah, no, that’s okay. Thank you, and merry christmas! I’ll just tell her.” You smiled, giving her a wave. Kinich simply nodded, crossing his arms and following you behind. She greeted you back, and you faced the house once more, the lights of the shop behind you dimming before turning off–leaving you and Kinich in the complete darkness of the night. Some stalls were still open, the only few things really illuminating your way were the lamp posts and lanterns scattered across the platforms. 

“Where will we celebrate the next Christmas?” You shuffle with the jacket again, raising the sleeves upwards to bring your hand out. The stars were so bright with the mix of blue and purple from the galaxies above, 

“It’s our turn next year, we’ll be the ones hosting it. I hope you’re not sick of me yet,” He chuckles–albeit quite softly. It’s rare to hear him laugh let alone smile with or to other people. But with you, oh, everything is just so easy with you. He can always let his guard down without any fear of you trying to make fun of him. Even on days when he comes to you battered and bruised from a particularly rough commission, you take the time out of your day to care for him. To treat his wounds, focusing your attention on him that he shies away from your touch, insisting that you were doing too much and it could heal on its own. 

One step after the other, letting the salt air brush against you. 

And it once again, falls into silence. 

Ajaw does come into the picture once more after his 15 minute jail time was lifted, and thankfully fills the air with random and the most unnecessary comments.

You ring the doorbell to the house, tapping your feet impatiently in a not-so-coordinated rhythm while waiting for anyone to answer the door. 

“Mualani, Kachina–” you shout, “HELLO? The lights are on, I know you guys are in there!”  

“Seems like your so-called friends abandoned you two. How long until something goes wrong? Oh, I can already smell it! I, K’uhul Ajaw, will ensure that this world will know exactly what loneliness feels like, starting with you two!”

Your arms lay slack on your sides, breathing a heavy sigh. You knock again, one more, twice–until you just start slamming your fist on the door calling them repeatedly. You shiver from the cold wind and eventually give up. Backing away to face your friend, who was unusually, still quiet. 

“Kinich?” You say his name, ever so soft. His eyes dared not to look at you, in fear of showing exactly what he shoved deep down in his chest for the past few years you two knew each other.

“Ew, that’s gross! Don’t give him those lovey-dovey eyes! You’ll give him ideas, you hear me?! Quit that, you’re both so annoying!” Ajaw says, all while retching, “You know what? You’re both insufferable. I’m leaving!”

Some part of Kinich does wonder what exactly needed to happen for you to fall with him. He deemed it unlikely for three years now, saying that you couldn’t possibly. Not with someone like him–blood stained on his hands for his entire life, not for someone with rough, calloused hands that can expertly wield a claymore. Kinich has never felt something as delicate and gentle as you. The moment you tried to defend him from those immature kids–he knew. You would never hurt him, not once in a million lifetimes. With your gentle soul? You were filled with nothing but kindness and innocent hope. You were that glimmer of light he needed in his darkest time, the feeling he needed in his chest to keep going forward–to keep fighting, all for your smile.

Your eyes dart to where he was looking at, curious enough to ask yourself what exactly has him so speechless at the moment.

Oh.

Oh.

A cheap wreath with that familiar red bow, and the two of you just happen to be standing just right under it.

He never believed in Christmas miracles. But if at this moment right now was his only chance–then he will take it. He will desperately cling onto it as if it was the only thing that mattered in his life, and hold it tightly, sure not to let it go.

Being in his arms was nothing new, he’s done this several times as a way to comfort you when you were down, or vice versa. This, however, is different. As if an orchestra directed a symphony of a familiar and comforting tune–one that he used to hum you to sleep during those restless nights. As if you were brought back to the times you sat with him under the starry sky, pointing at bright white dots. The universe is vast and magical, and somehow, somehow, it gave him you. The only sun he ever needed in his bleary sky, the only drops of rain he needed on a hot day, the gust of wind during humid afternoons, the flower that bloomed through the cracks of the concrete. 

He pulls away. Gently, he repeats in his mind, this was a high-risk situation. 

But for you, he would gladly take it.

Kinich looks at you, worry filling his heart–is this the right choice? Even with this amount of hesitation, he pushes through. No matter the outcome, he will live knowing he had you at least once in his life. Gods, you looked angelic. The lampost from the porch illuminates you in a warm orange–exactly the color you had filled his monochrome world with. He brings a hand to your chin, tilting it upwards, muttering only two simple words.

“Can I?” 

“I told ya it’d work,” Mualani said, proudly huffing as Kachina hides in the corner of the room in embarrassment. “Now, I’ll be taking my mora from the traveller right after this. Not a word, Kachina, got it?”

She only nods in agreement.

@ knnichs 2023 ﹑ do not repost, republish, translate, feed to ai or modify any of my works. doing so can and will result into me blocking you.

HI REI! merry merry MERRY christmas <3 i had so much fun writing this & i hope that u liked it as much as i did ! :D you’re such a kind n awesome person i hope i managed to incorporate some similarities between u and the “y/n” of the fic cause i wanted to make it as self indulgent for u as possible BWAHDHAJHA IF THAT EVEN MAKES SENSE!! im glad i got to be close w u these past few month(s) & i hope we continue to get closer!!

[hazelkjt]

“The Family She Needs”

Hazel watched the two from afar, sitting off on the side porch of Xbalyav Ty'e. Upon Perseverance's insistence, Zero was teaching her how to read Eorzean. Hazel almost stepped in to teach in the Zero’s stead, as the Voidsent had only recently become proficient in reading the language herself. Zero on the other hand declined the Au Ra's offer, and in the end Hazel understood why. It was a chance for the Voidsent to both prove her mastery of the written language and to bond with Percy without Hazel acting as a mediary.

With her back to a pillar inside the establishment, Hazel could only make out a few words here and there from Zero and Percy as their voices blended into the sea of customers at the restaurant. Nevertheless, those few words Hazel could pick up from the young girl and the light they carried were enough to have a soft warmth bubble up in her chest. She thought nothing could possibly ruin this moment for her. Until he showed up, with a hand on her shoulder.

"First it was Zero, and now Perseverance, you have quite the knack for adopting strays into your family, don't you?" The rhetorical question left Thancred's mouth like an annoying poke at her horn. Hazel closed her eyes and tried to imagine the Scion away, repeating in her mind to not let him get to her.

"Ha ha." She lets out of her gritted teeth, taking note of the coy smirk the Hyur was sporting. Thancred always knew how best to get under her skin, usually leaving it at just light ribbing thankfully.

“So, how has being a mother been treating you?” He asks, leaning against another side of the pillar Hazel was against. The Au Ra turned her head to glare at the man. “Guardian, not mother.” She corrects, giving a flash of her fangs to try and dissuade Thancred from pressing the subject further. Unfortunately for her, the show of intimidation did not land with him the way she hoped. As the glint in his eyes changed to match his mischievous grin, Hazel braced herself for his incoming comment.

“Oh? Does being called a mother make you feel old? I cannot imagine what that would feel like.” His every word was dripping with sarcasm, calling back to Hazel’s teasing of him being a father to Ryne back in the First. He begrudgingly ignored her prodding in the beginning before eventually accepting the title in full. This is different though, she thinks to herself. This is entirely different…isn’t it?

The end of Hazel’s tail flicks in annoyance. “I don’t care about that, it’s just…” her words fall silent for a moment as she glances over at Zero and Perseverance again. The young girl was practically glued to the Voidsent’s arm, eyes wide as she took in all the words on the book’s pages. Hazel couldn’t help but also notice the ever so small curling of Zero’s lips into a smile as she continued to explain the words to Percy.

“It’s just,” the Au Ra continues. “Percy might not remember her mother anymore, but she still holds on to the idea of her. She still has her mother in her heart and loves her.” Pulling her eyes away from the two and toward Thancred, Hazel turns to face him directly. “Do you really expect me to go ‘Hey! I’m your mom now, it’s time to move on?’ Of course not!” She towers over the man, but Thancred doesn’t seem to budge an ilm.

Hazel raising her voice earned a few quizzical glances from the patrons around, but they just as quickly returned to their meals. "You're right, no one expects that of you." His calm yet firm tone snaps the Auri woman out of her slight haze of anger to find quite the serious expression staring her down. She takes a deep breath and lets go of Thancred's shirt...wait, when did she grab him? She clicks her tongue and mentally chastises herself for losing her cool, acting on impulse.

Thancred doesn't seem to let what she did phase him and continues with his point. "What does she want?" The Hyur looks past Hazel and towards the child sitting next to Zero. The Voidsent was helping her sound out a rather large word from the text currently. Hazel couldn't help but glance back and forth from Thancred and Percy, confused as to his point. "What kind of family does Perseverance want? Have you ever asked her that?"

The question sank into Hazel's heart like a dagger. With wistful eyes she looks towards the girl without saying a word. Thancred continues. "She has lost her family, and worse lost the memory of what a family is. But now she has you, but who are you to her? You said yourself before you are not looking to replace her old family but be a new one for her, right?" Hazel's tail droops, the tip grazing the wood floor of the building. She silently nods, not even able to make eye contact with Thancred. Thankfully he gets the message.

"She can still hold on to her love of who came before while embracing the love of those around her. The concepts aren't mutually exclusive you know." The comment hangs in the air for a moment before Hazel lets out a frustrated sigh in response. "I can't believe you of all people are-"

Her train of thought is interrupted by Thancred placing another hand on her shoulder. Unlike last time however, the Auri woman could feel a gentle reassurance come across his firm yet gentle grip. "It is because I am 'me of all people' that I can tell you this." Thancred's eyes darken for just a moment, averting his gaze ever so slightly as well. "Don't make the same mistakes I did. If you truly do love and care for Perseverance then give her the family she needs, whatever form that may take."

She didn't know how to respond, but from the sincere smile on Thancred's face it seemed she didn't have to. Hazel leans back against the pillar facing Zero and Percy as she brings a hand overtop the one on her shoulder. And so in silence Hazel stared out towards Zero, her partner, the love of her life. Slowly but surely her stare makes it's way to the side towards a brightly smiling Percy. Hazel could feel the same warmth building up in her heart when seeing such a sight. She could only hope that Percy felt the same warmth as well.

[nshi-ao3]

I know it's a sentiment I've shared before but I have to reiterate that I love your fic!

It's single-handedly forced me to look into Persona 5's story, heh. At first I figured I'd just pick up on context clues and the spoilery stuff I generally knew about the game from the internet, but that isn't enough. Especially since I have a feeling that the stuff that happened there with the Phantom Thieves and the Metaverse will eventually catch up to Joker's no good, really awful time in Eorzea. Though it's not all horrible, since Ren's got a second family now.

I wonder if Joker will open up Alphinaud or Alisiae to talk more about his past life on Earth. Though he doesn't sound like the type to talk about physics unless Y'shtola presses him on it, I imagine he'd enjoy talking about how the world he's from works. Cid would definitely enjoy talking about the technology, Alisaie the injustice and the attempts to make the world a better place, Alphinaud the politics (maybe more contemporary stuff), and G'raha the history (or really, all of the above). I get that all that slice of life stuff will likely take a back seat until Ren's Heavensward trauma express stops and allows him respite. And his reunion with G'raha's will be a while yet.

Another silly thought just came to mind, btw. Imagine if he comes back to Tokyo with the Scions but with time having accelerated relative to the Source/Etheirys. Left in 2016 or 2017, came back in 2025 (oh no).

"What's a Jonkler?" -- Joker, 2025

In all seriousness, I doubt he'd want to get himself and the Scions entangled in Earth's myriad problems and injustices. He will, though, because that's what the Scions do. A whole hypothetical expansion, also involving Ascians and time travelers (of course). No aetherytes, though, so they'll just have to book flights and fabricate passports lol

Anyway, with my rambling done with I hope your week goes well! :)

Thank you very much!! <3

I imagine the fic's a tougher read without Persona 5 knowledge since it's from the perspective of the MC from that game and set after it + a spin off and all... At least you seem to have caught up alright, given the rest of the ask! :P

Joker has talked a little about home at this point! He went over quite a lot of stuff with G'raha (those boys were yappin'!) and spoke with Cid about the basics of Earth technology. And then went a little mad trying to figure out how Allagan Tomestones work haha! He's... reticent to bring anything up right now given the circumstances, but he'll have more opportunities later. :> In fact, at one point in the future Alphinaud will make a very nice gift for him. But at the moment the HW main story's being a big downer. :< Sorry Joker!

Imagining Joker, in some scenario where he has the tote the Scions around Japan: ...Okay, I think we're going to need a second camper...

Someday I will sit down and write up a bunch of scenarios for the Scions individually reacting to Earth stuff... Estinien would be in hell in Shibuya lol

(Joker missing multiple years of memes on Earth?! How awful!! Say it isn't so!)

[y0d00p]

dametameta dynamic in 21 + 3 different aus teeny and I have developed. why?? idk it was just fun. also I'm insane

Pokemon: childhood friends that had a major falling out as teens as a result of an incident that caused the loss of DMK's eye. MK went on to become the Indigo Plateau champion while DMK got wrapped up in Team Rocket grunt work. DMK fell on hard times when his faction of Rocket was dissolved and left him unemployed. in a desperate and poorly thought out attempt at making money from ransom I guess, DMK kidnaps the Indigo champion, not knowing his true identity until he has him tied up in his apartment. This is their reunion after like 15 years apart

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: The same except MK is magicked away to PMD world before the kidnapping, with DMK following sometime after. MK keeps his identity hidden from DMK out of desire to "start over" and mend their friendship, but it leads to trouble

SCP: MK is the leader of MTF Iota-8 ("Meta Knights") and DMK is a transdimensional shapeshifter employed by the Foundation as a member of MK's squad. MK is a human with anomalous super healing as a result of a scip incident and DMK "respawns" from his native mirror dimension whenever he suffers mortal harm, making them both prime candidates for dealing with especially dangerous scips. DMK is kind of a flirt but MK is like anomaly-racist and rather cold with him. He gets better though

LISA The Painful: MK is a stealth trans man living in isolation and DMK is a pathetic junkie that broke into his home looking for drugs. They become unlikely friends and eventually set out in search of an antidote after DMK takes Joy on a bad day

The Legend of Zelda: MK is Sheikah and DMK is a member of the Yiga clan. DMK joined the clan out of disillusionment with the Sheikah/humanity as a whole - he gets pushed around and picked on a lot and doesn't really get along with the other Yiga, but is scared to leave because of their reputation with deserters. MK, who DMK formed a friendly rivalry turned unlikely friendship with, aids in his escape from the clan after which they continue to travel together

Final Fantasy 14: MK, tenth son in a family of moon keepers, is a gladitorial champion turned Paladin that joins the Scions and other WoLs in A Realm Reborn. DMK is an ex-Nunh turned ex-criminal turned ex-rogue sun seeker with a comically depressing life that joins the crew in Heavensward after becoming a Dark Knight. They butt heads, a lot, but have an uncanny synergy despite it that makes them the designated party tanks for (almost) the entire story

Splatoon: Both Octolings that once served in the Octarian army, now living in Inkopolis. DMK, already kind of lazy and self serving, adapted to the fun-loving Inkling lifestyle pretty quickly, but MK, an ex-elite, has trouble moving on and adjusting. MK is an inkbrush/splatana wiper main and DMK is an octobrush/splatana stamper main

mostly D&D based with some creative liberties: Both tieflings cursed in different ways by the same god of violence and hedonism. MK, a paladin whose god was usurped by Mr. Murder, now forced to entertain his violent whims else he suffers painful Side Effects. DMK unknowingly picked up a bloodthirsty sword that turns him into a mindless killing machine if he doesn't cut enough people with it. They along with a few others also affected by Mr. Murder's meddling band together to get revenge

demon: MK is a demon hunting battle priest and DMK is a centuries old incubus that seduces him. DMK's demonic influence starts turning MK into one of his kind, but MK can't get rid of DMK because he's clingy due to a "recent" break up with his angel bf. over time MK accepts DMK's presence and they eventually develop a proper healthy relationship

monster: MK is a monster hunter and DMK is the bat-like beast that he's constantly trying to stop from eating everyone's sheep. When MK is mortally wounded in a battle with another monster, DMK reluctantly saves his life by sealing the wound with a sort of... sticky venom, that has the unfortunate side effect of turning MK into a monster himself

different flavour of monster: MK is a vampire hunter recently inflicted with lycanthropy and DMK is a vampire. when DMK is caught in MK's house (looking for a snack) the night of his first transformation, MK uncontrollably attacks him and literally rips him to pieces. out of guilt, MK allows DMK to feed on him the next day, starting off an uneasy but mutually beneficial arrangement

basic ass fantasy: MK is captain of the royal guard and DMK is a changeling fairy that wants his name for nefarious purposes. DMK pesters him constantly but MK is too smart for his fey bullshit, making him more of a minor nuisance than a real threat

dark fantasy soulsborne aesthetic kind of thing?: MK is a demon/monster hunter of sorts, trying to take down a particularly powerful evil priest, and DMK is another wandering hunter with another cursed sword that starts eating him alive if he doesn't give it enough blood. can you tell I like the evil sword thing for DMK? They first meet under... unfortunate circumstances, but despite their adverse relationship, they eventually team up to save someone from the aforementioned priest

cyberpunk: both orphaned as young children from different incidents of faction violence, MK grew up on the streets with a group of friends/found family and now does bounty hunting/mercenary work with them, while DMK was taken in by a faction leader and raised as his own to eventually inherit his underground empire. after a botched assassination attempt on DMK, DMK gets dear old dad to spare MK's life and have him indentured as a bodyguard instead because he thought it was really hot how he tried to kill him

fish: MK is a marine biologist that periodically runs into DMK, a bull shark merman, while doing field work. one day while out at sea, a storm flips his boat leaving him to drown in the rough waters if not for DMK's interference. DMK saves him by turning him into one of his own... oh i guess that's another thing we like huh

space: MK is of an endangered alien species, disguised as a human living on a large space station to observe, study, and live in safety. DMK is his assigned bunk mate and uh... he's just kind of a guy idk it's been a while since we touched this one

sweet home inspired not-zombie monster apocalypse kind of thing: they are apartment neighbours, DMK a single dad and MK often hosting his kid cousin. they don't get along because DMK plays loud music and stomps around in his fuckass boots, but their kids are friends so they put up with each other. they eventually find common ground and become friends themselves, even risking their lives for each other and their kids when the monster shit starts happening

urban fantasy devi magi: in a world with humans, magi (gifted humans with magic abilities), and devi (monstrous invaders that settled into the world long ago), they're on a team of hunters that take care of dangerous devi. DMK is the newest member and sole human on the team and MK is half devi. they had worked together previously, terminating in an incident where MK left DMK behind to pursue a target, resulting in the loss of DMK's eye, so there's a bit of a grudge present

western: MK is sheriff of a small desert town, previously leader of a gang of misguided bandits until changing their priorities to helping others, DMK is a monster hunting cowboy that left his simple farm life in search of thrills. DMK stops in town and embarrasses MK during an attack by a monster of the week, setting off a petty rivalry

evil murder god alien sex club: MK works at the titular club trying to raise money to take care of a deathly ill family member, and DMK is a lonely loser with a lot of inheritance money to blow that spends a lot of time at the bar and paying for MK's attention. after finding out MK's situation, DMK tries to help get him out, but the murder god in the basement running the place isn't interested in letting go any employees

farming sim! yay!: MK is the town blacksmith and DMK owns a ranch. they probably have some weird grudge with each other and sexual tension you know how it is. this au is like a week old gimme a break

isolated dynamics that don't really have a whole au to go with them:

1: DMK is a woodsman living in an isolated cabin off the grid, hiding from conviction for a murder he may or may not be responsible for, MK is grievously injured in the woods and taken in by DMK while he recovers. they develop an intimate relationship, but things start to get weird as MK starts to recover and hears about an escaped convict on the radio

2: MK is a city boy with an upper class family and DMK is a simple farm boy living with his aging mother. MK, bored with his life, would sneak out as a teen and get into tussles with DMK for kicks. after a long absence due to moving away, MK, as an adult, now sneaks out to go hunting. they reunite when DMK discovers him after he is poisoned and paralyzed, taking him home to help him recover

3: sort of kirby canon headcanon backstory swap. DMK is adopted by an upper class family and grows up pampered and educated and scrawny. MK grew up feral, never made any friends, retained his more animalistic traits and now lives in a shack in the woods. MK travels to the mirror world to beat up DMK just for existing and sheltered DMK finds the beatdown so shocking and impressive and weirdly hot that he becomes fixated on besting MK in battle to get his attention/approval

common themes:

some kind of rivalry, grudge, or opposition, turned attraction turned romance (duh) usually with ~History~

working together against a common enemy despite not really getting along

DMK evil sword

MK usually responsible for DMK's eye

MK usually some kind of authority or upper class man with a secret rebellious wild side or past

DMK usually lower class, often a farm boy, sometimes just a fucking loser

DMK being some kind of monster/anomaly and targeting MK

one being injured or down on their luck and being taken care of

MK attacks DMK and DMK thinks it's hot because he's a freak

[azems-familiar]

okay, okay, under the cut: a loose conglomeration of lore about my Warrior of Light. aka my best attempt at summarizing the key emotional beats of five expansions, which is not a summary at all, and also giving a brief overview of my Azem

Warrior of Light

(art by outheros)

(art by mythlorn)

Name: Lelesu Lesu

Age: 27 during Endwalker, 22 at the start of ARR

Pronouns: she/her

Classes: red mage, sage (dabbled in marauder and white mage before drifting away from them for various reasons)

Relationships: Haurchefant (briefly), Aymeric; queerplatonic with Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus

some lore about her:

Lelesu was born in Ul'dah and grew up as part of the wealthy merchant-noble class that makes up its high society. She absolutely despised the neat box of a life her parents tried to keep her in, and ended up sort-of running away from home to join the Adventurers' Guild in Limsa Lominsa, cutting all ties with her blood family and picking up adventuring and an axe to strike out on her own, in search of the freedom to define her own life. She joins up with the Scions willingly, happy to help make a difference, especially when it becomes obvious that she's one of a handful of people capable of facing primals, but it doesn't become really personal until the massacre at the Waking Sands, where she loses most of the first people she genuinely called friends.

She gets pretty close with Haurchefant while they're in Coerthas the first time, and in the aftermath of becoming the Warrior of Light she treasures that connection because it's one of the few places she doesn't feel like she has to be the responsible, duty-bound Hero version of herself the WoL is. Even with, maybe especially with tbh, the other Scions there's that sort of distance between them, because they're her friends and her coworkers but they also expect the same sort of miracles out of her as the rest of Eorzea, through no fault of their own.

She's actually furious with Midgardsormr when he removes the blessing of Light. Has no interest in proving herself to him at first, because she blames him for Nabriales breaching the Rising Stones, which of course led to Moenbryda's death. Eventually the blame shifts to herself instead - she feels like if she'd been stronger, she wouldn't have lost the blessing to begin with. This is a theme that comes back during Heavensward, too - she was a white mage before she picked up red mage, and so when Haurchefant (who she was very much in love with) throws himself in front of that spear for her, she's the one who tries to heal him, and she fails. In some ways, she blames the loss of the blessing of Light and her own weakness for his death. If she'd just been stronger, been a better Warrior of Light, etc, then he wouldn't have died. And he should've known better than to try to protect her, Hydaelyn wouldn't have let her die. Etc.

For a while here she completely stops using white magic entirely, which is a problem - red mage is all about balance, using white and black magic equally, and without drawing on both kinds of power you can't perform certain abilities, plus it has a whole mechanic where the further off-balance you get the harder it is to cast in the opposite direction and fix yourself. So she's off-balance in her aether, and that makes her even more reckless and emotionally off-balance, and she's struggling to grieve and sort of stuck living in the moment of Haurchefant's death, which makes her quest against Thordan a kind of revenge quest. She isn't really able to start learning to move forward again and recovering from that loss until she spends a bunch of time helping Aymeric build the new peace in Ishgard and teach the people to move on from their broken past, and that slowly leads her to work through her pain and trauma over the months.

Stormblood is...not really very much in the way of character development, but it is where she kisses Aymeric for the first time, just before she leaves to go to Doma, so it gets an honorable mention.

On the other hand a lot of insanity happens in Shadowbringers. She gets a nice new facial scar courtesy of Elidibus-as-Zenos when G'raha summons her out of her body during that fight (Aymeric is Deeply Freaked Out). Once she's in the First, she's dealing with a whole lot of confusing emotions and instincts related to Emet-Selch - her first impression when they properly meet is both that it hurts to look at him, for some inexplicable reason, and also wariness, the kind you'd have for a rabid animal, because there's just something so Wrong to her about the way he acts. This goes along nicely with the instinct she has to trust him that also makes no sense, so she's running around trying to save two worlds from the same calamity while dealing with the most confusing emotional state ever. This doesn't get much better when she gives in and starts spending time asking him questions and just talking to him, in a way the rest of the Scions won't do, because he feels familiar to her, like she should recognize him but can't.

This gets a thousand times worse when she drags her shattering soul down to Amaurot-beneath-the-sea to rescue G'raha, feeling like an absolute failure of a Warrior of Darkness the whole time. Amaurot itself feels incredibly familiar to her and also makes her want to cry because of the immense feelings of loss it evokes, she's already attuned to the aetheryte in the depths (I do not care if this is lore-appropriate or not it's fun), she feels like she knows Hythlodaeus, by the time they confront Emet-Selch again she's half-demanding half-begging him for answers he won't give because he's deep in denial and also wants her to remember him herself. She breaks down crying when she's forced to kill him in the end and doesn't know why.

Endwalker is just....A Fucking Mess. She's so done with Zenos's shit, her duty keeps weighing her down, everything is horrible. The body-swap bit really messes with her for a while and it takes time to recover from. Plus the whole thing with Zodiark - she didn't want to kill Zodiark, just weaken Him so the Watcher could bind Him again. She didn't want to permanently kill all those souls! She recovers bits and pieces of memories whenever she uses Azem's crystal to summon people, enough to be able to tell Emet-Selch, Hythlodaeus, and Venat that she is a reincarnation of Azem, but she doesn't regain her memories in full until Ultima Thule, when she summons Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus to help her against Meteion at the end. With those memories regained she's able to convince the two of them to stay with her and give the future a try; moving on is something none of them knew how to do before but she's had to learn to live through grief and come to terms with it anyway and she wants desperately to show them both how as well.

She considers Ishgard her home, and the Fortemps family as her chosen family - she's actually sworn brotherhood with Artoirel. And she considers herself Azem still, in the terms of Azem is a duty to the people that she has believed in basically since she became the Warrior of Light, and she won't let go of it.

In the final fight with Zenos at Ultima Thule, she very nearly dies, and he breaks her glasses against her face, severely injuring her right eye, among other things. Though she doesn't lose the eye it ends up solid white from scar tissue and she's completely blind in it - but she does end up learning how to see the aether through that eye alone.

Azem

(art by mythlorn)

Name: Seleukos

Class: black mage, has training with a sword thanks to Venat

Pronouns: they/them

Age: ohhh man idk probably somewhere around a century by the Sundering? don't ask

Relationships: queerplatonic triad with Hythlodaeus and Emet-Selch

if i get into my lore about them we'll be here all day so just read this fic I wrote full of the important flashbacks and whatnot instead

i also have a very fleshed-out AU where Lelesu is the WoL alongside @sunderedazem's Corrain, but this post will turn monstrous if i go into ANY details about that. so just know it exists and we'll both answer asks about it. lol

[kraefishh]

figured i'd post mine and my friends wols on main for the time being while im still stockpiling stuff for when i eventually make that side blog for em

basic stuff is - 1) there's more than one wol 2) by more than one i mean there are seven of them 3) each one/two of them are designated for a specific expansion 4) i have so much stuff planned for them all and have not even finished stormblood (please help me)

also im putting them under a cut so the post isnt naturally extremely fucking long

SO WE'LL START IN ORDER!!!!

Alidae Mendica -- ARR WoL. only one without a "traditional" name convention. SMN/MCH/GNB. bloody banquet happened and she got to ishgard and went "NOPE. I'M DONE." and goes and spends most of her time at the skysteel manufactory with garlond ironworks.

i love her very much she was the first i made. i nearly played an elezen but then really wanted to be small. so after finishing the opening cutscene i restarted and well!! shes here!! shes ready to kick some ass!!!

T'lyr Kho -- 1/2 Heavensward WoLs. is half miqo half garlean, possesses the third eye as well (hence the shaggy hair+forehead coverings). PLD/DRG/DRK/SGE. is never doing well at any given moment. he is (not) coping.

he's the one who made me spiral and make 3 more characters. i love him so so dearly.

Touya Kawa (@twisted-solace's wol) -- the other Heavensward WoL. WAR/DRG/RPR. the most shy and well spoken but will not hesitate to cleave you. works himself to death (quite nearly literally!).

i wish i had more to say about him other than he is very silly. him and t'lyr picked up lancer as a bonding experience and then got roped into dragoon lore (whoopsie!!)

Koren Cadoret -- 1/2 Stormblood WoLs. has 1v1'd Zenos too many times to count. very very protective of his sister and friends. MNK/SAM (plus blue mage and soon to be viper!!).

I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM!!!! punch first ask questions later. wants to be everyone's friend. separation anxiety got his ass in shadowbringers cause he was the last wol to be summoned to the first.

Raana Cadoret -- the other Stormblood WoL. took her brother and left her village the moment she was declared to be the next matriarch. DNC/AST/RDM. likes to give koren shit about his poor decisions.

she makes me go :) !!!!! we really cant decide if she picks up astrologian on the first or if she does it beforehand.

Sthallona Dhemskyltwyn -- 1.0 WoL and also Shadowbringers at the same time?? shes going through it. WHM/BLM. grew up the daughter of a famous pirate. Thancred's childhood best friend.

feigned death after the calamity until she gets pulled to the first and is like "AH SHIT. HERE WE GO AGAIN." she gives me perhaps the most brainworms.

AND FINALLY

Sarangerel Malqir (@trying_to_cosplay on insta's wol) -- Endwalker WoL while also being a whole can of worms by herself. was her universe's only WoL before shit collided in shadowbringers and she met everyone else

the love of my life-- ahem. currently only Warrior canonically because my friend is not even halfway through ARR. very much younger sibling energy to the rest of the scions/wols.

last notes - 1) t'lyr and touya are gay (lovingly referred to as 'the boyfs' by me and @twisted-solace) touya nearly fucking dies for t'lyr and t'lyr proceeds to go oh wait fuck i dont want to lose you. normal shit for their line of work. 2) koren canonically says "you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid" to zenos. and zenos proceeds to get very confused. zenos isnt even who he ends up with koren just likes fucking with him. 3) raana went through 4 different wol/npc ship ideas before we finally landed on hien. that was hell. 4) alidae and cid are best friends!! stamp of approval right here!!! alidae also hates nero's guts. 5) if biggs and wedge (who i lovingly refer to as the 'lab boys') are around, alidae is not far behind. 6) alidae was named before i realized there was a character named alisaie. this is canonically a struggle for everyone. 7) sthallona swam her ass to sharlayan upon realizing that thancred had been taken under louisoix's wing. insert LET ME IN. LET ME IIIIIIN gif here. she wrote a thesis on how to combine conjuring and thaumaturge magic before ever knowing what a red mage was. (she is very stupid but also unnaturally smart). 8) t'lyr can't use magic. point blank. his third eye fucks that up for him. only reason he can be a Sage is because the magitek does it for him. on the bright side he's really good at parkour!!!

anyway if you got down this far thank you for looking at my blorbos. i am working (not very) hard to get that sideblog set up for these weirdos. i appreciate them very much they consume my every waking thought.

[ryxmas]

for the wol think thonkers, 4, 8, 11, 18, 24, 27! i know its been a minute so i can link you the post again if you need it lol

4. What do they do in their down time? Do they have any hobbies outside of Primal-slaying and world-saving? Are these lifelong hobbies or recent interests?

The main thing is that Solara's a tinkerer! Before he came to Eorzea, he was working under (and eventually became) a Goldsmith in Kugane. It’s something he picked up when he was in his teens after seeing these items at Reunion from a foreign merchant that no one was interested in buying. So some of his downtime in ARR was spent with the Goldsmith's guild. Some of it translated well to machinery which he also found himself drawn to, especially after his time with the Skysteel Manufactory. A lot of his ARR and HW and early StB post patch was spent learning from and working with the Ironworks and Skysteel Manufactory. Which contributes to why those groups know him better than the Scions for most of the story. When shit really hits the fan and he doesn’t have the time to work with either the Ironworks or the Manufactory, he puts that creative energy towards his own weapons. Making and repairing stuff is how he eventually connects with the rest of the Crystarium. So some of the Crystalline Mean quests are canon since he does that during his recovery period in post ShB. And I imagine that he becomes a bit of an omnicrafter (sans Alchemist and Culinarian) over the game's timeline. I haven’t decided how post EW looks for him in terms of hobbies though. And I gotta think about some other smaller scale hobbies he might have lol. 

8. What is one of their biggest regrets? Has it had an effect on how they act moving forward, for better or worse?

Choosing just one of his biggest regrets is hard so here’s some back to back lol. There’s several that are kind of in the same ballpark. His behavior to the Scions during Shadowbringers are pretty up there (and more so the latter). And he works towards making amends throughout Shadowbringers post patch and Endwalker. Not quite as high of a regret are his interactions with Hien. He doesn’t regret interfering with Hien’s plans in Stormblood in the slightest, but he does know he took it a lot further than he reasonably should have, which is what he feels bad about specifically. And those two have a bumpier road to reconciliation. I've yet to explore how or if Solara's Myste would manifest (if they do) regarding his guilt over the people he could not save and the people whose lives he unintentionally negatively affected. And among his regrets competing for the top spot are Haurchefant and Ysayle's deaths. He didn't get to know some of the others (e.g. Minfilia, Papalymo, and Moenbryda) to have massive regrets over them, but Haurchefant and Ysayle were some of his closest friends during that point in time. And because Solara only becomes a tank after Heavensward, I think it would make sense if he picked up tanking specifically because of Haurchefant and Ysayle (both of whom are tanks) dying. But these events (and honestly Ishgard as a whole) feeds into his general distrust of city state leaders when he knows they’re hiding things, which affects his perception of and behavior towards Hien and the Exarch later down the line. And I want to say that especially after Ysayle dies is when Solara becomes a lot more hesitant to connect with new people in his life, at least until ShB post patch. 

11. Despite everything, is it still you? Has the core of who they are as a person remained true through everything, or have they been changed by what they've experienced and learned, for better or worse? 

No. Solara has pretty solidly changed on two major facets (and Shadowbringers was his "get torn down and rebuilt from the rubble" arc). The first is that events of the story wore away the ambition that he had before he came to Eorzea. And the way his initial dream of “I want to Khan and Khagan” became such a shitfest that he’s very averse to both ideas now. I need to figure out how long Solara is Khagan because the Naadam is a yearly event. While he doesn't want to, for the sake of being involved in the politics of the region, he might continue to participate until some time in Endwalker/Endwalker post patch where he decides to stop being involved in the Naadam (because I HC that each expansion is roughly one year). And even after EW, I think Solara is a bit aimless now that there isn’t a giant existential crisis. He’s picked up the pieces of his interpersonal life and has made a lot of repairs, but hasn’t really figured out what he wants for himself. The other is that Solara becomes a lot more selfless and heroic as a result of everything. This is a “The mask becomes him” situation where there was a lot of heroism that Solara did early on that grated against him because he thought that’s what he should do in his position (and what he thought his brother would do) and not necessarily what he wanted to do. But it slowly does just become the way he naturally thinks and sees things. Like I imagine early Solara to have thought processes similar to ARR Alphi, he just didn’t act on them because he’s just more aware of how to handle people and that behavior doesn’t suit the WoL image he was trying to craft. And I also have to give a lot of credit to the twins for inspiring him in this regard, especially Alphinaud because Solara sees so much of himself in Alphinaud that there’s a level of “Alphinaud grew and learned and succeeded in a way Solara wished he did”. And that’s not a tone of envy, but of deep admiration and beaming pride. 

18. How do they feel about the work they do? As the Warrior of Light they're tasked with quite a lot of violence, is it something that comes naturally to them or do they resist it? Are they merciless, do they try to spare as many lives as they can, or do they fall somewhere in between?

The first part of this question is already loaded, damn LOL. But I don't think Solara likes being the WoL. He'd really rather it wasn't him, but this is what the situation is and he has to deal with it. He likes helping people, or perhaps more accurately he's grown to liking it. He likes that he's making a difference. But he wishes at the end of the day, it didn't end up all falling to him. 

As for the questions regarding violence, I honestly think Solara's indifferent to it. To a large extent, violence has always been a part of Solara's life or at least hanging over him as a specter. From his mother taking him to flee the Garlean occupation of Doma, to growing up on the Steppes and losing his adoptive brother during a Naadam, to even the fact that his heritage from Doma is that of being bodyguards to the royal family. He just takes it as a fact of life and in a fucked up way, it comes naturally to him when he’s in a situation that calls for it. He isn't going out of his way to take lives, but he isn't making an effort to spare people (unless told to). Not including extreme cases like Zenos, (so mostly talking about foot soldiers on the opposite side of the battlefield here) it makes little difference to him if he takes someone out by killing them or knocking them out. With some exceptions I can think of being parts of StB (e.g. anything on the Steppes and also he might be more careful to not kill soldiers that might be conscripted from the nations he's trying to help free) and fighting tempered after they find a cure. 

24. How do they feel about Hydaelyn? What was their perception of the Mothercrystal in the beginning, and how did that change by the end, if at all?

I haven't put too much thought into Solara's belief system to be honest, or if he's even a religious person. I don't know if it makes sense for him to pay any mind to Hydaelyn until the initial calls though. And the initial calls from Hydaelyn and awakening the Echo were pretty distressing to him. And he's always had a buried fear that he might actually be tempered somehow due to Ifrit's comment back in ARR and the uncertain nature of the Echo. This fear only gets exacerbated during ShB. And also after shit hits the fan during late ARR post patch with Moenbryda dying because he doesn't have the Blessing of Light at that moment and then Minfilia disappears and becomes the Word of the Mother, Solara has a largely negative opinion of Hydaelyn for most of the story. And then Hydaelyn remains silent, which doesn’t help the situation. But contextualizing this over what he learns in Endwalker and thinking about Hydaelyn in the context of Venat makes everything click for him. He likes, trusts, and understands Venat. He retains complicated feelings over everything, but he doesn't have an explicitly negative opinion anymore. Because Venat the Ancient who chose what she thought was the best possible action in a slew of only terrible choices is a lot more easy to accept and forgive than Hydaelyn the faceless, unacting, Mothercrystal who intervened once to keep her weapon alive but not any of his allies. Hydaelyn made Solara feel like a tool and a puppet and Venat made him feel like a friend and accomplice, which made all the difference. 

27. How well known are they? Does everyone know their name as the Warrior of Light, or have they managed to maintain some level of anonymity? Do they prefer it that way, and do they have any struggles resulting from it? (Getting stopped on street corners VS awkwardly avoiding questions.)

Solara being a max height Au Ra is just going to get noticed lol. Especially since there aren't many of them outside of the Eastern regions, which are the regions he's most often in anyways lol. I don't think he can go anywhere after Stormblood, and especially after Endwalker, without being noticed. So it's probably an “everyone knows his name” situation, especially in the East because he was a political figure there for some time. He does wish he retained some anonymity but people generally leave him be. His resting bitch face is canon and deters a good number of people off. And also his (self) destructive behavior during Stormblood post patch was pretty public and also scared many people off. It's one of those situations where the people that do talk and interact with him (which are often children) say he's nice and friendly (late Stormblood post patch excluded) and everyone else is like ??????

[chysgoda]

(@driftward) Ship meme, for Art’imis...

Aymeric. I am curious about how that dynamic would shake out.

Or Yugiri. What's that shape in the mirror.

Aymeric

Bel laid on her stomach reading the book uncle Artoriel had given her. Her mother sat on the bed next to her and stared at the wardrobe. Bel craned her head back to see how her mother’s lips pulled into a thin line and her eyebrows scrunched into the patch of ivory scales at the center of her forehead. Bel twitched her purple tail to the side to lay it alongside her mother’s sender ivory one. The young miqo’te girl placed the ribbon bookmark and closed her book. “He’s not like Ilberd.”

Art’imis expelled a breath somewhere between a huff and a laugh. “No, he’s not.”

Bel scowled when she noticed that her mom was picking at the scales on the back of her hands. She wriggled to get her knees under her and knelt up. She grasped one of her mom’s hands and pulled it towards her so that Art’imis couldn’t keep picking at herself. The paladin stared down at the hand Bel had claimed for a moment and then blew out a breath. She kissed the crown of Bel’s head and then rubbed the side of her horn against her daughter’s cheek.

They let the silence settle, soft and still between them. Eventually Art’imis sighed, “Well I know that you like him.”

“Mom!” Bel drew out the vowel into a whine, “I was ten!”

“Sorry darling,” Art’imis laughed and threw her arm around Bel’s shoulders, “seriously though, What do you think?”

Bel fussed with the end of her tail until her mother laid a hand over hers. “I think he’s kind. He never chuckles with the other nobles to keep face when someone makes a joke”- Bel raised her hands to make air quotes so aggressive she almost threw Art’imis’s arm off her shoulders - “about your scales or my ears. I know he can’t go with you when you have to be the Warrior Of Light, but he’d understand it and what it does to you.”

Art’imis hummed in thought and rested her chin on Bel’s head until the thirteen year old wriggled to get her to move. “Help me pick something out to wear?”

“Only if you never bring up that crush again.”

“Hmmmmmm, no promises.”

“Mom!!”

(The only person that doesn’t drag Bel about her school girl crush on Aymeric is Aymeric.)

Aymeric probably would have been who I shipped Art with ultimately except for one problem, I find Aymeric really really hard to write. Like to a stupid extent and I’m not sure why. On a character level though I think he would be patient and compassionate enough to wait for and help Art deal with her trauma (and Bel’s trauma) regarding the relationship with Ilberd. (Because I was evidently the only person who did NOT see that coming and I have inflicted that on Art’imis) Art was seriously messed up after the bloody banquet and it took her until 5.1 to get her feet back under her so she could trust a relationship again. With Aymeric I’d have to poke at it to get a feel for if that process would have sped up with him in a more romantically inclined role than a platonic one. As a couple I can see them working fairly well together. I can also see Edmont playing matchmaker just a bit because then he knows at least two of his kids are in a stable relationship. Also Aymeric as Bel’s adopted dad would be hilarious and adorable.

And now have some AU photos where Art’imis de Borel takes her husband to see the home of the twelve. (She’s pretty sure that there won’t be any trials while they’re there. Mostly sure. Well reasonably sure… okay she told him to bring the damn bow for a reason)

And here in particular she points out how you can see the tower that SOMEONE used to drag the scions to the first.

[horizon-verizon]

re: Laena and Daemon’s treatment of her. 

I think the fandom tends to shift the blame for Laena, Baela and Rhaena being neglected onto Daemon instead of the writers/showrunners. 

In their quest to make him as irredeemable as possible, the writers severed him from his positive relationships with non-Rhaenyra people. This negatively impacted his relationship with his Black wife and Black daughters.

The writers are quite possibly racist and anti-Black. We see it in the treatment of Mysaria, Laena, Baela and Rhaena.

However, the blame does not rest solely on them, the fandom is also racist, and they enjoy their fantasies about Laena and how she’s a Black seductress/Jezebel, who could not steal him away from his great white love.

They constantly champion the Driftmark scene where Daemon ignores his bruised, bleeding daughters and only moves when he sees Rhaenyra might be in danger, as a sign that Rhaenyra is the only woman he will ever love. 

Response to this post.

I agree. I'll say something else about a thing I said: about HotD making the Velaryons/their scions Black and even though I do think canon!Daemon had a more passionate regard for canon!Rhaenyra is more than the canon! Laena, it is very true that many white or non-Black ASoIaF fans tend to disregard the dragon twins from just their names and shift it onto Jaehaerys and Jaehaera OR full out calling them "monkeys" and delighting in fantasies of their mistreatment or abuse. Ironic because it still has a different flavor to the fantasies of Rhaenyra's sons dying horrible painful deaths.

Then you may have art leaving them out of what was called "family" portrait as if the twins are not blood-related to Rhaenyra as her first cousins and to-be wives of her sons, and would-be mothers to her grandkids. Stepchildren who she raised alongside Daemon and helped develop into the young girls and women they eventually become, thus are her kids.

And to leave it at how the canon relationship may "support" the idea that LaenaxDaemon was an inferior relationship to Daemyra can effectively encourage racism against show!Laena. Because we already 1) face people mixing canon and show lore, cherry-picking facts, etc., 2) some events and how they went down aren't messed up too much in the show, HotD, and the original stories still yield a collective significance, and meaning to viewers of both book readers and show-only watchers. We're never going to get out of this rut until every person is as dedicated to reading the stories as much as a book reader, pondering for hours about characterizations and implications of some monarchial declarations and actions in the world.

*EDIT (forgot to add this)* Yeah show!Laena is black/PoC unlike canon, but I think that it is not her becoming black and then continuing with the Velaryon-suffering already in the original story (thus making as if there was racism when it is supposedly just the writers overlooking the optics once race is changed). We shouldn't pretend that the show!Velaryons have the exact same treatment or events happen to them in the same ways as in canon.

The writers did make some changes regarding how the Velaryones acted and the events surrounding them:

Laena gets that self-immolating treatment (a common wife-riddance social tool in some cultures' literature and actual history) when dragon riders actually don't die often in fire nor is that even a desired death by anyone in canon. It's simply a flashier way to go and to provoke watchers while giving more pain to an already dying, lonely woman (as she wasn't surrounded by loved ones like in canon, and in Driftmark her childhood and ancestral home).

Laenor got punched up by a Kingsuard while becoming the next Prince Consort of a ruling Queen, and yet doesn't recompense through Criston's exile or death.

Laenor loses his lover to a nonsensically-allowed outburst of rage from Colon in the midst of his engagement feast. In canon, Choler kills Joffrey in what could be reasonably excused, at least, during a melee, where anyone could get killed in a competitive fury. Thus Cholera escaped death and punishment that way.

And then some scenes they should have included. One is Laena bonding with Vhagar in her preteens, which would have provided its own significance being contrasted against Aemond's bonding moment with Vhagar. We get a clue that she used sailing rope to climb onto the dragon's back, but we do not see scenes of her getting to this point using her wits. We do not know how she avoided her caretakers to visit Vhagar or maybe how Rhaenys guided her into approaching Vhagar and teaching her commands or such. (We do not know how she processed possibly being married to a 30+ man, how the Velaryons broached that with her, either, and with Aemma's unnecessarily violent birth scene that centers Viserys' emotions more, this part especially reveals the writers' lack of concern for female character's development as they should writing a woman's story.) Laena's bonding with Vhagar contextualizes and makes real the visible mourning the show makes Vhagar have AND works to show why & how she came to be so loved by Rhaenyra and Daemon on her own merit.

Removing Laena from their lives or subduing that bond really just reduces the emotionality of all three characters, the bonds they had with each other, remove the reason why Rhaenyra announced that her sons would marry Laena's daughters and makes it seem more about politics than a blend of that and genuine love (thus a loss in complexity that is pretty inherent to these characters' family lives)

Which is very much a change. A downgrade and misunderstanding of the canon. The Dance was a war incited by many moments where the respective sides grew more and more suspicious of each other from domestic issues and misogyny-- "small" events of pointed insults or court-group censure, hidden meetings for plots, etc. and then there would be what we had with Laena, Rhaenyra, and Daemon where the life they had for a short while nonetheless created a stronger base not just for rhaenyra but all her kids. why wouldn't we want to see how the blacks/rhaenyra and Daemon's "blended" family operate and how each kid developed over the years to anticipate how they would act during the war itself? (Esp for the non-book readers coming into this story for the first time). *END OF EDIT*

[jasleh]

FFxivWrite2023 Prompt 5: Barbarous

character: Rrahna (indirectly) time period: post-6.4/Pandaemonium

...

Claudien managed to spend some days blissfully unaware of the rumors swirling around him and Rrahna. Absorbed as he was in his work, he had no time for such things, and the relative isolation of Apora helped as well. Eventually they came to roost, however, in the form of an unwelcome visitor.

He was studying some schematics and working his way through an astonishingly dense paper when the interruption came. Rrahna had dug them up somehow and pressed them upon him rather forcefully, as they were regarding a device designed to block the effects of auracite. The device itself was also in his possession. For all that she was quick to declare her lack of learning, Rrahna had picked up a remarkable number of things in her adventurers. She was also less than thrilled at his decision to study the Heart of Sabik.

"Claudien, my good man! What have you been up to?"

Claudien blinked, trying with limited success to pull his head from the nest of jargon he had been immersed in. Looking up, he saw a vaguely familiar elezen man, with his research assistants gesturing apologetically behind him. It took a few moments to place him. Someone he'd gone to school with? Yes, that was it. Not someone he'd ever been especially close to, or in much contact with since then - and just now school felt longer ago than the Sundering itself.

"Hello, ah… Fir….?"

"Firmien. Took me a while to track you down, but I simply had to stop by, you would not believe what people are saying!"

Claudien did not at all think about the fact that he had been seen twice now having dinner with the Warrior of Light at the Last Stand, but instead immediately thought that the Pandaemonium reports must have somehow circulated far more widely than he had expected. Ascians, after all, were far more common knowledge in Sharlayan than elsewhere on the star.

"… I might."

"So it's true then? I mean, even seeing you with my own eyes last evening I didn't fully believe it. Of course, before then I didn't even realize it was you people were speaking of."

Last evening? Claudien felt lost for a moment as his framework for the conversation began to shift. Last evening he had been…

"Honestly, man. The Scion's so-called 'champion?' What were you thinking? She's some… some barbarian who has never met a problem she didn't solve with violence. Those war-like types are all the same."

As the man prattled on, not allowing a word in edgewise, Claudien's brows drew down and his hands began to curl into fists, but he managed to keep a tight hold on his temper.

"And those scars! How can you even look at her? Honestly, if you ask me she barely even counts as a person."

And just like that, his tether snapped. Or Erichthonios's did, if such a line could even be drawn. A sputtering glow sprang up around his fists, a spell so well-practiced as to be reflex, but that he didn't begin to have the aether to cast.

"Not to devalue her contribution, of course. I suppose even mindless violence must sometimes have-"

The fool's words cut off abruptly as Claudien's fist met his face with a crunch of breaking nose. It was remarkably cathartic seeing him get knocked on his ass.

"Get out."

"How dare you?!" The words were distorted by the broken nose and the hand Firmein held to it, but understandable. "She's clearly rubbed off on you! You're as barbarous as her now."

"Get. Out."

Ruissenaud hoisted the man to his feet and began urging him towards the door. Claudien glared at him until he was out of sight, ignoring the sputtered threats of censure. Only after Firmein was gone did he begin to relax and notice the glow flickering around his hands. Not near formed enough to have shape, but he knew the channels the aether was trying to follow. Not a spell of this age. Or one that would have been particularly useful, really.

"Professor?" Nemjiji spoke up hesitantly. "That may not have been a good idea."

"And if he drags me before the Forum," Claudien asked, "Who do you think the majority would side with if I repeated what he just said?" Attitudes in Sharlayan could be slow to change, but the Forum had gotten a closer view than most of Rrahna's efforts to stop the Final Days, and had backed the Scions' efforts.

Nemjiji thought about it for a moment, cocking her head. "You may have a point."

"It was worth it regardless. If any other gawkers or gossips come by, I'm not here. I have work to do."

[witchofthescions]

It had been a while since they'd last seen little Ga Bu. It broke Erna's heart to see the poor kobold still so unresponsive, even as she picked him up and cradled him like the child he was. He leaned against her, but she couldn't tell if he was responding to her touch or if it was simply the influence of physics.

Alisaie watched her as she stroked the tiny child's back. He was smaller than the adults they were used to, but in Erna's arms he looked even smaller. Even more fragile.

They heard the rain falling on the ground behind them, just outside the entrance to the Maelstrom's headquarters. Other adventurers came and went, occasionally sparing the trio a curious glance, but otherwise giving them their space. It was its own sort of loneliness.

"You know," Alisaie said, "with the three of us like this, does it not remind you of that night? Of the stars beyond count, twinkling in the heavens?"

Erna cast a glance towards the overcast sky, raising an eyebrow. Alisaie followed her gaze and let out an awkward chuckle.

"Well, obviously it's not exactly like that night. The time of day and the weather are not exactly cooperative right now."

Alisaie fell quiet for another moment, as the two of them watched the rain falling outside.

"I was feeling pretty low back then," she quietly continued. "Powerless. But I knew that my brother was close by if I needed him. And that the others would be waiting for me back at the Rising Stones."

"Not like now," the two of them muttered. Alisaie's eyes widened as she turned to Erna. She was at just the right angle to see the pensive look on her friend's face. To see her exhaustion as she stared out into the rain.

Seeing the woman she looked up to so... defeated was difficult for Alisaie to bear.

"Eh? What's with the long faces?"

The two of them turned to see a Roegadyn woman with tanned skin and well-muscled arms approaching them. She had long red hair tied up in a bun, and dirty overalls that had seen their fair share of wear and tear. Her second most striking feature was her mismatched eyes—one red, one gold. Her most striking feature was how strongly her daughter Ernastral resembled her.

"Ma!" Erna exclaimed, looking genuinely surprised to see her. Her mother grinned back, before snatching Erna's hat right off her head and affectionately ruffling her short hair. "Wh-hey! Cut that out!"

"What, suddenly yer too grown for yer dear ol' ma?" Erna pouted until her mother placed her hat back on her head. "Yeah, alright, yer too tall for that. But that's the only thing protectin' ya now."

Erna stuck her tongue out at her mother, prompting a suppressed giggle from Alisaie. Her mother grinned, looking proud of her handiwork.

"Now, what's got y'all lookin' so down?"

The girls exchanged a look, before Alisaie decided to launch into an explanation of recent events. She focused mostly on the Scions; a simple farm woman like her wouldn't be too interested in global goings-on in far-flung locations, after all. She listened intently, gaze drifting between the two girls, until Alisaie finished.

"...Struck down all at once, huh?" she remarked softly. "No wonder y'all looked so down."

She placed a hand on Erna's shoulder, and another on top of Alisaie's head. For a moment Alisaie rankled at the gesture, feeling a bit patronized. Until the woman spoke again.

"But you've still got each other, don'tcha?"

The girls' eyes widened. Erna's mother smiled at them both.

"And y'all still have the rest of the Scions, right? It's a big organization, if'n I recall correctly."

"It is," Alisaie said, smiling a little. "And we've many friends and allies besides."

"Good," she nodded decisively. "Remember: it ain't over 'til it's over. Even if it takes a while to see any progress, even if today looks pretty bleak." She nodded towards the rain outside. "It may be rainin' right now, but it'll pass eventually. Just need yourselves an umbrella or two."

"Thanks, ma."

Erna's mother smiled at her, then turned serious for a moment. "By the way, y'all have an umbrella on ya, right?"

"Uh..."

Judging from the expressions on both of their faces, and the lingering dampness of their clothes, the answer was a resounding no. Erna's mother gave them both the sort of disappointed look that only a mother could give.

"Girls..."

"We'll... pick one up at the market later," Alisaie sheepishly promised.

"You'd better!" She ruffled Alisaie's hair with the same level of affection as she'd done for Erna. "Last thing yer friends're gonna want to see when they wake up is you two sick in bed 'cause you went runnin' through the rain without any sorta cover!"

"Lenar would never let me hear the end of it," Erna remarked.

"Neither would Y'shtola," Alisaie said. "Gods, I can just imagine the disappointed look on her face..."

"She ain't even a mother and she's got that look down pat."

The actual mother present burst out laughing. "Oh, I've got to see that! So you'd better hurry up and help yer friends."

"We will," Alisaie said, grinning again. "We absolutely will."

[tiredassmage]

Is your OC honest about their true loyalties? Or are they happy to feign belief in a cause or leader in hopes of material (or other) reward?

Cannot emphasize enough that the heraldry theme for oc asks is so cool. Thanks for the ask! I've been... absent from my XIV characters for so long dskfnsl, let me see about making it up a bit to them lol. I still have a handful of them, so I'll pick two for now. ^.^

Shay would paint himself as "mercenary" in its truest form, willing to take a job for coin regardless. "Honest" isn't the first descriptor I'd pick for him - not because he's a habitual vocal liar, but more that he just... isn't talkative. He's the stubborn type that might give you the impression that whatever is going on behind those harsh violet eyes is between him and Halone alone and he'd at least feign to like it that way.

Now, Shay would be willing to cross some lines for loyalties and those people he does pledge himself to, but he's honest to them in that it's rather unlikely anyone would be able to sway him from a selected path. He surely isn't always the warmest, but his genuine loyalty cannot be bought and sold. He'd absolutely tell nobility or representatives or... whomever, really, to royally stuff it if he didn't care for their opinions. He doesn't care who you are. xD

Bas is below the cut to keep this readable. <3

Bas isn't happy about it, but survival has seen him mask his true loyalties before. Bas was conscripted from Dalmascan resistance efforts into the Garlean army - one of only a few that ultimately survived both the failed defensive and the following interrogations. Ultimately, he struggled to maintain the reasoning that dying was a poor way to honor and remember the fallen, so, though it pained him, he became a weapon of the Empire.

After his escape, "mercenary" is a fair enough title for his work until he joined the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, but Bas was meticulous about the type of work he was willing to put himself and fellow traveler Peregrine (@fatewalker-phoenix) on. Things are... complicated by his accompaniment in masking her Garlean heritage.

In short, Bas is careful about picking his battles. But he is not free of struggling with where his honest intent truly lies. There's quite a bit of strife reconciling his troubled and mistrusting past with the Garlean Empire and his eventual friendship and loyal protection of Peregrine. But all who have stood at his side or faced his blade have found, to whatever end it may be, Bas is loyal to the last breath. He will not give you his word unless he means it.

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Fairy and the Prince #23 + #24 + #25 + #26

Part 1 - Part 2 - Parts 3 & 4 - Part 5 - Part 6, 7 & 8 - Part 9 & 10 - Part 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 & 16 - Part 17, 18, & 19 - Part 20, 21 & 22 - Part 23, 24, 25 & 26 - Part 27, 28, 29 & 30 - Part 31, 32, 33 & 34 - Part 35, 36 & 37 - Part 38, 39, 40 & 41 - Part 42 & 43 - Part 44 & 45 - Part 46 & 47 - Part 48, 49, 50 & 51 - Part, 52, 53 & 54 - Part 55 & 56 - Part 57, 58, 59 & 60 - Part 61, 62, 63, 64 & 65 - Part 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71 & 72

Originally posted 11/23/2022

Adam did little more than sleep that week, growing restless and impatient the longer he was kept abed. Master Leminy came to see him, startling the young prince with his quiet manner, awkward as he was doling out good wishes. He didn’t say it, but Adam believed the Master of Scions knew, or at least suspected, what had happened the night before Rickard’s departure.

Prince William came by, briefly, to drop off a small bundle of candies. He’d been sick a few times in his life, and the candies, he told Adam, helped with the almighty foul flavor of the medicine. But beyond that he hardly knew what to say or what to do with himself, and he fled gratefully when Adam declared himself too weary for visitors.

He received a letter from his parents. His father had written the larger share; it was a long and stern lecture that on Adam’s shoulders rode the future of their family, and it was not for him the freedom to take such risks with his health. Adam read long enough to know he’d have been better off not receiving it at all and threw it off to one side.

But inside it, folded small and carefully sealed, was a note from his mother and a small, pressed linden flower. She bid him make tea with it, hoped he would eat properly and make friends, and dress warmly in the cold season to come. It was a bland, nice, very proper, very formal note. Unlike his father’s vast and complex signature, she simply appended ‘Eleanor’ at the end.

It told Adam very loudly who was responsible for him never getting mail from home, and confirmed that he likely never would again.

But in the end he was freed from his unjust captivity, convinced that lungs were quite as evil as blackberry brandy, and determined never to have anything to do with either again. The motley crew ran wild through the late autumn woods, stealing bits of honeycomb from the royal apiaries and picking late pears and apples from gnarled, hidden trees. They waded through creeks until both their toes and their lips were blue with the cold, and warmed themselves in hidden fires. They climbed up to wait and watch as the wind snagged the last straggling leaves from their branches.

In the end, winter came and only Needlemaw remained, though she only spent her nights with Adam; all of her time otherwise was consumed with William. Adam filled his days with jousting and fencing; he thought himself passingly good at both and didn’t mind teaching the younger princes, minded again of what he’d told his older peers at William’s birthday party: it was good to make friends of someone who might eventually be your king.

He began to feel watched.

Sometimes it was a large black bird on the bare branches of a tree, or perched on the fence surrounding the riding yard. Sometimes it was a black cat with eyes like mismatched chips of ice, sprawled bonelessly on the sill of one of the windows of the fencing room, watching the princes come and go with shouts and calls and points assigned. Sometimes it was an immense black dog, larger than a wolf, with lambent, uneven eyes. He’d known there would be a price to pay for his interference with Rickard, but when the days dragged on and the feeling remained without anything actually happened, he began to feel his patience wearing thin. Before he could do anything about it, however, Needlemaw came to give him her real-for-real farewells until spring. The feeling of being watched left with her.

Adam focused on his studies, as always he did. The Dowager Queen had insisted on adding new teachers, who brought dancing and painting, poetry and theater to the palace, arts to keep the spirit alive. Adam wasn’t sure what to make of a curriculum that had him trying to paint pears on a canvas in the morning and learning how to fight in the middle of an unbroken line of salt or iron filings without disturbing it in the afternoon. But it was all knowledge, even if some of it was terrible knowledge, and he drank it all deeply.

Winter was dismally cold, bitter and short. Fresh young leaves froze twice on the branch when the trees rushed to unfurl them in the unseasonably warm days. Several young trees and not a few older ones had to be felled in the Royal Gardens when such trickery of the weather killed them from exhaustion. Adam went into the wood and clung to the immense trunk of the gracious linden tree. “I can’t hear you,” he whispered. “I can’t understand you. I can hope you do both, though. I think you do. Wait. Please, just wait. Linden will know when it’s safe. Wait.”

No trees bloomed with too-early green in that little clearing.

His birthday came and went. His tea time with the Dowager was filled with questions about Rickard, and Adam felt no safer answering those than he had any of the questions of the years before. While he played with his untouched teacake, the Queen Dowager set aside her cup. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Adam.”

He nearly dropped the teacake. “Her Majesty is most kind and generous,” he stammered, sounding strangled even to himself.

She waved the words aside. “I don’t mean the crown. I mean me. Your grand-aunt.” She paused to consider. “Why, I actually am your grand-aunt, Eleanor is my niece, directly.” She seemed briefly surprised. “You don’t like me.”

Adam pressed his lips shut until he felt them sting. “There are,” he managed at last, as if the words were someone else’s, “a lot of dead princes out there. It would make it hard to like anyone.”

She went very still, that graceful woman with exquisitely coiffed silver hair and delicate features like a china figurine, with his eyes flashing on her face. “So there are,” she said simply. “Would you rather I give the throne to the Folk in the Woods?Do you know what that would do?”

He remained stubbornly silent, knowing anything he said would be used against him.

“It wouldn’t be just dead boys out there anymore. It would be everyone, anyone. Anyone they felt like taking. Arditty, your friend Beliwick, the maid that’s actually been teaching you deportment. Prince William. The dogs in their kennels, the cook’s babe in her crib. Anyone.” She stared him down. “Would you rather that?”

“They’re not all bad.”

“Perhaps. But I’ve met none good,” she replied, sipping at her tea. “If that should change, well.” She poured herself some more tea. “I hear you went to the woods and declared you don’t want the crown.”

“I was just wondering what would happen if I did it,” he admitted, feeling his face burn. He’d been thinking about the Folk in the Woods hearing him; it hadn’t occurred to him that it would be even more embarrassing if someone else did.

“And? Did something happen?”

“No.” Adam blew out a long breath. “I’m guess I’m not old enough for it to matter.”

She laughed a little at that. “There will be time enough for you to speak such words when they matter, Adam. I will be sorry to hear them, because I think you would make a fine king. But I think all of us, here in the palace, we’ve been robbed of quite enough agency that I will not force you to silence.” When he looked at her in shock, her delicate silver brows went up. “Did you think I’d do otherwise?” She shook her head. “You don’t like me; of course you’d think that.” Drawing a deep breath, she sat up as rigidly as if she where on the throne, holding court. “I have written to your family. I’ve let them know that I don’t approve of their abandonment. If you should take the crown someday, you would be quite within your right to cut them off from your life and your power and your sphere of influence.”

“But I don’t -” She lifted a hand and Adam felt obediently silent out of good training.

“I expect no miraculous results. Balthazar is an idiot, and quite unworthy of your mother. But I think we can expedite a proper response and still remind you that, while you don’t have to like your monarch, you should still be somewhat loyal to her. You are leaving.”

“What?!”

“In two weeks you’re leaving for Astimonde, along with a dozen of your peers. The ones most outstanding in their studies,” she added. “You’ll be touring the colleges and collections of the realm at large, adding a personal, practical touch to all that you’ve learned from your teachers and your reading. My advisors estimate the trip should take six, seven months.”

Adam stood frozen, his heart gone to a stone, his thoughts gone to a whirlwind without meaning. The tea tasted like bile in his mouth. He bit back every protest, knowing she wouldn’t care. He swallowed every potential argument of logic, knowing they wouldn’t move her. “Is this supposed to make me like you?” he could scarcely get the words out around the knot strangling his heart.

“No. Goodness, no. If you don’t like me by now you never will, Adam,” she replied calmly. “But it is meant to remind you and your father that it’s profitable to make sure your monarch likes you.”

***

Adam knew very little of what came after that meeting.

He fled into the woods as soon as he could, and didn’t come back for meals or curfew. Dane and Beli went into the woods looking for him after sunset, once again braving the dark with torches. It was Culli-maid who found him, rousing early to tend to her duties before she could tend to Arditty’s or Adam’s. She saw the lamps burning in one building and raced to wake the boys.

They found him in the training hall, fists bloody, breathing hard, expression empty, one of the punching bags spilling the sand of its guts all over the exquisitely inlaid wooden floor. For all that their prince had so thoroughly puzzled and disconcerted and surprised them over their years together, it was the first time they both knew themselves afraid of him. “Highness?” Dane dared. He had two years on the prince and nearly a foot on both height and width, with the mass to go along; at that moment, he didn’t like his odds.

“Don’t call me that.” Adam’s childish treble was breaking to a low tenor, hoarse with too much shouting at the moment; it would likely be pleasant once it stopped going all over the place, even if it would never carry across a battlefield. “Please.” He seemed to wake up at that belated, single word, and staggered so that they had to catch him.

“Are you hurt?” Beli asked.

“Nowhere that matters,” Adam replied. “What time is it?”

“There’s no one to see you,” Dane replied, quickly catching onto what Adam was actually asking. “But we need to get you to your rooms before the castle wakes up proper.”

“Oh, it’s dawn already?” Adam asked as they half-carried him out of the training hall. He blinked blearily up at the dim gray light of false dawn.

“Close enough,” Dane replied as they hurried across the empty jousting grounds, hoarfrost clinging to their boots and melting swiftly, soaking along their pants. By the kindness of the old gods they met no one until Culli ushered them into the young prince’s rooms, where she fussed over them all and put Adam to bed with a sleeping tea.

This time, it was Dane who waited in the woods, much to his terror and yet staunch in his loyalty. Beli was to travel with Adam as his manservant; he’d been fully equipped by Master Leminy with the castoffs of too many dead princes, the Master of Scions merely counting it a blessing that there was one prince he didn’t have to find staff for on such short notice.

Needlemaw slithered into the window and past Culli-maid like the nightmare she was not two days later, early in the morning. “Shall I rip 'er throat oot?” she demanded of Adam without preamble, her teeth flashing like daggers, her cadmium-yellow eyes terrible lamps behind the red of her wild curling hair as she stalked into the room, a raging predatory monster, her accent thickened by her indignation. “Take 'er stupid pritty wee eyes? I kin break 'er bitch fingers one by one like crackly-crackle twigs if'n 'twill teach 'er -” Adam crashed into her arms, staggering her and bringing her tirade to a sharp, stunned halt.

“Nothing,” he croaked, hating the fact there were tears unshed in his eyes. “Nothing, Needle, you’ll do nothing. None of you. Not a thing.”

“What?!” she snarled, catching him by the shoulders and shaking him lightly. “Adam -!”

“You, any of you, doing something to stop this, that’s what she wants.” He caught her hands in his, unafraid and feeling for the first time in days as if he could finally breathe. “She’s tried everything else to find out about Linden, about you all, and everything’s failed her. If you do anything, anything at all, she wins. Do you understand?”

She stared at him, her teeth grinding like blades against the grindstone, and in the end she caved, sweeping him up in an embrace full of her dry warmth and the charnel-and-soil scent of her. “Och, Adam,” she sighed. “What are we gauny do with the muchness o’ ye.”

“Will you miss me?”

Needle pulled away a little and brushed his eyes dry with the back of her hand. “I’ll know ye gone,” she admitted. “Like a wound that won’t heal, it will be.”

“It feels like that already, a little,” he admitted. “Where’s Linden?”

“They’re not as fast as me,” The redcap sounded a little sheepish to have so thoroughly left her supposed charge behind, but Linden chose that moment to tumble into the room through the window, taking Culli’s hand to haul themselves upright and launching at Adam. The two held each other desperately tight.

“She can’t do this,” Linden’s voice was full of fury and unshed tears. “She can’t, she just can’t. This is our time, the time we share, this is ours!”

“She knows.” Adam swallowed against a new surge of bitterness inside him. “That’s exactly why she’s done it. Like sending dogs into the brush to flush out pheasants.”

“I haven’t done anything to her! Not ever, not once!” Linden all but shouted. “Hasn’t she got enough of a fight with the Prince Beyond the Woods, now she wants to pick on me and mine?!”

“Linden.” Adam grabbed his friend’s face in his hands. A day alone in the woods had laid out before him the Dowager’s trap, neat and clean and inescapable. He’d already spent his rage at it in the training yard. “She wants you like the Prince does. As a weapon. As a tool against him. Through me, you. Through you, him.”

Tears spilled from those luminous, shattered eyes. “Can’t I hate them a little?” they pleaded hoarsely.

“No.” Adam shook his head. “Hate makes them do things like this.”

“But you’re leaving!”

“I am. Six months, she said.”

“I wouldnae put it past the bitch tae run it long if'n she can,” Needle muttered, arms crossed.

“Maybe,” Adam admitted, swallowing against a fear he knew was well-founded. “Linden, I bet that beyond the woods there’s all those who mutter and grumble and say you spend too much time with me.”

“Oh, who cares, they’ve always been dumb, who cares about them!”

“I know. Linden, I know. But the thing is, they’re the ones that makes decisions like this one. To send me away, to steal our time. So go home. Give them this time, so when they open their mouths to be dumb and noisy -”

“I can point to this year, and make them shut up,” Linden finished the sentence, but their heart was very much broken. They fell into a tight embrace once again. “Will you come say goodbye to Boul? He can’t make it up the wall.” Linden fell back and rubbed at their face. “He actually tried, do you know.”

“No!”

Linden nodded, smiling a bit, but it was at least something of a smile, and it was true. “He did.”

“I’ll come to the stables. I can say I’m checking my tack.” He hugged Linden one more time. “It’s only one year, Linden.”

“I know,” the fey sapling admitted, but did not add aloud what they, and Needlemaw, and Boulders-for-Brains already knew.

You mortals get so few of those.

***

Later on in life Adam would remember very little of that sojourn. The knowledge he picked up during his pilgrimage across the realm would surprise him every now and again, coming to the surface unprompted at odd times when it was needed, when he faced an unanswerable question, when he grappled with a complex puzzle. He learned more of the realm itself, of its green valleys and rain-soaked woodlands, of the vast fields parted from the road by low stone walls, sometimes filled with crops, other times dotted with flocks. He met the people who powered the life of the land, the ones who grew the crops, who milled them and made them into food, into clothing, into tools.

In that, the Dowager had not lied. The trip expanded his education in ways neither of them could have ever imagined, for all the good it did someone who had no intention of claiming the crown.

As Needlemaw had warned them, the pilgrimage dragged on and on. There was no day when Adam didn’t miss Linden, when he didn’t wonder what they were up to, his friends. He wrote to William once, but the prince’s return letter was formal and distant and didn’t mention his red-haired maid at all. Adam admitted his mistake and didn’t write the older prince again.

Through the hottest days of summer he fretted, hoping that Boul would be taking care of himself, and saw very little of the manors of those who’d become wealthy through trade and fishing. He did speak to the sailors on the great ships with sails as white as gull wings, and to the fisherfolk in their heavy-bellied barges, and tried his hand a little at their trade, much to their amusement. It was at times like those that, for a little while, he forgot how his heart ached. The pain didn’t dull. A few of the princes had left sweethearts behind, and by late summer they’d long stopped writing to them. Once a week Adam wrote to Culli-maid and Dane. She saved those letters and gave them to him, bound in a book, much later in life, and it was the only proof he had that he’d been there, seen and heard and done those things, because he certainly didn’t remember them otherwise. Linden trees lined almost each and every driveway leading to each gracious manor and estate. He wanted to hate them, but couldn’t. He wanted to know if the linden tree had bloomed at last, and missed it just as he did the others until Dane brought a spray of flowers from it for Culli-maid to send to him with her letters.

He met the men and women who watched the passes on the mountains, that guarded the realm from what neighbors there were that were more interest in raiding than in peaceful trade. There weren’t many. The guardsfolk wore weathered, functional armor and carried short blades, and Adam found his fencing did very little good against such veterans. His well-natured laughter at himself and his failings caught them all by surprise, and they taught him a little of their fighting with sword and buckler, with dagger and lance and even with his bare hands. They knew him by name when the princes left, and in leaving behind their surly, rough humor Adam felt as if he were leaving Needlemaw behind all over again.

Every church window, every cloud, every richly scented breeze whispered Linden’s name, and Adam’s rage turned into a cold and hard thing in the pit of his stomach, in the depths of his heart. At night, with Beli asleep nearby, he would stare out the window of whatever room he’d been given in yet another place full of people he scarce knew, and fought to remind himself that he could be angry at the Queen Dowager, that he could dislike, immensely and with all his being, what she’d done to him, but he could not allow himself to hate her. He would come back to the palace eventually. There would be a king, eventually; she would not rule his life forever.

And he would make sure that she would get nothing else from him, not his rage, not his love, certainly not his hatred. He would simply forget her, and all her plans would go to nothing, and he would count that a victory in the end.

***

The princes returned to the palace with brief gusts of snowflakes racing over the grounds, the lawns sere and brittle, winter well in and the Longest Night barely a week away. Adam all but threw himself at Dane, a familiar and friendly face at last, startling the young man his once-bodyguard had become. “Look at you!” he cried out in open delight and admiration. “You’re the size of an oak, Dane! Why do you stick to serving a scrawny bit of a prince, you could be making so much money as a noble’s guardsman.”

“Then I’d have to actually work,” Dane replied, flustered and unspeakably pleased, and unwilling to admit in a hundred years that the boy who’d taught him to fight and left him free to have a childhood when he’d been given none had become a man who’d earned all of his loyalty. “Who wants that, sire? Besides, I sort of like the scrawny git. He’s clever-like.”

Adam laughed. In an excess of delight at being back in the only real home he’d known for so long he hugged Arditty, who squeaked in surprise and, much to his shock, hugged him back briefly before squirming for freedom. “Well, don’t you get so free with your affections, Adam, I’m a woman betrothed.”

“Betrothed!” he exclaimed, in disbelief that Arditty, who could have anyone she wanted and usually did for all of a week, would settle down on just one choice. “Well, he better be nice,” he warned. “Is he proper to you?”

Arditty laughed, just as surprised and touched at Adam’s question as someone else had once been. “Yes, I promise, you don’t have to challenge him. He’s my choice, and I stand by it,” she told him, brushing back his hair and sighing a little. “Perhaps I should have waited for you, but I was taught it’s so unseemly when the wife is older than the husband.”

“Ugh, who cares about years if you truly love someone. You let me know if he’s ever not nice to you.” Adam grabbed part of his luggage before Beli or Dane could and left her laughing merrily as he raced for his rooms. He found Culli-maid there, tidying up and adding the last touches to a very small and simple feast on the study table, and picked her up and spun her before falling into a hug. “Culli!”

“Highness!” She hugged him back, the boy grown nearly to a young man that had never seen her as just her station, that had trusted her with his secrets in exchange for her wisdom. “Oh, you’ve put on a foot on in every direction, none of your clothes are going to fit,” she lamented, her eyes overbright.

“Oh, now I know I’m home,” he sighed as he crushed her in his arms.

He had a lovely afternoon and evening of it, surrounded by warmth and friendship (and no blackberry brandy, thank goodness for Culli’s foresight). That night, bundled up in a heavy woolen cloak and knit scarf, he went out onto the grounds to look at the distant shadow of the royal woods, wrapped in darkness and frost. He walked nearly fully around the palace, watching the lights in its windows as they went out.

He didn’t expect company. It was too late in the season, and he knew even Needlemaw would be gone to the obligations and responsibilities of her people. The dead grass crunched pleasantly underfoot and the silence was immense.

Surrounded by the beauty of that cold winter night, Adam could only think that he’d been robbed of a whole year. He stared into the dark, watching his breath plume up in steady little puffs, closed his eyes, and very calmly set himself to count the days to spring.

[johnnylandslide]

For me, it was a line of easily-missable dialogue way back in ARR, when Tataru was still the receptionist at the Waking Sands! You talk to her at her chair, she does this cute little hop, and she says that she keeps a roster of all the members of the Scions, but you're her favorite, and she drew a little flower next to your name. Neither I nor Johnny would realize it until quite a bit later, but this was the specific inciting incident for both of us, LOL.

Aside from the cute factor (in which she is the champion unequaled in heaven and earth), I think Tataru and the WoL also just have a lot of really good chemistry together! She sometimes gets forgotten from lists of the Scions because she doesn't have any combat jobs, but she has basically the same amount of history with the WoL as Alphinaud, who is one of the closest characters in the game to the MC. She is the home the WoL can always come back to.

(Also, the scene on the docks in Sharlayan at the end of the Grand Endeavor quest line is like one line short of a marriage proposal. Some of the best wolship food in this game, and it's all for me lol)

That's just thoughts about her in general, though. I think she especially fits my OC well, too! The reason JohnnyTaru works so well as a ship to me is because the two of them are perfect representations to each other of their respective life goals. Let me explain.

Johnny initially became an adventurer in search of fame and recognition, but as he grew and matured, that grew into a more selfless desire to protect the peaceful aspects of the world. Tataru is both of those things; she's a cute girl who adores him for his heroics, but also being the Scions' representative of the crafting and gathering jobs, she is a microcosm of the non-militarized side of Eorzea. She represents everything Johnny is protecting when he picks up each expansion's level X0 quest and heads off into battle.

Tataru, on the other hand, has spent most of her life in pursuit of Things. Her family was wealthy for the first few years of her life, but they lost everything when she was still young, leaving her in the slums of Ul'dah, forced to work in the mines at a criminally young age. She eventually apprentices with a jeweler, meets Minfilia, and becomes the Scions' coinkeeper, but she's still not satisfied. Over the course of the game, she continues to grow in wealth and influence as she finds her passion and calling in weaving and turns that into a business that likely exceeds what her parents had run when she was a kid. I imagine she through a lot of that harbors fears that she might lose it again, or anxieties about "making it". To her, marrying the Warrior of Light is the final proof that she has "made it", and that she doesn't need to worry anymore.

Hopefully this didn't overshoot the intended word count of the assignment, LOL. I was thinking about this recently anyway, so thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about it!

fellow wol x npc shippers- If applicable, what was the "oh" moment for you and your oc falling for their love interest? Was yours seperate from your WoL's?

[rowanul-tyr]

lev wrote about their wol lysander and the background about his jobs and now im. poking at it a little bit for rowan. under a cut i suppose. (i'll do another post for bronagh and ellone bc this will be long)

rowan and his jobs

so rowan starts off as an arcanist. he'd been interested in the practice since the extended period he lived in the sharlayan colony with his parents as a child. (hilarious side note for lev, it's possible he overheard valerian talking about it) as he got older and began considering his options in life, the interest came back to the front of his mind and he eventually decided to join the guild in limsa when he struck out on his own as an adventurer. he took to it surprisingly well, and chalked it up to really retaining the information about arcanima as a kid. he hoped he might be able to find some way to use arcanima for healing, to follow his initial goal for himself.

eventually when he made it to gridania, he followed his guildmaster's advice and tried a new discipline--lances. a physical, in-your-face kind of combat to be in contrast with the magic he was learning. he was startled to find that he also took to it rather easily, and appreciated gawain (iirc thats the guildmaster's name?) giving out the advice he did. he tried his best to stick to that mostly, and (maybe unpopular opinion) but he actually really disliked folques? the guy was intentionally putting others in pretty real danger, rowan didn't like that in the least.

and then the scions and primals happen. i've tapped it before, but rowan kind of. gave up arcanima at this point. lances were more useful against the primals at first, so he kind of. stopped doing magic. he'd also just gotten into contact with y'mitra at this point, too, and becoming an allagan summoner seemed...dangerous, given his new line of work? he didn't want to make the scions doubt him at all--he liked the security being one of them and didnt want to hurt his position. minfilia didn't seem to notice anything different, and he'd eventually confide in her about it and she gave her blessing for him to pick it back up, but he doesn't really get back to arcanima until after the vault/3.0 because of....reasons.

so anyway. he's a lancer now, primarily. maybe dragoon at this point. he likes alberic well enough, and estinien actually has good intentions, so it could be worse. and rowan actually likes the acrobatics he does as a dragoon. and he gets complimented a lot on how easily he's taking to the skills, and gets some heated looks from other fellow dragoons and it's clear they dislike him for wandering in one day and being a natural. it's disconcerting, so he just. focuses really, really hard on honing his skills so he actually deserves to be that skilled.

eventually, the vault happens. end of heavensward happens. and rowan kind of...breaks down. he regrets having stopped learning arcanima. so he pours his grief into preparing to face nid-stinien and makes sure that there wouldn't be another haurchefant. he keeps beocming a summoner a secret from the scions, because that old worry kicks back in in spite of the evidence to dispute the fear of being kicked out of the scions. he needs to be useful, he needs to save people, because that's what he's done this whole time. saving people from the primal threat, saving them from nidhogg, saving them from whatever might try to destroy them. so he has to be better! he has to be the best.

and he picks up other jobs, too, because i'm going to chew on him actually being the Omni-WOL here. and he realizes now that he picks things up way too easily, and so he throws himself into really paying attention to what he is being taught, and practicing. it's both horrifying and a little bit incredible that he's suddenly so diverse when it comes to combat, both magical and physical. some discipline she likes less (the tanks) and some he likes more, but overall...it's strange. but he trains and trains and trains so he feels worthy of the knack he has. some he trains more than others, but it's all to just...be good enough to destroy whatever might try to harm those he cares about.

(in truth, the reason rowan picks things up easily is bc his azem was also an omni-wol type. venat inspired ikarós with how she had mastered several combat arts, and liked learning from the people they encountered in their duties as azem. so they learned everything they could bc they were insatiable for ways to connect with people bc they had trouble connecting with people verbally or emotionally, and that meant that rowan and others before him just had a pseudo-muscle memory of it all)

and then one day he comes across a woman who says rowan appears to be graceful, and could have the makings of a dancer. it's nothing he hasn't heard before, but when he picks up the chakrams, it's not jealousy he sees in the troupe members--it's excitement. they're all so thrilled that he's picking it up easily, and it's different from other jobs because rowan can always tell that while people have been excited he's learning from them so well, there's always something in their eyes that gives away the jealousy, the disbelief.

but anyway. rowan enjoys learning from troupe falsaim, and finds enjoyment in what he's learning there. for the first time since dragoon and summoner, really.

after he merges with ardbert, he discovers that while he'd set aside the axe for other jobs, he's feeling like he knows so much more than before. part of it is how he remembers ardbert so well, meaning ardbert's soul is still like...slightly intact? i'll write it eventually but ardbert still technically is around, just sometimes dormant. but ardbert's mastery of warrior was added to rowan's arsenal, so to speak. and he was baffled by it, at least a little.

post 5.3, rowan has come to terms with it, and he's not really bothered by how people marvel and kind of despise how quickly he picks up and masters techniques others spend their entire lives learning. he also is happy to focus more on summoning and dancing, since no one else knows those fields and he doesn't have to deal with alisaie being upset that he's "further along" than she is.

post 5.3 rowan finally tells the other scions about being a summoner. it just hadn't been ideal to say something during STB or SHB, so after 5.3 just. worked out. yshtola and graha were the most interested, both for the mechanics of it and its relation to allagan history.

so. fun thoughts. i hadnt ever considered in depth what being an omni-wol could be like so this was fun!! :D

[meowww-ffxiv]

Sometimes Ptolemy heard about family members or friends who were once close and then fell apart because they couldn't take the other's bad habits and refusal to compromise any longer. And there was always the voice in the back of his mind from the years where he was afraid to disagree with Liios or felt like he had no right to, after everything Liios had done for him, and it was his older brother who apologized first and cut himself off of the enduring suffocatingly overprotective habits for years until the two of them were sufficiently independent.

Liios had rejected the thought that Ptolemy, his only remaining family and for whom he had given everything that he had, needed to need him; needed to like him, even. Ymir, Liios's teacher, had feared he would never recover if and when Ptolemy eventually passed first because there was no way he'd live a long life with his heart condition. And yet in this life, in every waking moment since Liios realized he might be suffocating him, he'd done everything to remedy it.

So Ptolemy was fine. He had friends, and he had made his peace with the fact that most people he knew would be growing old and passing on before he did, even if he wasn't going to make it that far for a member of his species. It was its own blessing, to have the privilege of knowing friends from youth to deathbed, to watch them grow and grow with them. People told Ptolemy they were content, more often than not, as he cared for them in the final days of their lives.

But what of Liios? He never brought up anything he deemed upsetting with Ptolemy when they were younger, out of genuine fear that causing him upset might exacerbate his condition. There was a grain of truth in that. But the condition was dormant, Ptolemy was more or less healthy in the here and now, and it was apparent to him that Liios had never, ever, really learned to depend on someone else. Period.

Maybe that wasn't fair to him. He worked well in a group. He knew how to pick up others' slack, how to push and cajole more out of someone unwilling while not being cruel or mean about it.

Yet Ptolemy talked to the Scions on the First, and none of them seemed to know Liios. Did he seem tired or upset last you saw him? he asked. I can't tell, Alisaie admitted. Ptolemy asked her, instead, if Liios had shifted about more often and fiddled with the straps of his left-arm gauntlet, and she said yes. Yes, he is tired, Ptolemy told her. He has a bad habit of snapping the straps on his arm like that to keep himself awake, probably because he had gotten no sleep last night.

Alphinaud thought Liios liked hearty, meaty stews because he cooked those things with Ysayle and Estinien the most when he was with him abroad. But Liios liked vegetable dishes, and actually disliked anything too meaty. It was not Alphinaud's fault that he didn't know, Ptolemy assured him. Hearty meat stews were all but a necessity in cold weather and with long travels ahead, when you could afford to. Liios just never told even Alphinaud something so personal, though he told the young man everything he remembered of Louisoux.

Funerals weren't rare for Ptolemy to attend. And he had gone to a few of them where the deceased's friends and surviving relatives talked about themselves and what their lost loved one had done for them. They couldn't come up with a single thing about the person aside from helpfulness, general agreeableness, and a great generousness. They couldn't tell what the person liked, if they were funny, if they would be missed for something other than that they were no longer around to provide their service.

It terrified him, it angered him, that these were premonitions for what his brother's passing might be like. Not that it wouldn't be fair, because Liios had made his mark almost exclusively in helping others. It was what made him well-liked and respected. But could any of the Scions, his currently closest acquaintances, go up on that stage and say anything about him that wasn't how he saved the world and liked the color green?

Could Ptolemy, even? Liios liked to worry about everything aside from himself, he'd say. He would sit days at my bedside, when we were young and I could not get up most days. He would read the textbooks for me, and the first spell he wove of newly-learned magic was an anti-gravity modification that allowed me to traverse stairs and steep slopes without tiring myself too much. He carried me on his back, heedless of the harsh snow of our tundra home, to the cliffs, that I might see the stars I love so well. He carried me out of the world we knew and left behind our clan, our family, because they refused to eschew traditions for the off-chance that outsiders could save my life.

--and in all of these things, where are you, my brother, Ptolemy thought. You who twanged the strap of your arm-guard to keep yourself awake after a sleepless night. You who could never manage a meal more complex than stew, no matter how much you tried to gain skill in the kitchen. You who crafted every single tool you wield with your own hands, who wore the feathers of the first bird you shot down in your hair after these nine decades still, who cried over the first animal he trapped, who couldn't bear to speak of our clan yet wore your hair the same way for all these years in exile.

Did your friends know you hated fish and disliked meat? Did your friends know you liked quartz jewelry? Did they know you wrote the papers that were the backbones of Labyrinthos's artificial biome as it was today? Did they know your sense of humor would have made highborn ladies faint, or that you flirted with older women just to make them feel beautiful? How could they not know you, after all this time together? Why are you hiding from them?