#whoo boy has work drained me for the past months

[redmoonwanderer]

Wondrous Tails of FFXIV 2024 Prompt: Discovery Continuation to this. Summary: The twisted beast forces Qhol’a to risk his life for the twins; the battle draws something unexpected out of Alisaie. Warnings: Violence and all that pertains, body horror (or something similar, anyway). I’d rate this M to be safe. Music. There's another piece linked within the story for when its time comes (though honestly, it could be timed earlier. Or later).

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It’s the loud thud of flesh running against the wooden structure that is the shack that wakes Qhol’a up. He jolts, and is up in an instant when he hears the deceivingly human screech ringing from the outside of the building. He’s not sure how long he slept, but he still feels tired, devoid of aether that he knows he would need too soon.

He looks over to see the twins in the same room, both up, brows furrowed as they look to the direction of the living room as if they could see right through the walls. Alisaie looks well considering she was ilms away from passing onto the next world not too long ago, but he picks up on the slight slouch, on the bags under her eyes and her brother’s. He takes note of the rapier at her side, the way it’s been made tells him she used to be able to cast, as well.

The siblings (twins?) notice he’s up, and Alphinaud speaks, “What should we do?” he asks, and Qhol’a wonders why he looks at him like he has the answers. Because he can still cast? Because he’s older than the two?

Another thud, and the sound of breaking glass, and screaming as the shards pierce the Desperate. But it keeps slamming itself against the wall, the sense that would direct it to a door long since having abandoned it.

He’s not sure it knows they’re actually here, but if it doesn’t, they could hope that the building would hold until the Desperate would grow bored and go seek its prey elsewhere. But if it knew, if it had sensed them somehow, or it had clung to some remnants of humanity to take note of the tracks outside… they would have to run or fight, and with it this close, they would not be fast enough.

Qhol’a points at himself, then to the direction of the living room. After that, he points at the two, holds one finger up as a sign of waiting, then towards the door he’d come through earlier.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Alisaie hisses, though it seems she would much rather scream. “You cannot win it, not as you are.” And likely not even at your full strength, that she doesn’t say, but she doesn’t need to.

“She’s right”, Alphinaud says. “We can’t let you sacrifice yourself. There must be another way.” Qhol’a really wishes there was, but the creaking of wood could as well be the shack screaming that it could not hold on any longer, that it was about to break and let in the evil that it had been holding at bay.

Qhol’a shakes his head sharply. There’s no time, he wants to say, no time to argue if even some of them are to make it out alive! He points at the two again, and more pointedly towards the exit, hoping to convey the message well enough.

“Maybe it will break through one wall, but that one, as well?” Alisaie says, nodding to the one that Qhol’a had slept against. “And to make a hole big enough for it to –“

The loud crash interrupts her, and they hear wood clattering on the floor and the furniture dragging as the Desperate destroys the wall and manages to squeeze in.

They were trapped. The only way out of the room was the hole in the wall, the door was blocked.

They all stand quietly and listen. Heavy thumps of the large feet as the creature turns around to find life that it could destroy. Wood clatters as it gets kicked by its many legs, and some break under its heavy weight.

Qhol’a gestures for the twins to move to the back wall. He sees the shadow move past the hole, and knows he could see the Desperate if he was standing at an another spot and kneeling.

It could be moving out, Qhol’a thinks, giving up on finding anything from here.

Then the fingers curl around the edges of the hole.

Three, four times larger than a hyur’s, red as the sky after the Last Dusk. Black sharp claws that sink into the wood like it was butter and pull. The wall creaks and groans, and Qhol’a takes his staff, ready to cast despite not having many spells in him.

The Desperate rips of a chunk of the wall and they can hear it toss somewhere behind it. Next, they see the face as it lowers its body to look in. The human face, eyes black, teeth bloodied, and skin full of scratch marks from its final moments as something sensible. The face looks almost like it’s been pushed into the red flesh that surrounds it, like a poorly fitting mask, with black tufts of hair or fur growing like a mane along the spine on its neck thick as a tree. Fresh, bleeding wounds all over its lower throat and likely chest, too, from where it broke the window. It sees them in an instant, and lets out a scream that gets the twins slap their hands against their ears.

It hurts. It’s like something is trying to tear free from within, something that’s much greater than Qhol’a is, like he’s too small a suit ripping at its seams. As he draws of his aether to form a lightning that crackles as it grows into a bolt, the Desperate begins to claw and rip at the walls with four hands, all equally massive. It sounds like its beast-like feet are kicking somewhere behind it, destroying what little was left of the room.

And it’s crying. Not weeping like it was sorry that it had become this, regret filling it even as its bestial side continued its rampage. No, the black rivulets underneath its eyes were likely no sign of emotion like that, if of any emotion at all. Perhaps hunger, desire to sink its claws and teeth into flesh, rip them open, bleed them on the floor like it was a dying garden and they the water it so needed.

Maybe, he thought, it was crying because it was desperate.

He releases the ball of magic, and the Desperate screams as it pulls back, hitting the wall behind it in the narrow space it had forced itself into. Already, fires begin to gather close to its face, and it looks at it with wide eyes as it explodes, burning it.

The hands return, and its working twice as quick, like if it had been promised a meal unlike anything else it had ever caught.

He needed to get the twins out. He had to save them.

Burning the door would be of no use, they’d have to walk through the flames.

He’d have to force the Desperate to move away from the wall.

The hole keeps growing as the hide of the creature burns under magic it has likely never faced before.

It should’ve been scared, but perhaps the need for whatever it was that it sought from those that still remained was stronger.

As ice briefly takes two of its hand out of commission, Qhol’a looks over at the twins, who are looking at the scene ahead of them in awe and fear in equal measures. They meet his eyes, and must somehow read that he has a plan, because before he can even begin to sign, they’re nodding in unison. That, or they think they know what he wants, and will do something he would rather not have them doing.

No point in trying to guess.

He turns as the ice shatters and realises the hole in the wall is already sizeable. Not enough for the Desperate, and it would take some bowing so he wouldn’t hit his head, but he would be able to manage it.

Getting past the creature, though… that would be difficult, perhaps impossible. Only one way to find out.

One last flash of an explosion, and while it’s briefly blinded by it, Qhol’a runs. He bows, jumps onto the neck of the thing and runs along its spine. The Desperate, while it can’t see him, can still definitely feel him, and it begins to scuttle backwards, away from the wall.

It straightens, shakes itself to dislodge the nuisance from its back, and Qhol’a jumps down, on to the side of the broken wall, and bolts.

When he feels the hand wrap itself around him, he’s only taken a couple of steps.

It brings Qhol’a closer to it’s face, eyes still squinting as it’s recovering from the attack. Qhol’a can barely breathe. His hands are still free, however, though it would be impossible to cast with his feet off the ground and concentration waning as the Desperate is slowly squeezing him.

He turns the butt of his staff towards the Desperate, and pushes.

It hits the eye, and again, it screams. It stomps its legs on the ground and throws him against the wall like a child having a tantrum. He hits the floor, but before he can gather himself, the crying, howling beast is upon him. It grabs him by his lower torso and throws him again, but only to its feet. It tries to hit him with one of its other arms, but he manages to roll out of the way. A sweeping arm pushes him even further away from it. He rolls through the wall and into the dirt outside. and gives him the distance and time he needs to clamber onto his feet.

Casting would be difficult, now. To gather the aether takes time, and he no longer has the wall to give him cover.

The Desperate turns around, and one of its hands grabs onto to the couch. It tosses it at him like it weights nothing to it. Qhol’a barely manages to dive out of the way, finding himself on the ground once more.

The ground trembles as the beast runs over towards him. Qhol’a tumbles but gets back on his feet just in time for it to get him within its reach. He manages to put his staff between himself and the oncoming overhead blow, but it leaves his legs unprotected, and another hand takes hold of them.

He’s hanging, head down, yalms above the ground. This time, he’s not brought close to the face. This time, he’s struck against the ground.

His hold on the staff fails, and when he’s lifted, it’s left behind.

This time, his vision is blurry. His neck hurts. His heart is beating, beating, beating

The scream is louder, this time, than when it saw them

His ears are flat against his head, he brings his hands to press against them

Anyone else would feel their skin tearing apart

Feel the need to tear themselves open to ease the sharp pain from within

But not him, and it feels like he’s in all Hells all at the same time and he’s sure the people that succumbed only felt relief

This time, the screaming doesn’t end. This time, as he’s slammed against the ground again, the world fades. Not for long, but he doesn’t remember being lifted up. His hands are hanging uselessly, the other shoulder is burning with pain. His legs, too, in the vice grip.

This time, it lets go, throws him with all its might. There’s nothing to break the flight but ground. He hits it, bounces into the air a couple ilms, then down again. Rolling, rolling.

He feels sick and the world keeps rolling even after he’s stopped.

He forces himself on his knees. He can’t straighten his back, can’t properly open nor focus his eyes.

But he can feel the trembling of the ground, he can lift his head enough to see the moving, blurry figure galloping towards him.

Only the right arm obeys him when he tries to force them both up. He presses it against the left. The cooling energy feels relieving in the broken arm as it’s set back to how it should be. The silhouette it nearly there.

He might be able to pull off another spell. He doesn’t think so, thoughts have since left him like there was no hope left, anymore. It’s more of an instinctual thing, same as when a cat sees a bird and knows it must catch it.

He lifts his arms, and this time both obey him. He draws all that he dares without snuffing out his own candle of life. It’s slow. Too slow. The ball of fire grows but it’s too slow, the Desperate is already upon it, running through as if the flames do not matter.

He releases the energy upon its back and neck as the claws rip him open because he wouldn’t do it himself.

From shoulder to chest to hip, two gouges deep enough that it must be a miracle he doesn’t die right then and there.

Anyone else would scream, but he, somehow, manages to not do so. He thinks.

He hits the ground, the shadow of the Desperate falling over him. The dirt underneath him is already thoroughly soaked with his blood. He tastes copper, smells it. His ears are ringing.

But he barely feels anything. Barely sees as the hand moves above him to cover the bloodied skies from his view. He draws in a breath, shallow, raspy.

He sees something move above the Desperate. Thinks he hears screaming, but more like human.

Like Alisaie.

The Desperate backs away with a roar. There’s furious, wordless screaming, that kind which comes out mixed with desperation, and Qhol’a thinks he sees the young elezen stab the beast in its back again and again and again. Ceaselessly forcing the tip of the rapier through the thick hide. When the beast shakes itself, she must dig the rapier into its flesh and hold on to it because she doesn’t fall.

When the Desperate tries to turn itself enough to see her, she stands up and leaps. When gravity beckons her back, the Desperate turns its face to the heavens to see her. She falls from the skies and towards it like a comet of fury.

Qhol’a watches as the weapon sinks in deep into its face, all the way to its hilt. There’s no death holler, no stumbling this way and that. The Desperate’s legs give out under its massive weight, and then, it keels onto its side. Alisaie manages to land safely, and then, when silence has barely graced them with its beautiful presence, she shouts something as she begins to run. The words are hard to make out.

Only when she drops down on her knees right by him can he hear the repeated, “No, no, please, no”’s that fall from her lips.

Qhol’a would smile, but nothing obeys. Shudders move his body and it hurts some. He just looks at her in the eye. There are tears, clear, and while he feels joy over something so simple, it also aches to see this youth he barely knows weep.

“Alisaie”, comes the voice of Alphinaud. “Alisaie, what were you thinking…” The last word fades as he reaches his sister and sees Qhol’a. “By the Heaves”, he mutters as he looks eyes wide with horror.

“You can’t die”, Alisaie sobs. There’s anger in her thickening voice as she continues, “You have so much to explain, you don’t just get to go and leave us here in this rotten world!”

Ah. Their hope. He was their hope. That something could still change, that the world could still perhaps be saved, returned to what it was.

She must be weeping not for a stranger but for the brief moment that she held newborn hope in her hands, warm in the cold existence, only to watch it dim and fade into darkness.

He wants to apologise. He swallows, would cough but there’s not enough air in his lungs for it.

Alisaie takes his hand like Alphinaud had taken hers when Qhol’a was healing her. A prayer.

He closes his eyes.

“Please”, Alisaie chokes out.

Her hand is warm against his cold, and he thinks he can remember how the sun felt against his skin when there was still sun.

It feels like it’s spreading everywhere, and he feels at peace. It’s easier to be, now.

To breathe, to exist.

He hears a gasp from Alphinaud. “Alisaie, how –“ he begins but falls quiet.

The pain, suddenly, feels worse. Like a blanket of numbness is torn away from him, exposing him to the cold. The blood in his throat feels like the only thing stopping the moan that follows the sensation, and he opens his eyes a little.

There’s glowing light where their hands are joined. Magic.

But not his.

Somehow, in this dead world that had been drained of magic, Alisaie was manipulating aether.

It can’t stitch him back together, there’s no single person capable of that, but as he closes his eyes again, Qhol’a thinks that maybe, maybe, he’ll get to open them again.