#uriraha

[hibiscus-tome]

FFXIV Write 2022, day 28: vainglory

Vesper Bay is as lovely as G’raha had expected.

There’s much that he’s read about the place in times accumulated over the years; there’s much that he’d heard from Cid, and then the Scions themselves, about what this place had meant to those who once considered it home.

An imposing statue of the town’s chief patron — a single tavern a couple streets away from the water — a dozen tiny shops and offices and homes lining the streets — a single, nondescript office by the water that extends so deeply underground that the sand and the dust will not touch them there.

“You remained here by yourself, all those months?” asks G’raha, as they descend the steps past the front desk.

“Thou presumest that I remained isolated here against my will,” Urianger replies. “I asked to remain here while the others relocated to the new headquarters in Mor Dhona. ‘Twas my choice alone, and one that went uncontested.”

It speaks to pattern that would repeat in his insistence to remain in Il Mheg. The difference here is that it had been a younger Urianger who’d made that choice — one ignorant of the tragedies to come.

—for when he made the choice to remain here, in the Waking Sands, he’d done so with Minfilia’s blessing. It had been a different Minfilia than the one the First knew — a person more so than a symbol of hope, dear to many but not all, and perhaps not wholly aware of the role she had yet to play in this tapestry of intertwined fates.

(A different warrior, fresh-faced, and not quite the Warrior of Light or Darkness, and unmarred by the many, many tragedies to come — a different Y’shtola, who had yet to be pushed to the sorts of extremes that would rob her of her senses — a different Alphinaud and Alisaie, fresh off the boat from Sharlayan and so very convinced that they could make a difference in this foreign land — a different Thancred, far too entrenched in the role the others had expected him to play that no one, least of all himself, had noticed when it had made him a target for Ascian interference.)

“Do you miss it at all, Urianger?” asks G’raha, pressing one hand against the cool stone wall of the Solar. “Those earliest days, when all the Scions had been together, I mean.”

Urianger hums, pacing behind the desk. “’Twas a different time altogether,” he muses. “To compare it to our current practices would be to draw an equivalency that may not exist to begin with. The Scions’ current processes have been defined by the near annihilation of our previous order.” His eyes narrow, as he averts his gaze downward. “By the untimely departure of friends and comrades we once held dear.”

What must it have been like, to meet in this room? To surround Minfilia at that table, to be in alignment towards a common purpose — an efficient machine, strengthened by the strong ties independently cultivated in each city-state by individual Scions. How much of Y’shtola’s work with the Night’s Blessed in Rak’tika had been informed by her work in Limsa Lominsa? How much of Thancred’s easy and consistent rejection of Eulmoran norms had been informed by his work in Ul’dah?

And what part did the Warrior of Light have to play in all of this, beyond what had been committed to the written record?

(Would G’raha have had a place in any of this?)

As if reading his mind, Urianger gives him a gentle smile. “I have no doubts, however,” he says, “that hadst thou come to us then, we would have welcomed thee with open arms.”

G’raha chuckles. “Your patience with me would have worn thin soon enough,” he says. “I was quite the vainglorious fool, back then.”

“Perhaps,” says Urianger, “yet thine presence would have been valued and respected, as would that of all others who’d pledged their lives in service to the same ideals.”

Were it anyone else saying the same, then it would be little more than pretty words — but because it’s Urianger, a certain warmth, comforting and secure, settles in G’raha’s gut.

“But to answer thine query,” Urianger continues, “yes, I do miss it sometimes. When I close my eyes and try to paint a picture of the comforts of home, of being surrounded by friends… ‘tis conversations in the Ocular of the Crystarium, as well as days spent huddled in this very building that appear with equal measure.”

“Regardless of the location, surrounded by friends both old and new…” says G’raha. He pictures Rammbroes’ camp just outside the Crystal Tower, in Mor Dhona — the Isle of Val, surrounded by fellow scholars — idle days in the Crystarium, Lyna at his heels throughout various stages of her life, all the artisans and crafters and guardsmen and apothecaries and beast handlers working together to make the city a safe haven for all who sought refuge from the Sin Eaters’ onslaught.

—and then: the Rising Stones in Mor Dhona, in a body both familiar and not, surrounded by friends connected across worlds, across timelines.

He takes Urianger’s hand in his, commits each line and callus to his memory. Let this, too, be something worth returning to — a source of comfort and warmth and security, that can only be attained in the presence of loved ones held most dear. “Come,” says G’raha. “Let’s go home.”

[ievaxol]

45. feeling their temperature (for a ship of your choosing!)

"Since your souls can get injured here, it does make a lot of sense that you can contract diseases as well," G'raha murmurs. "Are you sure you do not wish to be attended by a chirurgeon rather than someone such as myself?" "Nay," Urianger wheezes. As soon as he arrived he all but collapsed in one of the chairs, haphazard and lacking the usual elegance G'raha associates with him. It quickly became obvious why, as he explained his predicament, flushed and plagued by dry coughs that rattled his entire body.

"Had I the choice I would not even seek thee out — so loath am I to display myself in such a sorry state. However the pixies wouldst not leave me be and when I closed mine eyes to teleport I found myself here." Said so easily, so casually; as if it is not an admittance of trust that makes G'raha stop in his tracks. He has been many things in the years following his arrival at the First — a leader, a judge, an executioner when no other option existed — but he has forgotten entirely what it is to be a friend on equal terms. A companion.

Even if he has found joy and brevity in the moments in between, his cowl always stayed on. The hierarchy he so despised stayed rigid. For the good of the future he long ago cast aside the need for someone who knew what he was trying to do, someone to talk to who would understand the weight of two worlds.

How bitter then, that it is a friendship built on the idea of his future grave.

Urianger watches him from the chair, silent and unblinking.

"Then pray allow me to at least check your temperature. I would be a poor friend if I allowed you to endure rather than ease your pain." If the words sound like they have been dragged out and dusted off from the memories of another man, Urianger doesn't mention it.

send me a prompt

[noodlingway]

[hibiscus-tome]

FFXIV Write, day 7: pawn

It’s not an easy journey from Il Mheg, but Urianger makes it without complaint. It’s not that G’raha expects him to gripe about it — but he can’t ignore the twinge of guilt, when Urianger arrives at the Crystarium, exhausted and a bit disheveled but otherwise unharmed.

“Pray, forgive my tardiness,” says Urianger — a bit breathlessly, with one hand over his chest.

G’raha shakes his head. “Thank you for coming all this way,” he replies.

They make their way past the ocular, into the study. Urianger’s brought a game board with him — something unfamiliar in its complexity, but similar enough to the strategy games G’raha used to play decades ago while working on his thesis, with people who no longer exist in this world.

He used to lose often, those days — always looking ahead towards an imagined future that could not exist if he continued to neglect the present. It’s something he’s had to work to stamp out — something that would have killed the Crystarium in its infancy, had he not curbed it when it mattered.

“Thou hast been well these past moons?” asks Urianger, as he makes his first move — a single pawn, moved one square forward.

“No worse than usual,” G’raha replies. “I take it the Sin Eaters didn’t give you too much trouble on your journey?”

“Naught more than I could handle,” says Urianger.

He must be out of practice too, unless he’s somehow taught the pixies how to play. It still doesn’t give G’raha the edge he needs to play confidently.

“Another year, gone…” says G’raha, teasing a bishop between his fingers. “Maybe it’s time to try again.”

“Perhaps,” says Urianger, moving a knight. “And should thou summon another?”

He sighs, his fingers tightening around the bishop, before finally moving it. “If I fail again,” he says, “then that’s one more ally we can count on.”

—an optimistic assessment, really, when he has no way of knowing what hells he’s plucking these allies from, when they’re dropped into the ocular. Urianger and Y’shtola had been lucky, that they had been home when it happened; Thancred had been lucky, that he had been surrounded by friends.

But they’d been preparing for a war. There’s no telling how far those preparations have progressed, in the time since G’raha had last tried. There’s no telling if they’d even be willing to help, for the sheer inconvenience that G’raha will have thrust upon them.

(And the Warrior — if the Warrior refuses, then there are no options left.)

“Hast thou ever wondered,” says Urianger, “what must be done, shouldst thou fail in this endeavor?”

G’raha chuckles. “Oh, all the time — but I’ve found that it’s rather pointless to dwell on such things. My time is much better spent making preparations for the future, then dwelling on all the ways it could go wrong.”

“And yet,” says Urianger, as he moves that first pawn one more square, “such preparations requireth no small amount of foresight.”

G’raha nods, taking one of Urianger’s knights. “So your studies in astromancy have been going well, then.”

“That they have,” says Urianger, nodding, “and I harbor no doubts now, that there may be other options to exploit should thine preparations come to naught.” He moves that first pawn one more square. “A fascinating piece, the pawn. Seemingly powerless, if thou wouldst compare it to its peers — the knight, the bishop, the rook, and the queen.”

G’raha’s fingers have barely left his bishop, by the time Urianger moves that pawn again.

“But as thou art aware,” he says, “when the pawn traverses the board — overcomes all obstacles in its path — an opportunity arises, for it to become something far greater.”

When Urianger moves that pawn one final time, G’raha knows he’s already lost — it’s only a matter of when.

“When the pawn traverses the board, overcomes all obstacles in its path,” says Urianger, “then it can transform into the singular most powerful piece on the board. All it requires, in order to make this a reality, is foresight, and no small amount of patience.”

Within less than ten moves, G’raha’s king is claimed. “What other options did you have in mind?” he asks, hesitantly.

At that, Urianger smiles. “If I had any reason to believe that thou wouldst be unable to see this through to the end,” he says, “then I would not have followed thee. ‘Tis as simple as that.”

… stranded in a world that is not his own, with a calamity on the horizon? There’s no chance of that happening.

“My only hope,” says Urianger, very gently, “is that thou seest this reality for what it is, before the time comes.”

(But how can that be, when what’s left of G’raha’s life exists for the sole benefit of an ideal that will forever be far greater than him, out of his reach?)

Bracing one hand against the table, G’raha rises to his feet, pulling his hood over his head. “I make no such promises.”