#wood carbuncle

[stari-hun]

Shamane’s character event is one of the best because of when it happened in the game. It showed us exactly how arcane creatures behave and adapt to the ecosystem before we got to [Farewell, Rayashki]. Where Windsong told us exactly what arcane creatures are like, and how they merge into the ecosystem alongside humans. Shamane’s job was to be apart of nature and live in harmony with it while being a person. Most notably, the event showed us how creatures like carbuncles, who are the main reoccurring enemy in the game, aren’t entirely feral like we thought. People like Jessica and New Babel can control arcane creatures like carbuncles, in Jessica’s case she can even talk to them, but they don’t necessarily make friends with them and convince them to fight by their side.

[wickedsrest-rp]

NAME: Carbuncle

RARITY: ★★★★☆

THREAT LEVEL: ★☆☆☆☆ | Harmless. Maybe we’re the real threat.

HABITAT: Woodlands, mountains, meadows, and near sources of freshwater. 

DESCRIPTION: Only slightly larger than a mouse, carbuncles are relatively docile creatures and rarely, if ever, pose a threat. Rather, these beasts are mostly shy except when approached by individuals who exude kind energy. Carbuncles appear as some sort of adorable cross between a rabbit and feline with a sparkling gem directly in the middle of their foreheads. It is speculated these gems allow them to pick up on the energy of others, but that has never been proven indefinitely. These gems glow brightly and have magical properties that are highly sought after by treasure hunters and spellcasters alike, leading to the species being endangered in the modern day. 

Some carbuncles have an armadillo-like shell which serves as both protection and camouflage. When curled up, they appear as any ordinary stone on the ground and are thus overlooked by passersby. Due to their gentle nature, they are sometimes seen for sale as pets or familiars on the black market. Unfortunately, many who purchase them only seek to use their gemstone for its magical properties. 

ABILITIES: Carbuncles can sense the mood and intentions of others via the magical gem imbued on their heads. This allows them to remain out of sight when someone who is likely untrustworthy is around. They can remain hidden by curling up into a ball and appearing as any ordinary stone on the forest floor. When faced with danger, hiding this way is their preferred approach, but they are able to create a bright flash of light with their gemstone that leaves those around them briefly stunned. 

GEMS: Each carbuncle stone has its own magic properties if removed. These magical gems are powerful treasures that grant good luck and fortune to the possessor, though the exact form this takes varies. Most often, this can be good health or near-misses in moments of chance where danger likely would have occurred. It is possible that each carbuncle’s gem has its own properties and it’s unknown if the gem’s color has any correlation to what abilities it possesses. The gem of a carbuncle needs to be separated from the creature while they are still alive to retain its magic, but doing so always kills the carbuncle. Considering the good outcomes these stones can bring and the rarity of carbuncles, these stones are incredibly valuable. 

WEAKNESS: Carbuncles are rare and the magical good fortune their stone’s bring tends to make the owner a target for other treasure hunters and spellcasters who want that power for themselves. Carbuncles can be killed by any injury that would be lethal to small animals..

OTHER VARIANTS: 

Wheekcoal: Though slightly less rare than their cousin species, wheekcoals are much more difficult to spot due to their proclivity for hiding away in the dark corners of caves and mines. These more guinea pig-like variants are more likely to be heard than seen throughout the cave systems of Wicked’s Rest. Especially in the different mining networks throughout the town’s caves, echoes of wheeks can be heard throughout the cave. This has led to some pretty interesting tales about what occupies the caves since the small screeches are rarely attributed to the small beasts. Like carbuncles, they can curl-up into a ball to camouflage. For wheekcoals, they end up looking much more like little lumps of coal that match the coal-like stone on their head in place of a gem. Unlike carbuncles, these coals don’t bring good luck and fortune to the beholder, rather, they bring misfortune to their enemies. This has made wheekcoals fairly popular pets among those in the know who have a taste for some harmless vengeance. The misfortune is almost never violent and usually comes in the form of lost keys or stubbed toes. Their coal can be used for spells and potions intended to cause misfortune, but wheekcoals are much less sought after than their carbuncle cousins.

[spaghetti-explosioned]

you already know what day it is

[gacha99]

I did the Shamane event and I have to say his story is really gut wrenching T_T Even though it was super depressing, I found it be a really cool story nonetheless. I feel like Shamane's story is one about acceptance and moving on, as well as how to relearn your empathy for others after they've hurt you, or after your empathy has led you down the "wrong path".

His family situation is complicated, because he's constantly dealing with this inner turmoil and guilt over what happened because he feels like he was way too flippant about his families warnings against humans, and their need to stay away from humans all together. He feels that he is the one to blame for what happened to his family, even though it was humans that did that awful crime at the behest of Manus Vindictae.

Even when he's in that nightmare, he's looking for someone else to blame or someone else to point the finger at besides himself, which is why his mind keeps conjuring up Kumar even though he knows she wasn't even there that day.

But in actuality the only one to blame is the Manus, not Kumar or Shamane, or even Shamane's empathetic nature towards all things human or arcanist.

During the time we see him with the shaman, Shamane is trying to learn from this wizened old man who has made a place for himself in the wilderness. He respects and knows all of the rules of the place he's in, and he doesn't try to take claim over the land or food. When a sheep of his own gets captured by wolves, he stops Shamane from even helping because in his own words "No life should belong to me".

In a sense, he has learned how to adapt to the environment he's in and he respects the rules of the critters and animals in the forest, just as they respect him. To me, the old shaman that Shamane meets is a representation of the struggle that Mor Panhk faces with its Human and Arcanist community.

Unlike how Shamane learns from the shaman in the woods how to live peacefully among and with the nature around him, humans in this world cannot seem to trust or tolerate arcanists even if they "act civilly" (Hell, i'd even say Toothfairies story event was a prime example of how humans will never really respect or care for Arcanists even if their family is influential or rich) We never really learn the full extent of why those human friends of Shamane essentially betrayed him and decided to burn their tree down, but that lack of empathy towards Arcanists is what the Manus used to their advantage to have the tree burned in the first place.

I also think that the act of what the humans did and what the manus ordered them to do had such an effect on Shamane's family that it didn't allow for them to even love each other in that adversity.

The lack of empathy for others is ultimately the thing that led them to this path, not the other way around. And that's what Shamane learns from the shaman, and why he spends so much time learning how to live with the environment around him. Because he learns that everything around him is impacted by his own choices, and he has to try and walk in the shoes of a critter or a wolf to understand why they do what they do, rather than view them as monsters to be destroyed.

And even when his empathy for other creatures lands him hurt and injured once more, it doesn't matter because he still cares in the end and tries to help even a small little carbuncle. Shamane decides to offer up the empathy his family was never offered by humans, rather than let the actions of them ruin his own image of the world around him.

It's not really a story about forgiveness, but about how to heal and become a better person after you've faced a terrible action done toward you.

Anyways if I don't get him im gonna be so sad </3

[scionshtola]

I. Where is your Warrior of Light from? What was their home like growing up and what set them out on their journey? (source)

Corisande grew up in a secluded village in the Golmore Jungle, where their mother fled with them after Garlean forces invaded Valnain. The village did not typically allow outsiders in but made an exception for them after a Wood-warder vouched for them--he'd been good friends with their father, who'd been killed by Imperials before he could flee.

They lived in a small house on the outskirts of the village, and were largely treated as strange outsiders by most (but not all!). Despite the unkind treatment Corisande received, they enjoyed growing up in a forest, surrounded by nature. Though it was a rather lonely childhood, she occupied herself with roaming the forest, gathering herbs and flowers, and teaching herself as much as she could about arcanum and summoning as well as the world outside her village, which she desperately longed to see. She was often found in the company of the pink chocobo she had rescued and the Carbuncle she'd taught herself to summon.

Despite how Corisande longed to see the world, they were reluctant to leave their mother behind knowing they would not be allowed to come back. But their mother knew Corisande could not be truly happy if they were not allowed to travel, and she asked them to leave, to see the world and pursue their studies. It took quite a bit of convincing, but eventually they left their village behind and set off for the Arcanist's Guild.

[five-rivers]

Waking the Woods

AO3

Sequel to Rumors of the Woods of the Kingdom of Amity.

For @summerssixecho and @modordracena

Danny was sorting through the pantry, hoping to get all the misplaced poisons put back in the red cabinet before his parents came home the day after next.  More inedible substances would inevitably be stored in the pantry once they came back, but Danny would do just about anything to avoid eating another bezoar for just a little bit longer.  

Also, getting poisoned sucked, but that went without saying.  

His sister, Jazz, was gone, too, but that wasn’t unusual.  She’d gotten an invitation to study at the College of Elmerton, and of course she had to go, even if it was in another country.  

Which meant that he was the only one home when he heard the knock.  It also meant that he was so startled by it that he propelled his head into the underside of one of the pantry shelves at speed.

No one knocked on their door.  Ever.  Even the paying customers were more of the ‘let ourselves in’ type.  

Danny staggered out of the pantry, head spinning slightly.  Ow.  

The knock came again, this time taking on a decidedly frantic character.  Danny shook himself, and patted his head down.  No blood.  Great!  He walked to the door, half convinced that he’d find someone who was both out of town and very lost, but determined to be polite.  Show people it was possible for a Fenton to have manners!  Not their fault he smacked his head into the shelf.  

He slid open the door and immediately got punched in the face.  

“Oh, gods, I’m so sorry– Where did the door go?”

“It slides,” explained Danny, clutching his face.  “Sideways.  Ow.”

“I’m really sorry, I was just knocking.  I didn’t realize–”

“I know, I know.”  Probably, the whole ‘nobody knocks’ thing was the only thing keeping this from happening much more often.  He peeled his hands away from his face and took in his visitor as well as he could, given his temporarily blurry vision.  

Dark skin, yellow cloak, vividly red hat that had to be violating at least a dozen sumptuary laws…  There was only one person Danny had ever met that dressed like that.

“Tucker?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Tucker, sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.  “Surprise?”

“In more ways than one.”  Danny touched his face tenderly.  “Ow.”

“I am sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Danny, deciding not to mention that he’d done much worse to himself not five minutes ago.  “Come on in.  What are you doing here, anyway?  I haven’t seen you since, uh…”  When had it been, anyway?

“Since I got apprenticed, I know.”

“Yeah!”  Tucker hadn’t been happy about it, but as his parents had said, felting was good, steady work.  People always needed cloth.  “Don’t tell me you’ve already finished your apprenticeship.”

“Uh, no.  It is sort of about that, though.”

Danny paused, halfway to the living room.  “You’re not running away, are you?”  Tucker had never seen the type, but it had been years.  

“No,” said Tucker.  “But, uh.  It’s sort of complicated.  It’ll take a little bit to explain.”

“Alright,” said Danny, continuing into the room until he could perch on the edge of his mother’s rocker.  “Go ahead.”

“Right.  So.  Every ten years or so, the weavers’ and felters’ guilds get together to negotiate with the shepherds about prices.  Tanner’s guild, too, sometimes, but not this year.  This year, my master got chosen to go.  Which meant I was at loose ends."

"So you came to visit me?" asked Danny, touched. 

"Um.  No.  Maybe I would've, but at the same time, the pages at the castle all came down with carbuncle pox–"

"Oh, yeah, I heard about that."

"So, the pagemaster asked the guilds to send apprentices to fill in for them."

"And you were sent because you were at loose ends."

"Right."

They stared silently at each other.  Just when Danny was about to prompt Tucker to continue, because that had explained nothing, the other boy exploded.  

"I was sent to give a message to the princess and she had a book out about Rangers, like the one your mom always had, and I asked her why she was looking up Rangers and she said it was for a personal project and she asked me why I could read - because apparently royalty think guild apprentices can’t read, go figure, she sounded impressed, though - and I told her that I’d always wanted to join the monastery, but money, and then, you know, she was surprised I could read, I wanted to say something impressive, not be written off, and I said I knew a Ranger family, and then she said that if I could get a Ranger to help with her project, she’d pay off my apprenticeship and recommend me to the head monk, and I said I could definitely, one hundred percent do that and you’d be happy to help.  So, uh.  Yeah.  Yeah, then I came here.  What’ve you been up to?”

Danny's jaw had dropped at some point during Tucker’s ‘explanation,’ but he gathered himself.  "The attic, I guess.  Tucker…  I'm not a Ranger."

"But your parents were."

"Not… not really."  Jazz, at least, had thought they were doing the whole Ranger thing to embarrass her.  The Fentons were alchemists by trade, if not temperament.  Rangers didn't really exist any more.

"Grandparents?"

Danny shrugged.

"Come on, Danny, you're literally my only hope."

"Why do you even want to join a monastery anyway?"

"Because that's where all the books are."

Danny rubbed his head, winced, and thought about it some more.  "This project isn't some creepy rich person thing, is it?"

"What?  No.  The princess is our age!"

"So?  I'm self‐aware enough to realize that I can be creepy about…" he trailed off, blushing furiously.  "Things."

"She's a girl!"

Danny blinked.  “So?”

Tucker stared at him.  He stared at Tucker.  

“She legitimately needs a Ranger.”

“What for?  It isn’t like there’s any magic in the woods anymore.  They’ve been mapped.”

“Apparently not,” said Tucker.  “Look, I know you haven’t seen me in a long time, and we’re not close friends anymore, but you have to at least be curious.  And you’d get to meet the princess.”

Danny sighed.  “Alright, alright.  I am curious.”  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked all those questions.  “Where am I supposed to go and when am I supposed to be there?”

“The princess wants us to meet her at the castle at noon.”

“Tucker,” said Danny.  

“Yes?”

“You want me to go to the castle.  At noon.  Today.  Looking like I just got beaten up.  And convince the princess, who has apparently done a lot of research, that I’m, what, an apprentice Ranger?  Is that even a thing?”

“An experienced Ranger.  I, uh, might have played you up a bit.”

“Tucker,” said Danny.  “You were wrong.”

Tucker hunched his shoulders.  “About?”

“Us not being close friends anymore.  You see, if we weren’t, I would be kicking you out right about now.”

“Noted.”

.

Danny did not run around like his hair was on fire for the next hour, although at one point he came perilously close to actually setting his hair on fire.  

An hour was not long enough to prepare for this.  For that matter, days wouldn’t be long enough to prepare for this.  He was an apprentice alchemist, barely, not a monster-hunter, not a warrior of any stripe, not a mage, not even a historian.  

But on the off chance that there was magic… or a creature or some sort…

He packed his travel kit with a few randomly chosen vials of caustics and poisons, making sure they were carefully separated from the vials and flasks carrying more benign brews.  Glues, solvents, and cleaners went in another compartment, salves and topicals in yet another, and things you were actually supposed to eat or drink in a fourth.  

He felt woefully underprepared.  

Tucker was really lucky he didn’t have any other friends, darn it.  

His eyes strayed back to the lockbox in the back of the storeroom.  He shouldn’t…  But odds were, the princess was delusional or just getting scammed.  He could put everything back before his parents got home.  And if the princess had found something magical, wouldn’t it be better to have something that could affect it?  Even if it was old and super questionable?

With a skill born from his parents always losing their keys, Danny picked the lock on the lockbox.  Within were two vials.  One was pale green, with a dark, glittery red mixture inside.  The other was coated with crackling, peeling red and contained a liquid that glowed green through the cracks.  The reason for these color choices was, Danny assumed, because one of his ancestors was a sadist of some variety.  

He checked the labels to make sure they were what he remembered.  Tincture of Sanguiflora magicidium in the green vial and mana pondalorum physick in the red vial.  He triple checked his memory of their effects against the booklet in the lockbox.  Only then did he put them in their own, separate, compartments.  

He was ready to go, and absolutely sure he was going to regret this in at least some way.  

Welp!  At least it’d be interesting.  

.

Danny had never actually been to the castle before.  His parents were… Well, even if they were the absolute best alchemists in the kingdom (a disputed title) they weren’t exactly welcome around anyone who might not want their clothes ruined.  Or their houses.  Or their health.  Even beyond the Ranger thing, they were pretty eccentric.  

The castle was impressive, he supposed.  But it was just a large building.  He wouldn’t want to be a guy attacking it, he was sure.  But looking at it from the outside got old, fast.

“So,” he said to Tucker, “noon, huh?”

“You know that’s just an estimate.  Not everyone has clocks.”

“I am absolutely convinced that the royal family has at least one clock.”

“Yeah, but do they know that you have a clock?  That’s the question.  And is your clock even right?”

Danny shrugged.  

One of the guards whistled at them, and for the first time, Danny saw his face.  

“Huh,” he said, “is that Dash?”

“Might be,” said Tucker.  

“You!  Boy!” snapped Dash, who was only a little older than they were.  “Are you Tucker Foley?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“And the-” Dash sneered, “-Ranger?”

“It’s not my day job.”  Or any kind of job.  Actually, was he getting paid for this?  As much as he’d like to live off air and pleasant thoughts, he did have other needs.  At this point, though, it seemed too late to ask.  

“You’re expected.  Follow me.”

Wow.  Danny didn’t know that Dash knew any words as long as ‘expected.’  Shocking.  Maybe being around all these high-class people was starting to rub off on him.  

Not far inside the gates was a…  Alright, Danny didn’t know what was going on, but it had the energy of people preparing to go somewhere, so.  Yeah.

“Your majesty, I’ve brought the felter boy and his… friend.”

“I’m sure they have names,” said a girl who was wearing a surprisingly practical riding dress, “and I know you know at least Tucker’s.”  She turned slightly towards Danny.  “And you are?”

“This is, uh, Danny, Princess Samantha,” said Tucker, bobbing bow and elbowing Danny in the side until he got a clue and did the same.  

“I’ve told you, you can call me Sam.”

“R-right.  Sam.”

Everyone in the vicinity except the princess shot them a glare so venomous Danny was tempted to get out a bezoar (ick).  The princess didn’t notice.  She was too busy examining Danny.  He straightened under her sweeping gaze.

“You don’t look like a Ranger.”

“My parents have more experience.”  Or so they claimed, anyway.  “There’s not a lot of call for Rangers these days.”

“Well, you’re the first one to come to me with even a lick of authenticity, so I suppose you’ll do,” she said, finally.   “The Fenton line, correct?  Branch of House Nightingale?”

“Um,” said Danny.  “I suppose?”  He’d heard some things like that, but if he had any Nightingale ancestors, they were buried beneath far more common people.  

“I think you might actually be the last survivors of that house.  Do either of you ride?”

Danny and Tucker shook their heads.  

“More’s the pity, although we won’t be moving at much more than a walk with all the people who insist on coming with us despite their lack of interest in our nation’s heritage.”  She sniffed.  “You will be coming of course, Tucker?”

“‘Course he will,” said Danny, looping an arm around his shoulder.  “We used to be a team when we were kids.”

“Oh?  Goodness, that almost makes me reluctant to send you off to a monastery.  There are so few people with any Ranger training left.”

She turned away, back to her preparations, and Tucker threw Danny’s arm off and glared at him.  Danny grinned lazily back.  Served him right.  Danny could spread the misery around a little bit.  

.

It was true that the princess’s retinue did not move at a rate faster than a walk.  This was, however, at least partially because the princess kept stopping to give alms on her way out of the city.  It seemed the city’s population of beggars had learned her preferred routes.  

“Hey,” said Danny, “this was a one day sort of thing, right?  It’s okay that I didn’t pack stuff for overnight?”

“No, it should be fine, I think,” said Tucker.  “But there’s like a hundred people here.  Someone will have spare stuff.  Besides, if it goes much longer than that, we can just leave.”

Danny nodded.  “That’s true.”

.

When they finally reached the forest, they walked for another hour and a half, this time stopping so that the princess and her ladies could coo at the half-feral forest cats that sometimes watched their progress.

Alright, Danny cooed at them, too, and since he and Tucker were on foot, they had a much better chance of petting them, something he felt just a little smug about.

The first hour of that was on a well maintained road, the last was on a path that looked to be newly cut through tangled underbrush and fallen trees.  Much to the displeasure of the princess’s guards, she decided to dismount and walk next to Danny and Tucker for this part of the journey.  She called it ‘bracing.’

“We only found this because of the late storm during the drought last year,” she said.  “Father sent the fire watch to make sure there hadn’t been any bad lightning strikes close to the city, and one of them found it.  I spent months convincing Father to let me investigate.  I’m hoping that soon it will be something I can share with everyone.”

Danny cleared his throat.  “With this all being so last minute, Tucker didn’t actually get a chance to tell me what ‘it’ was.  Um, Princess Samantha.”  He had no idea how often you were supposed to address royalty by title.  It didn’t come up all that often in his life.  

Samantha’s smile faltered, slightly.  “It’s Sam.  And we’re not sure, actually.  That’s one of the reasons we wanted a Ranger.  I thought that you might recognize it from your training.”

“I don’t know how likely that is,” cautioned Danny.  

Samantha shrugged.  “It is only one of the reasons.  But you don’t have to be pessimistic.  I’m well aware that this endeavor might come to nothing.  It is one thing to hope to reclaim a country’s magical heritage.  It is another thing entirely to actually do it.”

“So… you don’t believe magic is getting used up?”

“I’m not sure.  I think it might have been…  But I have hope that magic is something that can be restored, renewed, and used more wisely.  Other places seem to have managed that, at least a little.  It would be a shame to give up on it entirely, wouldn’t it?  It was a wondrous thing.”

“Sure,” said Danny, “but there were also the monsters.  That’s what the Rangers were for, a lot of the time.”

“Even so.”  She fell silent for a while.  “Have you ever heard of the trap-rabbit?”

“No.  Tuck?”

Tucker shook his head.  

“They used to be quite common here, is my understanding.  The walls of my nursery are painted with them.  They don’t exist anymore.  It’s a sad thing, I think, for that to happen.  I would not wish it to happen even to monsters.”

Tucker made a face.  The princess saw it.  

“I have read the stories,” she said.  “In them, we strike first as often as they.”

“But those are stories,” protested Tucker.  

The princess shrugged.  “As is any history you did not witness personally.  But even we can’t return things to what they were, don’t you think learning what was is still a worthy goal?”

“It sounds like one, anyway,” said Danny.  “I’ve never really thought about it.”

They emerged into a clearing around a large pond.  On the other side of the pond was a huge tree with great, drooping branches.  The branches swayed in the wind, momentarily revealing something made of stone.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” asked the princess, stepping onto a path that led around the side of the pond.  It was made of uneven pavers and looked ancient.  

“Yeah,” said Danny.  “I didn’t know trees like that got that tall.”

“Neither did I,” muttered Tucker.  “What’s under there, though.”

“You’ll have to see,” said Samantha- Sam, skipping down the path.  

Danny started after her, and immediately tripped.  He just barely caught himself before face planting and possibly having a very expensive and dangerous accident with his travel kit.

He maybe wasn’t as recovered from his head injuries as he’d thought.  And, yes, he was counting Tucker’s accidental punch.  

It was fine.  

The stone beneath the tree was part of a structure, obviously made by intelligent hands and at least as old as the paved path.  There didn’t seem to be any way into the small building, just some words carved into the side.

“Do you recognize it?”

Danny shook his head.  “But there’s always been lots of different kinds of ruins.”  He walked around the structure, going slowly.  “Reminds me a little of shrines in old temples.  Those are open-sided, though.”

“I know,” said Sam.  “The tree doesn’t mean anything to you, either?”

“Should it?”

Sam shrugged.  Away from the shadow of the tree, her retinue was setting up camp.  They seemed more than happy to let the three of them investigate the maybe-shrine on their own.  Well.  Mostly.  A couple very formidable looking ladies were watching them like hawks, and a bald man had taken out a stool and a thick, dusty book to read in the shade.  

“I don’t think so…  It’s kind of similar to that one story, though, isn’t it?  The one about the tree of life and a sacred pool.”

“It is.  The water seems to be just water, though, and the fruit is just fruit.”  

“Might be where the story came from, though.”

“Maybe,” agreed Sam.  “What do you think of the writing?”

Gods, that was not his area of expertise.  Still, he stepped closer.  “Hm,” he said.  “It’s very writing-like.”

Sam looked at him, concern on her face.  “You can read, yes?”

“What?  Yeah.  Just give me a second.  This isn’t regular writing.”

“I’m aware.”

“You’ve gotten someone else to translate this already, right?”

“My tutor, William Lancer."  She gestured at the bald man, who briefly glanced up from his book.  "It’s good to have a second opinion.”

Danny nodded and called up his admittedly meager knowledge of this sort of thing.  He knew some, because a lot of alchemical texts were written in the old language, but he wasn’t exactly spending his days practicing it.  

“Um,” he said, intelligently.  He was starting to see what Tucker meant about wanting to impress her.  “The first binding, valued more than coin, valued more than land, but spent on it nonetheless, by those who do not own it.  When it is gone, dust is left.  Heart of the land, spend yours before your people.  We shall… wake?”  Danny paused.  “Is that ‘wake?’”

“‘Open,’” said Sam.  “We think answering the riddle might open up the… shrine, for lack of a better word.”

“Mm,” said Danny, who had usually seen it in the context of sleeping medicines.  “Is it the same on all sides?” 

“As far as we can tell.”

“Dust is, um.  Huh.”  He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing when he jostled his head.  “I think this dust might be the same dust as grave dust.  Does that help?”

“This isn’t one of those animal sacrifice things, is it?” asked Tucker.  “Or, uh, human sacrifice?”

“We thought of that,” said Sam.  

Tucker moved away from her.  

“But, ah.  Blood magic tends to be… unpleasant.  We thought we’d avoid that.”

“Might still be blood magic,” said Danny.  “I mean, blood fits, doesn’t it?  Blood relations are the first tie you have, it’s more valuable than money or land, but people still fight wars for those things, they just try to spill other people’s blood.  When it’s gone, you’re left with grave dust.”

“I would prefer not to get sacrificed,” said Tucker.  “If it’s all the same to you, your highness.”

“Tucker, if I was that desperate to get in, I’d just hire people to pull it down, or get a battering ram.  I’m not going to sacrifice anyone.  But… heart of the land?  We thought perhaps wood doves, because of the crest…”

Danny shrugged.  “At that point, it might as well be talking about your blood.”

“Mine?” asked Sam, scandalized but intrigued.

“Sure.  You’re popular, right?  Or at least, you’re royalty.  That’s sort of like being the heart of a country.”

“Couldn't it just be talking about the word, too?" asked Tucker, looking faintly ill.  "Couldn't it be that you just have to say the word blood?"

"I don't know, we've said blood a lot just now."

"But not in the old language," pointed out Sam.  

"Sure," said Danny.  "Sang."

Nothing happened.  He shrugged.  

"Maybe you need to say it," Tucker said to Sam.  

"Sang." 

Still nothing.

"Bleeding it is, then."  Sam pulled an unreasonably large knife from the vicinity of her corset. 

Tucker jumped away, and even Danny took two hurried steps back, ready to throw himself behind the corner of the building.  The ‘supervising’ adults were unalarmed.  

But the princess just pressed the blade to her thumb and held it out to the structure.  

Nothing happened.  

“Maybe you need to bleed on it?” suggested Danny.  

“You don’t want to get an infection, your highness,” said William Lancer, not looking up from his book.

“I know,” said Sam.  She pressed her thumb against the wall, just under the carved riddle.  

For a long moment… nothing happened.  

But then the walls shuddered and began to drop into the ground, leaving only the pillars at the corners to support the roof.  

“Yes!”  Sam pumped her fist and ran in as soon as the walls got low enough.  

This, finally, stirred the watchers to action. 

Danny and Tucker exchanged a glance.  It'd be bad if the princess were cursed, wouldn't it?

Danny hopped over the wall next.  The interior was… Not much of one.  He didn't know what he expected of a ten foot by ten foot building with no walls.  

"Look," said Sam, pointing up.  

"Oh, wow," said Danny, all awareness of what the princess’s minders were doing falling away from him.  The pillars might not be much to look at, but the ceiling…  Danny had just enough experience at art to understand what had gone into carving and painting it.  It was the night sky, as viewed from below trees.  Each leaf and needle was picked out in exquisite detail, perspective perfect.  And the stars… as an alchemist, even an apprentice one, Danny had to know when the stars were right.  These stars were accurate.  They were even accurate to this time of year.  Even the moon was right, its face a careful reproduction of what was really there.

“The floor, too!” said Sam, bringing Danny’s attention to the stone tiles and the small flowers and leaves painted on them as well as… were those map lines?  Danny wasn’t sure.  “This is marvelous.  Do you suppose the pillars are meant to resemble tree trunks?  I didn’t see it before, but now-!  Even if this was it, it’s worth it!”

“It is pretty,” said Tucker, finally following them in.  “Wonder what it was for.”

“It hardly even matters.  That is, it matters, of course, but look at it!”

They looked.  

And while they were looking, the walls shot back up, leaving them in pitch blackness.  

“Ah,” said Danny.  “Somehow, I feel like we should have expected this.”

“Bleed on the walls again!” suggested Tucker in a not at all panicked voice.

There was some shuffling as everyone ran into one another.  

“It’s not working,” said Sam.  

“Well,” said Danny, “at least there’s still the battering ram option?”

“That only works if there’s nothing inside the thing you care about breaking.  Do you– No, I suppose you wouldn’t.  What was the point of this, anyway?  To trap princes and princesses?”

Danny shrugged, even though no one could see him.  

“I don’t suppose any of you have flint or matches?” asked Sam.  “Candles?”

“Some,” admitted Danny.  “But you don’t really want to light a fire in a closed space like this.  Oh!  Wait!  I do have something.”  He opened the top of his travel kit.  The glowing mana pondalorum physick was immediately visible.  The red coating of the vial blocked most of the green light, but in the otherwise absolute darkness, it seemed to burn.  

“What is that?”

“Mana,” said Danny.  “Or water with mana in it.  Some of the old books aren’t super clear.  My parents saved it from way back.”

“Did they save anything else?” asked Sam, her eyes wide.  She reached for it.  

Danny pulled it back, towards his chest.  He had not anticipated curious royalty as a threat to his ‘not getting in trouble with my parents’ plan, but in retrospect he could see that was as obvious a risk as getting stuck in a weird possibly magical ruin.  

“Yeah,” he said, “there’s also the magicidium mix.  It’s, um, emergency magic antidote.  Magic killer.  So, if one of us gets cursed, you want to grab the green vial with the red stuff in it.”

“And, what, drink it?” asked Tucker.  

“Or dump it on them.  Drinking it is better, but, you know, curses…”

“Right,” said Tucker, nodding, “I absolutely know curses.”

Danny had doubts.  But he also had better things to do, like examining the inside of the walls.  He raised the vial, glancing up as the green light was reflected off the painted stars.  For a moment, he thought he might have caught a glimpse of something else, then the moment was gone.  

“Hey, why don’t we just dump the magic killing stuff on the walls or something?” asked Tucker.  

“Because it’s probably magic that makes them move,” said Sam.  “Not magic that keeps them in place.”

The walls had writing on them.  He turned to the nearest one, and brought the vial closer.  “That’s different from the outside, I think?”

“What does it say?” asked Sam.  

“Give me a minute,” said Danny.  “It’s really hard to see.”  He squinted at the writing.  “This is a lot longer,” he said with some dismay.

“You can read it, though, can’t you?”

“Just… don’t rush me.”  Danny chewed his lip, then read slowly.  “Beat true, oh heart, with wisdom and wit, for without these passion lies silent.  Um…  Those who would be woken, must be named.  Those who would be named, must be woken…  No.  Those who are named will be woken.  Speak, therefore, the names of…”

“What names?  Ours?  Mine?”

“Give me a second.  The names of… Okay, I’m not sure if this is just a poetic way to say sleep or not.  The names of those beneath the stars, for you must know them whether it is day or night.  Say them, wake them, walk into the light.”

“You think beneath the stars means sleep?  Those are completely different!”

“And beating around the bush is completely different from avoiding a topic,” said Sam.  “But they mean the same thing.”

“Yeah,” said Danny.  “The stuff I learned from is big on metaphor, but it was, you know, formal.”

“We’re going to die,” said Tucker.  

“We’re not going to die.  Let’s start with our names.  I’m Sam.”

“Danny.”

“Tucker.”  Tucker looked around, nervous.  “Do you think it wants our full names?”

“Yeah…” said Danny, also apprehensive.  “Magic usually does.” Not that he really knew, but that was the way it was in stories.  So.  “Daniel Vladimir Fenton.”

“Oh, gods, that’s your middle name?”

“Shut up.  I know yours is Meredith.”

Sam rolled her eyes with her entire body.  “Princess Samantha Annamarie Laurel Caspera Manson of Amity, Duchess of Beau.  Your turn.”

“Tucker,” he sighed, “Meredith Foley.”

“Alright,” said Danny, “maybe it means something else when it says all.”  

“Like what?  We’re the only ones here.”

Sam had started picking at her lip.  “We are,” she agreed.  “But…  The floor, it was a map, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Danny.  “I really hope you’re good at geography.  I’m not.”

“You’re a Ranger.”

“That has nothing to do with geography.”

Sam turned, surveying the room.  “What if it’s not the map, but the trees?”

“The… sculptures?”

“They’re under the stars, too aren’t they?”

.

The next half an hour or so was spent desperately trying to name… everything.  Danny and Tucker just recited every tree name and plant name they could remember - and some animal names just in case - while Sam was a bit more methodical.  Danny and Tucker’s frenzy was only occasionally interrupted by Sam saying something like Elmerton, Casper, Axion, Floode or Eerie.  

As a result, they had no idea who it was that finally triggered the walls to slide down again.  Danny, for one, didn’t really care.  He threw himself out as soon as he was able, and the others seemed to have the same opinion.  

He knelt on the grass and tilted his head up to catch the sparse sunlight filtering through the branches above him.  In doing so, he saw that everyone who had been there before was gone.  

“We weren’t gone long enough for everyone to have left, right?” asked Danny.  

“No,” said Sam, “not at all.”  She climbed to her feet and walked past him, examining the ground.  “It’s like they were never here at all…”

Tucker gasped and pointed up.  “Look at the tree!”

Fruit hung from its branches, heavy, round, and red.  

“What is that?” asked Danny.  

“You don’t know?”

“No.  I’ve never seen a tree like that.”

The walls of the small building grated as they started rising again.  Danny, Sam, and Tucker turned back to it, slowly.  Dread bubbled up in Danny’s stomach, creeping along his spine.

“Maybe we should just go back to the city,” said Danny.  

Sam shook her head.  “There’s no guarantee the city will even be there.”

“There’s no guarantee it won’t be.”

“And there’s no guarantee that stupid thing won’t disappear one of us if we look at it funny,” argued Tucker.  “Let’s cut our losses.”

“There must be a reason for this,” insisted Sam, crossing her arms.  “They wouldn’t just make all this happen for no reason.”

Danny eyed her suspiciously.  “There’s something else, isn’t there?  Something you know about this.”

Sam tapped her foot.  “Maybe,” she allowed.  “Nothing solid, mind you, but one Ranger journal I found suggested that this place was used by the old kings to petition the woods, and that they needed both royalty and Ranger to do it.  That’s… one of the reasons I wanted someone like you to come.”

“Petition it for what?”

“I don’t know.  It didn’t say.  It was one sentence in thousands.  It could have been anything.  Good harvests, few wolves, killing the Pariah King, whatever.  It might not have even been talking about here at all.  I just thought…  If there was anything left…”

“Clearly,” said Tucker, “there was something left.”

“Right,” said Sam.  “But it didn’t say anything about making people disappear.”

“It didn’t say anything about anything, is what it sounds like,” said Tucker.  

“Yes, but…”  She trailed off.  “Don’t you think it’s more likely that we were moved?  Considering.”  She gestured at the peaceful and undisturbed clearing.  “Even the path we came in on is gone.”

Danny hadn’t noticed that, but it was true.  The border of the clearing was entirely overgrown, with no sign that people had broken through the shrubs and small trees there.

“I think,” she said, “that to get back, we have to keep going.”  She looked between the two of them, then at the building, squaring her shoulders.  “I am sorry I brought you into this, but it’s done.  Let’s at least work together to get out of it.”

There wasn’t much choice, was there?  “Alright,” said Danny.  “Let’s go.”

The words on the walls were, predictably, different than they had been before.  Danny was getting used to this already, somehow.  “This is the wisdom of the land, that when the land drinks, the people shall drink, and when the people drink, so shall the land drink, and that when the land is fed, so shall the people be fed, and when the people are fed, so shall the land be fed.  For water to be received, it must be given.  Should salt be given, then salt shall be received.  The land that is fed on blood shall also bleed.  The seed that is planted will grow.  That which wakes will be woken.  The…”  Danny paused. 

“And you were doing so well, too.”

“Listen.”

“Sorry, it’s only… at least the last one had a clear instruction.  This sounds like some kind of philosophical statement.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those.”

“I’m not done yet,” said Danny, plaintively.  “I haven’t seen this word before.  I think it’s a person?  And they’re getting whatever they’re doing done to them?  It goes on like that for a while longer.”  He ran his finger down the line.  And then it says, because the people and the land are one, only about a dozen times.”

“Why would it say it a dozen times?” asked Tucker.  

“It uses a different word for land each time.”

Sam frowned at him.  He wasn’t looking at her, but he could feel it.  “What?”

“Like, mostly it uses the word for land that has trees on it, but–”

“You mean a forest?  Or wood?”

“No, there’s a different word for a forest.  Actually, there’s specifically a word for land that has a forest on it, as opposed to just trees.”  Which Danny only knew because a lot of alchemical potions had dirt as an ingredient.  Incredibly specific dirt.  “And there’s a different word for soil.  Or for unoccupied land.  It’s… the old language is weird.”  There was a reason it wasn’t spoken anymore.  

“And that’s it?”

“No, there’s one more line.  Show your intentions: to eat, and to be eaten.  No, wait, that doesn’t make sense.  That must be feed.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” said Tucker.  

“At least it’s an instruction.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to eat the fruit.  I might do that anyway, actually,” said Danny.  “What?  I’m hungry.  I didn’t eat anything at midday.”

“But what if you eat it, and then it eats you?”

“At least I won’t be hungry?”

“I think the bigger problem here is what if it’s poisonous,” said Sam.  

“Is that really the bigger problem?  Really?”  He gestured around himself.  “I’m going to eat one of those fruits and, uh.  Water the tree.”

“You can say you’re going to pee on it,” said Sam.  “I have bodily functions, too.”

“Whatever.  If that doesn’t work, we can try something else.”

Sam squinted at him.  He got the impression it wasn’t an expression she wore often, but it suited her face very well.  “You know, I expected a Ranger to know more about all of this.”

Tucker made flailing motions behind her.  

“That’s–  In the spirit of honesty, no one in my family has done real Ranger-ing since my grandfather disappeared when my mom was a little girl.”

“The woods do disappear people, oh my gods–”

“My parents just like camping and pretending there are still monsters, and Tucker said you needed someone, so…”

Sam’s whole face twitched.  “I see.  I suppose we can’t say we aren’t similar, then, with respect to false pretenses.  But… let’s not do that anymore.  For the sake of not dying.”  She paused.  “Is the red–”

“It’s really anti-magic.”

Sam’s shoulders slumped.  “At least there’s that.  If the fruit starts turning you into, I don’t know…”

“A wolf,” suggested Tucker.  

“Why not?  A wolf, I’ll make sure to pour it down your throat.”

Danny rolled his eyes.  “And if it’s poisonous, I’ll eat a bezoar.”  

“What’s that?” asked Sam.  

“Thing that helps with poison.  It’s gross, you don’t want to know where they come from.”

“I thought we were being honest–”

“It’s a stone formed in a someone’s stomach or gut,” said Danny.  “Like a gallstone.”

Sam looked fascinated, if disgusted.  “Does… does that actually work?”

“I’m… not actually sure.  But it can’t hurt.”

“I don’t know, it kind of sounds like it could be poisonous on it’s own.”

That was what Danny said to his parents, but did they listen?  No.  

He shrugged at Sam walked away from the building and towards the shore of the pond, where the branches trailed in the water and the fruit was easier to reach.  He pulled one off and rolled it in his hand.  It felt like a plum, even if the size and color was off.  

“Danny, are you sure,” started Tucker.  

"Am I sure what?" asked Danny, opening his kit.

"What are you doing?"

Danny looked down at the beaker in his hand, then back up at Tucker.  "Testing for common poisons?"

"Oh.  I thought you were just going to eat it."

"No, that's weird."  He set up his materials and poked a hole in the fruit with his knife to get some juice.  He let it drip into the containers, then stood up to throw the punctured fruit into the pond.

"Maybe we shouldn't throw things into the potentially magic pond," suggested Sam in a way that wasn't very suggestion-like.  

Danny shrugged at her, wondering vaguely if shrugging at royalty was a punishable offense.  Something caught his eye.

“Hey, there’s a bucket here,” said Danny.  “Do you think we’re supposed to do something with the bucket?”  He walked over and picked it up.

"Maybe it's to actually water the tree," said Tucker.  

"That makes sense," said Danny.  He tossed the bucket at Tucker.  Tucker fumbled it.  

“Why me?”

“I’ve got to watch this,” said Danny, pointing at where the fruit was reacting or not reacting to the chemicals in the beakers.  “And, well…”

“Dear gods,” said Sam.  “You had better not be about to say that I’m somehow unable to fill and carry a bucket because I’m a girl.”

“No.  I just thought you wouldn’t want to.”  And she could probably make life very hard for them if they annoyed her too much.  

Sam scoffed and took the bucket from Tucker.  “I’ve got it.”  

“Alright,” said Tucker.  “She’s got it.”

.

The tests for poison came back negative, so…

Danny bit into a fruit he’d just picked and blinked.  “Oh, these are actually really good.”

“We’ll take your word for it.”

.

“Look,” said Tucker, “That thing’s not doing anything, so I’m going to see if I can find the main road.  I’d prefer it if you came with me, but…”

“Might as well,” said Danny.  

“Fine,” said Sam.  “But we’re going to take precautions to make sure we can get back here.”

“Like what?” asked Danny.  

Sam pulled out a clue of string from… somewhere.  

“Do you just carry that around?”

“Of course.  String is useful.”

.

It turned out it didn’t matter.  No matter how they left the clearing, they wound up back in it.  

.

"It's been a couple hours," said Danny as they laid on the ground under the tree.  "I probably would have died by now if there was actually poison in those fruits."

"Mhm," said Sam, contemplatively.

"Just a question, but, speaking of which, have either of you noticed the sun getting lower?"

"No," said Sam.

"Nope," said Tucker.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."  He looked up at the still-blue sky.  “You guys are going to have to eat or drink something eventually.”

“Yeah,” said Tucker.  “But I’ve been thinking, and… what if it takes us someplace worse?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny.  

“Staying isn’t an option.”

“It could be.  Maybe the fruit grows back, or there’s fish in the pond.”

“Have you seen any fish?” asked Danny.  

“No.  Why?”

“Sometimes people use fish as fertilizer.”

“We don’t have anything to catch fish with.”

“We’ve got string and the fruit.  Maybe we can find some worms, too?”

“Might as well,” said Sam.  

.

None of them were particularly skilled at fishing.  No fish were caught.  

.

Sam chewed on the fruit.  “You know,” she said, “if it weren’t for the mortal peril and all, I’d say this was pretty good.”

“It is tasty,” allowed Tucker, who was pausing to glare at the fruit between every bite.  

“No, I mean all this.”  Sam waved at nothing in particular.  “It’s nice.  Fun.”  

At least someone was having a good day.  He’d been trying to ignore the swollen lump on the back of his head and his black eye, but it hadn’t really been working.  

Under other circumstances, though… He could see hanging out with Sam and Tucker being fun.  The odds of that happening if Sam went on with princess-ing and Tucker became a monk were pretty low, though.

“I don’t think I’ve done anything without being watched by half a dozen people since I was eight.”

“Anything?” repeated Danny.

“Anything.”

Danny didn’t want to ask, but the question was there, in his head.

“Yes, in the bath, too.”  She sighed and held up the fruit pit.  “I suppose we should bury these?  Over there, maybe?”

“Can’t hurt,” said Danny.  “Anyone have a shovel?  And– Oh!”  He opened up his kit.  “We can use this!”  He held up a vial of white powder.

“What’s that?”

“Niter!”

“... Doesn’t that explode?” asked Tucker.

“Sometimes.”

“Why do we want to explode anything?” asked Sam.  

“We don’t.  It’s fertilizer.”

“But it’s white.”

“So?”

Tucker sighed heavily.  “Maybe we can use the bucket as a shovel?”

.

Sam patted down the last bucket-scrape of dirt with a gleeful expression.  They were all pretty grimy at this point, but it looked like she was enjoying it.  

The scraping sound wasn’t exactly music to Danny’s ears, but it was still something.  They ran to the building.  Three of the walls had dropped.  The one nearest to the pond had remained standing.  

Danny swallowed.  Something felt… Not wrong, exactly, but there was a strong sense of meaning.  

“Hey,” he said, before Sam and Tucker could step in, “wait.  Maybe only one of us should go in.  Just in case.”

“In case what?  We’re already in a bad way,” said Sam.  “We might as well face this together.”

Danny nodded.  “Yeah, but this feels…  Different.  If everything’s fine, you can come in, too.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny, “but you wanted a Ranger for a reason.”

“Yes, but we’ve established you aren’t one.”

“I’m enough of one for us to get here, right?  If I get stuck in there, you can always plant more pits and open it back up.”

“And who knows if we’ll be in the same place?” asked Sam.  

“Just… humor me on this,” said Danny.  “And remember, if I do get cursed, we have the magicidium.”

“There has to be an easier name for that,” muttered Tucker. 

“Sure.  Blood blossoms.  They’re called that because they’re red.”

Tucker spread his hands.  “Then why–”

“I like saying it.  It makes it sound cooler.”

Sam raised her hand, stopping them.  “You know you’re the only one who can read the old language, right?  You’d be the one going in to look at what’s written there.”

“I know.  I’m the one who suggested it.”

Sam groaned, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her wrists.  “I should have learned the old language instead of Elmerian.”

Danny shrugged.  “There’s always the future?”

Both of… oh, he might as well call them his friends, at this point… glared at him.  

“Fine,” said Sam, “but if you do get cursed, I’m going to say I told you so.”

With trepidation, Danny crossed into the building.  The floor and ceiling hadn’t changed, but the only upright wall was now packed with writing.  He craned his neck back to see what was on top.  The words almost seemed to glitter.

“This is a lot,” he said.  

“Can we come in now?” asked Sam.

“Not yet,” said Danny.  “Let me translate this first.  Children of the land, know this, we, your forefathers, and we of the land have built this path to see the… obscured?”  A shadow fell across Danny’s view of the carving, making the words seem to flash.  He stood on his tip-toes and leaned closer, squinting.  “To understand the world… beyond?  Within.  The world within the woods, and you have come because they have failed and you wish to repair.”  He put his hand on the stone as he leaned still closer, nose almost pressed against the stone in an effort to see just a little better.  It slid into a comfortable depression and he continued to read.  “Let the bright magic– mana– let mana alter–”

Light flared across his vision, then everything went dark.  He yelped.  

“Danny?!”

“I’m–  Hells and heavens–”   He rubbed his eyes.  “The sun didn’t suddenly disappear after that flash, did it?”

“No.”

“What flash?”

He’d been afraid of that.  “I’ve been cursed.”  His heart did a funny twist at the admission.  

If his parents were here, they’d be thrilled.  

Actually, probably not.  If they’d been cursed, they’d be thrilled.  They’d still be upset about him getting cursed.

“What?”

“I can’t see anything.  I must have triggered it somehow–”  He shook his head, as if that would throw off his blindness.  “The word obscured.  I thought it was just the lighting, but maybe it really flashed?  Um.”  He turned around, carefully.  “I think it was just the words that triggered it, but I’m going to walk in your direction…”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Tucker, “you’re going the right way.”

“Just stay straight,” encouraged Sam.  

The building was barely three strides across, but at the same time it was the longest walk he’d ever taken.  He was relieved when Sam and Tucker grabbed him.  

“Alright, so, if you guys can open my kit and get out the magicidium–”

“Blood blossoms.  Let’s call it blood blossoms.”

“Whatever you want,” said Danny.  

“They’re red, right?” asked Sam.

“Yeah, and sparkly.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Good,” said Danny, holding out his hand.  “Can you–  The cap?”

Sam pressed the vial into his hand, her fingers lingering around his as she made sure he had a grip on it.  

“I should just need, like, a sip,” he told himself.  He raised it to his lips, drank, and immediately knew that what he had in his hand wasn’t the blood blossom mixture.

With a calm he didn’t feel, he lowered the vial. 

“Can you see, now?” asked Sam.  

“No,” said Danny.  “I can’t.  What color is this?”  He held up the vial.

“Red,” said Sam.  

“The vial is red,” clarified Danny.

“Yes, that’s what you said, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Danny, closing his eyes.  “That’s- The blood blossoms are red.  But the vial they’re in is green.  This is the mana, isn’t it?”

“Uh,” said Tucker.  

“Kinda crackly glaze, glowing green on the inside?”

“Yeah,” said Tucker, weakly.  “It looked different in the dark.”

“Yeah,” said Danny, voice cracking.  “The dark does that.”

“I thought you said the red vial,” said Sam, very quietly.  “Oh, no, I thought you said the red vial.”  She sounded like she might be about to cry.

“Hey, it’s hard to tell the difference between red and green,” said Tucker, clearly intending to comfort her.    

“Genuinely, it is not.”

Someone, probably Tucker, swallowed audibly.  “You can still take the blood blossoms, though, right?”

“No!  No.  They don’t react well with concentrated mana.”

“By not reacting well, do you mean–”

“Niter isn’t the only thing in my kit that can make explosions.”  He swallowed and opened his eyes.  He still couldn’t see anything but this still felt more like facing things.  “This is fine.  I’m just blind, not dying.”  Probably.  “We’ll just be relying on more guesswork than before.  Or I can try to figure out what it’s saying by touch?”

“No,” said Sam, grabbing his wrist, “do you want to get more cursed?”

“Carefull,” he hissed.  “We don’t want to spill this here.  Where’s the stopper?”

“Here,” said Tucker, taking the vial of mana from him.  

“What else do you remember from what you were reading?  Before you were cursed?”

“I don’t know.  Something about letting magic change you to be…  Something.  And then something about guarding both sides on the next line down.  Or fighting.  Maybe something about waking up.  I don’t remember.”  

“Danny,” said Tucker, “your eyes are glowing.”

“They’re not, like, melting or anything, are they?”

“Just glowing.  The same color as the, uh, stuff.  The mana.”

“And your hair is turning white,” added Sam.  

“Oh, that’s great.  Maybe I am dying.”

“Don’t say that,” said Sam.  “Maybe- Maybe this is magic changing you, and we just have to let it run its course.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I, but it’s that or you explode, so forgive me for a little optimism!”  She’d never dropped his wrist, and now she trapped his hands between hers.  “I don’t want you to die.”

“Neither do I,” said Tucker.  “You’re my best friend.”

“We haven’t seen each other for years,” said Danny, trying not to sound choked.  “Come on.”

“Hey, some friendships are timeless, right?”

Sam sniffled.  “Even short ones.”

Gods, he really might be dying.  

“Does that mean I can tell people I’m friends with a princess?”

“Only if you want my mother trying to get you executed.”

“That’s not a n–”

The sound of the wall behind him dropping made Danny jump.  But what made him spin was that he could see light coming from behind him.  

Footprints made of flowers glowed on the ground.  A rectangle in the dimensions of the far wall was cut out of the darkness surrounding him.  Beyond it…

“Oh,” said Danny.  “Do you guys see that?”

“Do you?” asked Sam, suddenly sharp.  

“Maybe.”  He took a deep shuddering breath.  “Were there steps leading down to the pond before?  And was the pond glowing?”

“No,” said Tucker.  “But we don’t see that.”

“We see everyone,” said Sam.  “The way out.  The knights are there, someone must have sent for them.”  She laughed.  “We can get out.  They must not be able to see us, though.”

“I don’t think I can go that way,” said Danny.  “I don’t see it.”

He could only see the ancient and watchful trees that surrounded the clearing, the faintly luminous waters of the pond and the steps that led down to them.  Images of trees, not quite reflections, swayed on the pond’s glowing surface, seeming to extend into the depths.

“You should go,” he said, faintly.  “Now.  You don’t know if you’ll get another chance.”

If his heart had been twisting before, it was shuddering now.  

“No,” said Sam.  “No.  I started this.  None of this would have happened if I didn’t bring you here.  I’m not going to leave you.  We’ll go down to the pond with you.  Or at least I will.”  The last was said with an edge of challenge.

“Me, too,” said Tucker, though he seemed far less certain.  “I got you into this mess, Danny.”

“I don’t know that I’m going down to the pond,” said Danny, both touched and annoyed.  “And you don’t know if you can, if you can’t see it.”

“It’s where the path leads,” said Sam, stubbornly.  “Didn’t you read that that’s why this place was built.”

The footprints.  Danny closed his eyes briefly, and nodded.  “Walk where I walk,” he said, putting his foot squarely on the first print.  

He wasn’t sure if it was just the magic doing weird things to his vision, but as he got closer to the opening, the prints seemed to shift when he wasn’t looking straight at them, taking shapes other than a human sole.  He tried not to think about what that might mean.

He stepped out of the building.  Sam and Tucker walked out after him.  

“Wow,” said Sam, looking around.  “That’s… definitely different.”  She waved her hand in front of her.  “It’s like the air is glowing.”

A breeze stirred the waters of the pond to lap at the lowest step.  It felt like they were beckoning him down into that even stranger forest beneath its waters.

He pulled the strap of his travel kit off over his head.  “Here,” he said, handing it to Tucker.  “Just in case.”

“We’re going to be with you,” said Tucker, trying to push it back to him.  

“Yeah, but… Let me go first, alright?”

He stepped down and forward, once, twice, and his foot broke the surface of the water–

.

A forest is not a single thing.  It is a vast and sprawling ecosystem, containing within itself multitudes.  Creatures, plants, and even decay.  Life, limited and not.  Water, from beneath the earth, from the sky, from the rivers and streams, from the lakes and the ponds.  Air and soil and stone.  Death that becomes life and life that becomes death.  The trees stretch upwards.  

Yet, it is a single thing.  

Truthfully, sometimes it is even a single life.  A thousand trees with a single root.

And, here, there was magic.  

The woods woke, stirred from slumber by the ripples of a stone thrown into still water.  

A stone is changed by water.  A stone is changed, also, by the root of a tree piercing through it, dividing it, scattering it.  A stone may be shaped.  A stone may be changed.  But this stone was clay.  This stone was flesh.  This stone was a seed that might yet grow.  This seed was a star that might yet shine.  

They were awake.  

They were awake, and, so, they would wake.  

But the people were the land and the land was the woods, and the heart of the land had long ago promised a champion to the people, a guardian at both sides of the gate.  A contract that was wisdom.

The seed was well rooted, but the star was of the air, and there was accord between heaven and earth.  This satisfied.  But the price of knowledge was always the destruction of ignorance.  

This was the past:  The sword, the spear, the fire, for evil is the reward of evil, and sown salt shall reap no harvest but salt.  Monsters met with monstrous ends, even the monsters who called themselves men.  

“I don’t want to be a killer,” whispered Danny, “I don’t want to kill people.”

Then he would not be, and the gifts of killers would not be his.  

This, too, was the past: The wall.  The tower.  The rope.  The net.  The maze.  The binding word.  The sacrifice.  The promise.  

It shall be kept.  

“It shall be kept.”

And this was the past:  The house that was built under ax and saw, a home for a gardener.  The books that became forests of their own.  Long memories and longer stories, passed on forever.  The campfire and the meal shared.  The trees tended, and new growth rising from ashes. 

“I can do that,” said Danny.  “I can be that.”

The heart of the land sent forth a gift, with passion, wisdom, and wit, and it was received.  That which gives is also given, and that which is gifted may also receive.  There were gifts.  There were expectations.  A gift must be given in turn.

And the fruit of the trees shall sustain.  And the branches of the trees shall shelter.  And that which is protected shall protect.

And this was the future.

.

Danny crawled out of the pond, gasping.  Hands - familiar, now - pulled him up and out.  

“Oh, gods, Danny–”

“What?” he managed, spitting up water.  

“There’s stuff growing on you–”

“Your ears–”

“Princess Samantha!”

Something heavy and hard jostled into their little group, knocking Danny back to the ground.  He could feel it.  The ground.  All those little lives and deaths.  The things growing, hungry, wanting, needing– All the things he could give them–

“Stop this at once!” demanded Sam, bringing him out of… whatever that was.  He looked up and around, and was impressed by how many sharp, shiny, pointy things were pointed in his direction.

He tried to scramble to his feet, but was thwarted by his body deciding it just wasn’t going to do that.  His whole body felt like it had been taken apart and put back together with new parts.

… Which might actually be what happened.  The… presence in the woods within the pond had been…  It had been an experience.  One he wasn’t keen on repeating in the near future but nevertheless ached for.  

His head didn’t hurt anymore, at least.

“Back foul beast!” shouted one of the knights with a spear, his voice reverberating within his helmet.  “You will not lay your hand on the princess–”

“I was the one touching him!  He’s not a beast– Let me go!  Tucker, say something!”

“Please don’t kill us!  Danny’s just cursed!”

“What manner of curses have you wrought upon the princess!  Release her from your geas, monster!”

If Danny wasn’t so scared right now, he’d be laughing.  Who talked like that?

But he was scared.  He needed to get away.  He needed speed, swiftness, and the agility, or at least the size, to avoid all these spears and swords.  

Which was a ridiculous thought to cross his mind, because it wasn’t like he was going to pull any of those things from thin air.  

Except he did.  Change rippled over his body, throwing off white sparks like from fireworks.  Fingernails to claws, hands to paws, ears sharp, tail -  He ran, four-footed, between the feet of the nearest knight, body stretching and contracting in his flat-out sprint as if he knew what he was doing.  

He had no idea what he was doing.  

A spear impacted the ground in front of him, and he startled sideways into a horse’s path.  Everything was so much larger than him, now.  He lashed out, claws raking across the horse’s nose, and the horse reared back, dumping its rider.  

It occurred to Danny, then, in a sort of vague, panicked sense, that whatever he’d turned into, he could cause a lot of chaos.  

The next horse he saw, he went for the eyes.  

He neglected to realize that, as small as he was, chaos might affect him more than it usually did.  

Still, he made it to the brushy edge of the clearing in what he hoped was one piece.  He crawled underneath it, hopping through thin spots whenever he was able.  A tree rose up out of the shrubby mess like a godsent miracle, and he climbed up it, sinking his sharp claws into the bark, until he got to a branch that could support his weight.  His real weight, not whatever he weighed now.  

He huddled down, trying to remember what the change felt like, trying to will it to reverse, to make him himself again–

Slowly, his body returned to normal, fur fading back into skin, claws becoming nails once again.  His clothing, sans shoes, rematerialized from somewhere.  But… This wasn’t what his body had been like when he’d crawled out of the pond.  It had been different, then.  He could feel it.  He knew it.  

The tree he was perched in was not the presence below the pond, but that was a matter of degree, not kind.  The roots of the woods were tangled and reached as far down as the branches reached up.  To stone.  To star.  

It was quiet.  Steady.  Already established.  It didn’t need things from him, not like the ground.  Not right now, anyway.  

But still, it whispered to him, and he knew.  This was no more him than the forest cat's body he'd worn moments ago.

He curled in on himself and cried.

.

Tucker found him first, over a week later.

Although, it might have been better to say that Danny let himself be found.  Shapeshifting into a cat or squirrel helped with hiding, funnily enough.  

Shapeshifting was fun, even if it wasn't worth… everything else.  At least, so long as he was in the trees.  With his feet on the ground, listening to everything beneath them, without the lightning focus of fear, he couldn't direct it.  What he was fell apart into… this.  

Not the same as he'd been as Sam and Tucker dragged him from the pond, but more like it.  A shape closer to what he was wanted to be rather than what he wanted to be.  

But he'd seen Tucker coming, and he didn't want to talk to him while hiding in the trees.  That would be wrong, he felt.  

So, he walked into the middle of the road in front of Tucker, moss and grass curling up around toes that weren’t shaped right.  His fingers were long and sharp and so were his teeth.  He had no idea what his face looked like right now.  He hadn’t been brave enough to check… assuming, of course, that he could even tell by touch.  He could have stripes right now and not know it.  

He hoped he was, at least, recognizable.  

“Danny, gods.  We thought you were dead.”

Oh, good.  At least that fear was unfounded.  

“Hi, Tucker,” said Danny.  After not talking much for a week, his voice was scratchy.  

… Or maybe that was the crying.  Who knew?

“Oh my gods.”  Tucker drew his hands down his face.  “I can understand why you didn’t come back to the city with…”  He gestured at Danny’s entire body.

“That’s not why,” said Danny, before he could continue.  “I can’t leave the woods.”

“You what?  What do you mean, you can’t leave?”

“I just can’t.”  He’d tried to leave, at the beginning, but it didn’t work.  He could walk to the border of the woods, where they opened up into the fields immediately around the city.  He was quite comfortable there, even, standing under those branches, looking out.  But he couldn’t go any further.  

“Because of the curse?”

“I guess,” said Danny.  “There’s not really anything else, is there?  There’s not something that just makes people stop for no good reason.”  

“Can you– I brought the blood blossom stuff, can you take it?  Maybe–”

“No,” said Danny, firmly.

“But–” said Tucker, pulling the green vial out of his pocket.  

Danny wanted to cringe away from it.  “Just.  No.  Tucker…  I’m not sure how much…”  He wasn’t sure how much of him was left that wasn’t magic.  “Sometimes, when curses really take hold, it doesn’t–”  He sucked his lips in and regretted it as his long teeth scrapped at them.  “What do you think happens when that stuff is put on something that is magic?”  Danny tilted his head to the side and tried to smile again.  “It’s been over a week.”  

He watched Tucker’s face shift as he realized what that might mean, and his smile fell as well.  

"I've seen my parents come through a few times," he said, just to say something different.

"Did you talk to them?"

"No." He grimaced.  "Apparently, I'm a creature now.”  He ignored that he’d said as much to Tucker just moments ago.  “It didn't seem… smart."

"That must be…"  Tucker paused to search for an appropriate adjective.  "Hard."

"Yeah."  He'd been wondering if Jazz had come home.  If she was looking for him, too, or if she was still in Elmerton.  If she knew.  But he didn’t want to ask.  

"Sam will want to see you."  Tucker bit his lower lip.  "She kind of… asked if I would look.  I was going to anyway!  But… I can tell her I couldn't find you, if you don't." 

“No, I think I’d like that, actually.  She was right.  It was fun, before.”  He sniffled.  “Maybe we can even try to find what she was actually looking for.”

“Why would you do that?” asked Tucker, aghast.  “Messing around with all of this cursed you to have weird ears and be stuck in the woods for who knows how long.  Let’s just forget–  Well, I mean, avoid anything else like this as much as we can.”

The woods leaned in around them.  “I don’t think it works like that,” said Danny.  “Things are waking up.  And I think… I think the only reason Sam was able to find the- the path was because the woods were already waking up.  And some of the things… I don’t think they’re good, Tuck.”

“That’s not ominous at all,” squeaked Tucker.  “You know your eyes are glowing again, right?”

“Are they?”  He blinked and shook his head.  “Have you been looking for me the whole time?”

Tucker laughed nervously.  “No.  There’s, uh.  Turns out that if you disappear with the princess there are questions.  Lots and lots of questions.  So many questions.”  He shuddered.  “And my master is angry at me.  And the guild is angry with me.  But I’m fine!  What- What have you been up to?  What else have you been up to?  I, uh.  Ha.  Ha?"

A wry smile twitched the corner of Danny's lips.  "The tops of the trees, I guess." 

[isfjmel-phleg]

I have neither the time nor the inclination to reread every single one of these this Christmas season, but I'd like to get to some of them and wanted a reference. These are nonexhaustive lists of books from my own collection.

Christmas as a primary theme/setting

While Shepherds Watch by E. L. Bates

I Am Half Sick of Shadows and Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mewed by Alan Bradley

The Snow Sister by Emma Carroll

"The Flying Stars" by G. K. Chesterton

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

"The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sister of the Angels by Elizabeth Goudge

Addy's Surprise by Connie Porter

"The Necklace of Pearls" by Dorothy L. Sayers

Samantha's Surprise by Maxine Rose Schur

Kirsten's Surprise by Janet Beeler Shaw

Noel Streatfeild's Christmas Stories by Noel Streatfeild

Felicity's Surprise, Josefina's Surprise, Kit's Surprise, and Molly's Surprise by Valerie Tripp

The Birds' Christmas Carol by Kate Douglas Wiggin

"Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit" by P. G. Wodehouse

Not about Christmas primarily but have memorable sequences set then

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary

Hans Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

Tenthragon by Constance Savery

Most of the Shoes books but especially Theater Shoes/Curtain Up by Noel Streatfeild

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

Most of the Little House books but especially Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, and By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder

[myreia]

— B A S I C S

Name: Aureia Malathar Nicknames: Aur Age: 28 at the start of ARR, 38 in 6.x. Nameday: 30th Sun of the 3rd Umbral Moon Race: half-elezen (wildwood), half-hyur (midlander) Gender: female [she/her] Orientation: biromantic asexual Profession: warrior of light, battlemage-for-hire, former spy/operative

— P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C T S

Hair: black with red streaks Eyes: red Skin: pale Tattoos/scars: arcane brand burned into her back

— F A M I L Y

Parents: Elgara Theorzen (deceased, killed in Bozja), Ariv Theorzen (deceased, killed in Garlemald) Siblings: Kallias Theorzen (twin brother), currently alive Grandparents: deceased, names unknown In-laws and Other: married Thancred post-5.0. (impulsive decision, definitely happened too soon), considers Ryne her daughter, considers Urianger her brother Pets: Filo (chocobo), Nox (carbuncle), Castor (white whittret), Nutkin (nutkin)

— S K I L L S

Abilities: DRK/GNB | WHM/SGE | RPR/DRG | MCH | BLM/RDM Hobbies: botany (she's not good at it), training & learning new combat techniques, hiking, wandering in busy cities and taking it all in, river boating, collecting weapons, collecting earrings & rings, magical research

— T R A I T S

Most Positive Traits: determined, self-assured, inquisitive, compassionate for those forgotten and those left behind, loves fiercely and deeply Most Negative Traits: reckless, impulsive, selfish, abrasive, doesn't trust easily, prone to keeping secrets

— L I K E S

Colours: black, dark red, dark blue, silver Smells: the woods after rainfall, pine, the smokiness of a good campfire, saffron, a hint of citrus, the spice of street food in a busy market Textures: supple leather, polished wood, soft snowfall Drinks: tea, coffee, lemon water, orange juice

— O T H E R    D E T A I L S

Smokes: no Drinks: formerly yes, became an alcoholic in Stormblood, is now in recovery and doesn't drink Drugs: no Mount Issuance: Filo accompanies her almost everywhere; she has an amaro on the First (currently unnamed names are hard); occasionally rides a motorcycle or drives another vehicle; when she wants to show off, she shows up on a firebird Been Arrested: yes (several times) 🙃

Tagged by: @ardberts thank you!!! 🖤✨ Tagging: @birues @ishgard @wind-up-nhaama @roguelioness @tsunael @ahollowgrave

[paintedscales]

FFXIV Write 2024 :: Day Twenty-Nine

Prompt: You choose! (Nail) Characters: Lorha Keipah, Nomin tal Kheeriin Word Count: 526

Master List

“What are you making, Nomin?” Lorha asked as she leaned over Nomin’s shoulder and got a look at the blueprint that was laid out. She could tell by the schematics that it was a shield of one kind or another. However, Lorha was seeing if Nomin was amicable enough to explain anything, or if she was too lost to the world of carpentry to even hear her.

“Shield…” Nomin replied rather simply as she took the round knife and used it to cut the leather she was laying over it to shape.

“Commission work?” Lorha pressed, taking a seat close by. Her carbuncle, Rose, leapt up onto the table a respectable distance away from Nomin, her tails bobbing up and down as she watched.

“No.” Nomin put the round knife down and peeled away the leather, setting it aside for now. The shield was mostly constructed -- it was mostly wood with metal corners to hold it together.

Lorha’s expression twisted into confusion. Nomin was an archer and a lancer… What did she need a shield for?

“A gift then?” Lorha asked. That seemed reasonable.

“No.”

Lorha’s mouth fell open before she closed it, tilting her head. “If it’s neither of those, what do you need it for?”

Nomin sat up, suppressing the frustration that was rising from being distracted. With a sigh, she finally looked over toward Lorha and gave her explanation, “I can’t count on being fast enough to dodge, and I can’t account for enemies closing the distance between myself and them. If I have a shield, I can at least block any incoming projectiles or their own weaponry without leaving myself vulnerable to the attack.”

“Won’t it get in the way?”

“Probably?” Nomin shrugged. “But I can’t see why I can’t make something better in the future once I get a feel for even just a more basic one with blueprints provided from the Carpenters’ Guild to start.”

Lorha’s ears perked up, intrigue evident in her eyes. “Make something better? Do you have any ideas?”

“No. I need to use what I make out in the field first and get a feel for it,” Nomin replied, turning back toward her work. Getting some glue ready, she picked up a cloth and dipped it into the adhesive before brushing it along the back of the leather and then getting it refitted onto the shield. This was probably not the best way to get it done, but the woodwork was at least sturdy if the leather was not.

Once she smoothed the leather down, she started getting some metal clamps fitted around the shield to keep it in place. Lorha was still watching with vested interest.

“That ought to hold it until I can sit down to nail in the leather later to better secure it…” Nomin said, more talking to herself than anything. She lifted a hand, using the back of her wrist to move some loose hair out of her face.

“When it’s ready for testing, let me know! Can’t have you getting hurt out there while you’re ‘getting a feel for it’!” Lorha chriped, the tip of her tail curling with anticipation.

[selnyam]

B A S I C S

Name: Flidais Oakclamber

Nicknames: 'Dais, Fli, Pinky

Age: 156, though she is

Nameday: 19th Sun of the 2nd Umbral Moon

Race: Veena Viera

Gender: Female

Orientation: Polyamorous Lesbian

Profession: Adventurer, Bodyguard, Blacksmith, Carpenter

P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C  T S

Hair: Pink Hair with dark tips

Eyes: Blue

Skin: Tanned

Tattoos/scars: Markings along either side of her nose (origin unknown) several scars from battle, deep scar encircling her throat that took her voice, which she covers with a choker

F A M I L Y

Parents: Unknown

Siblings: Tyjet, a twin 'sister', adopted as a sister by some of her Borlaqq friends

Grandparents: Uknown

In-laws and Other: Father-in-law on her wife's side

Pets: her trouble making Ruby Carbuncle "Ciabatta" he loves to steal clothing from Flidais and her visitors.

S K I L L S

Abilities: Formerly a powerful black mage, skilled Warrior, blacksmith, carpenter, bartending.

Hobbies: Reading, crafting, working out, flirting with women

T R A I T S

Most Positive Trait: Seeks joy in everything, the world is so full of joy and love and she wants to share it with all.

Most Negative Trait: too quick to jump to violence, even if it's friendly sparring.

L I K E S

Colors: purples, pinks, blacks. Colours that go well with her hair

Smells: Campfire smoke, books, fresh baked pretzels, coffee

Textures: the lips of a lover, the cover of a book, the grain of wood as you strip the bark, sheets tangled around legs as you sleep.

Drinks: coffee, fruity teas, cherry ale, the "punchcat" she serves at her girlfriends bar

O T H E R    D E T A I L S

Smokes: Can't, it causes too many problems to her throat wounds

Drinks: Goes to bars to meet women, often

Drugs: Has never really tried any, just never came up. Strange with how much time she spent among the Pixies.

Mount Issuance: She has a Chocobo issued from the Twin Adders who followed her when she transferred to the Maelstrom. She named her Sapphobo and has been her stalwart companion.

Been Arrested: by the time she started to get into trouble, she was either such a powerful mage or so strong and buff that guards are intimidated to arrest her. I was tagged by @hazelkjt !!! this was fun to do! I'll tag @ariaofsasha and @isayoldbean and of course anyone else who wants to do it!

[shieldkeeper]

Happy half patch! I took it into my hands to write down and record all of the lore entries in game for the new Aloalo variant dungeon. You’ll find all the information below the cut:

A Not-quite Deserted Island

“Someone else was at Aloalo Island, and they commanded a wooden figure to attack us! It looked like a guhasaya, and its fangs were just as deadly. Thank the Sisters WoL was there!”

When Matsya told me of this encounter, my first thought was of the golems of the Far East, said to be driven by intricate wooden mechanisms. However, as Kalika so eagerly explained to us, the people of Aloalo were artisans of a different sort. They created arcane wooden familiars known as “quaqua” to serve as both protectors and companions, of which the creature that assailed them was but one. Nor were their constructs limited to the quaqua alone– Kalika warned against recklessly laying hands upon any of the figures dotting the island, lest they be roused from their slumber to defend their home.

Practitioners of the art of arcanima, which itself originated in the southern seas, employ gemstones to act as an intermediary between the corporeal and incorporeal when summoning familiars such as Carbuncles. The properties of wood, however, make it suitable for the selfsame purpose, and there is now evidence to suggest that early arcanists relief on wooden rather than gemstone cores. The “tiresome lout” of whom Matsya spoke must have possessed intimate knowledge of arcanima to successfully adopt these methods and call upon the quaqua.

The First Settlers of Aloalo Island

“Aloalo is breathtaking, and its fish are plentiful. How could it have been left abandoned for so long?”

While neither Aloalo’s natural beauty nor its various inhabitants’ resourcefulness is in question, it is but a small island amidst volatile seas, prone to experiencing the full force of nature’s fury. Thus is its history one of prolonged settlement punctuated by abrupt abandonment.

According to stories told to Kalika by the island’s former caretakers, the earliest known settlers arrived during the waning years of the Fourth Astral Era. However, at the onset of the Fifth Calamity, otherwise known as the Age of Endless Frost, these settlers vanished, leaving behind the great shrine which housed the statue of the Speaker. Dubbed the “forgotten people” by those who came after, their mark upon Aloalo would endure, but their identity remains shrouded in mystery.

During the Fifth Astral Era, Aloalo was home to another people who became skilled at navigating the open sea. Some subsequently migrated to Vylbrand and would go on to found the city-state of Nym. However, when the Sixth Calamity brought destruction to Nym’s gates, those who could returned to the birthplace of their forebears.

Later, in the Sixth Astral Era, some of Aloalo’s residents again crossed the sea to Vylbrand, and their knowledge of arcanima would become the foundation of what is practiced today.

Alas, history would repeat itself when the island was abandoned for the third time a century ago in response to the eruption of an underwater volcano. Now Aloalo sits quietly, awaiting any who might start the cycle anew.

God of Heaven and Sea

“The whale we encountered was as colorful as Thavnairian weave, but as vicious as a kumbhira!”

Legends abound in the south sea isles of whales which soar through the skies, and Shockmaw may be but one of these majestic creatures. According to Kalika, another flying whale known as “Ketuduke” was worshiped by Aloalo’s people as a messenger of the gods, and the countless figures carved in his image are an expression of their devotion. It is therefore within the realm of possibility that the creature which attacked was in truth this Ketuduke.

When faced with this revelation, Matsya wrung his hands and wondered if he had brought ill fortune upon them for angering a divine messenger. Kalika reassured him that any potential calamities could be averted by making the proper obeisance, and he instructed me to write down the ritual for posterity.

First, one must trek to where the three carven deities of Aloalo await their subjects, and there stand before the whale and chant, “O messenger from beyond the horizon, hear me.” Next, they must twice circumnavigate this isle of gods: first passing before the sparrow and then the turtle before returning to the whale’s auspice, then retracing the steps of their journey in the opposite direction. Lastly, the faithful must perform a dance, thus ending the ritual and securing Ketuduke’s blessing.

When Kalika described this rite to me, I was struck by its similarity to certain Thavnairian practices. Although the particulars differ, both religious traditions recognize and honor the divine nature of beasts.

A Noxious Gift

“I’d never felt a fish pull with such strength. At that moment, I swore on my pride as a fisher that I would not let this prize escape!”

Due to its tendency to absorb and accumulate toxins from its prey, the draco barracuda that Matsya returned with is not safe for consumption. To be clear, the fish’s flesh is not inherently toxic, so a brave soul could perhaps eat one and live–and I am certain more than a few have done just that. I know several fellow alchemists who would sample a barracuda just to experience its potency for themselves, in fact. Fortunately, I found it listed within a compendium kept at the Great WOrk, so I knew there was nothing to be gained from such questionable endeavors. 

The toxin of the draco barracuda can be used as an alchemical agent, much like the venom of the hamsa. The island’s lush environment likely afforded this particular specimen plenty of prey to feast upon, and as a consequence I suspect it is highly toxic.

Kalika informed me that draco barracuda were revered by Aloalo’s people because they kept harmful seaweed and poisonous smaller fish in check. If one was accidentally caught, it was given back to the sea as a gesture of gratitude. I cannot help but wonder whether Matsya should have done the same.

The Roots of Arcanima

“We were walking through a place filled with such lush greenery that every flower was as a shining ruby in the brush. I was so entranced with my surroundings that I scarcely noticed the strange wooden doll until we were nearly upon it!”

A century ago, an undersea volcano erupted near Aloalo. Violent waves followed, and the sky filled with ash so thick that the island’s inhabitants were unsure they would ever see the sun again. Their fortunes had changed overnight, and they were forced to make the difficult decision to leave their home. The evacuation was fraught with peril, for what boats survived the turbulent waters had to navigate floating lumps of cooling magma.

Prior to this disaster, Aloalo was a repository of mathematical records, grimoires, and marvels of arcanima. Those who fled could only take with them a fraction of these treasures, leaving behind their other creations–including the sculpted guardian known only as “the lala,” later encountered by Matsya and WoL.

Alas, while the lala managed to survive the long years, much of the archive and its tomes have been reclaimed by nature, along with what secrets they contained.

Under the Boughs of the Great Tree

“Thavnair has its share of magnificent trees, but this one puts them all to shame. That jewel is truly a wonder.”

The great tree which towers over Aloalo had already grown into its full majesty when Kalika was born. In its shelter gathered those who worked to unravel the mysteries of the world through numbers and equations, and over time their modest encampment transformed into a full-fledged community. Night and day they would pore over their arithmetic, that they might shed light upon the jewel held by the statue of the Speaker, which seemed to imbue Aloalo itself with unflagging vitality. In the course of their research, they carved numerous arcane geometries into the tree’s bark, one of which would extract the aether from slain animals and redirect its flow to the surrounding flora. Just four sacrifices would be enough to make the branches of the tree grow, thus opening–or closing–paths through the area.

If these early arcanists were so fascinated with the Speaker’s jewel, why did they not live within the shrine which housed it?

This I asked Kalika, who answered that the shrine was enshrouded by an impenetrable mist–likely the result of magicks woven by its forgotten builders. And so the proto-arcanists settled at the great tree while they labored to create a tool which would win them safe passage, only to remain there even after their work was complete. I presume the comforts and benefits of a familiar place won out in the end.

A Dear Friend

“When the branches were thickest, I wondered if I might spy a bird like Kalika perched upon them. I kept looking up, but I spied no sparrows flitting throughout the canopy.”

When Kalika heard this story from Matsya, he proudly exclaimed that he was unlike any other sparrow in the world. Although his less-talkative brethren are a common sight in Thavnair, they were revered by the inhabitants of Aloalo. Seeking to deepen my bond with the loquacious bird, I asked Kalika if there were any rituals performed or prayers offered in his kind’s honor. While Kalika was uncharacteristically reluctant to teach me, he acquiesced after some prodding. I have recorded his instructions so as not to forget.

Where Aloalo’s deities lie in wait, one must stand before the figure of the sparrow and chant, “O dancer of the skies, hear me.” Then they must prove their sincerity by blowing it a kiss. After that, the faithful should circle its perch, passing both the turtle and the whale ere returning to the sagely sparrow and performing for it a sprightly dance, thus securing the sparrow’s favor.

After learning this, I blew a kiss to Kalika. In response, he sighed deeply and turned his back to me. My heart sank, and it was then I realized just how much I had come to care about him. I want only for Kalika to be comfortable and safe. Perhaps I should put more effort in the meals I prepare? Or would blowing him more kisses win his favor? Or perhaps… (The following musings content no pertinent information for those who would brave Aloalo.)

Fish for the Mind

“To think the great tree was home to fish as well. I usually cast my rod in the sea, but it’s exciting to ply my trade in a new environment!”

Kalika informed us that the fish Matsya returned with is a “wholokailo”. Its hard scales were dried, polished, and repurposed as components in a calculating device. The meat was also favored for its succulent flavor and supposed ability to enhance intelligence. As an alchemist, I was eager to put this claim to the proof. Could the meat actually sharpen one’s mind, or was it merely superstition born from the wholokailo’s association with arcanima?

I investigated the fish’s properties as soon as I heard Kalika’s story, but regrettably found nothing extraordinary concerning its nutritional benefits. That said, the scales do appear to have value as alchemical agents if they are properly stripped from the body and dried. I then thought perhaps grilling the fish and eating it whole might produce the desired enhancing effect… but I found the scales to be much too hard to chew and displeasing to the tongue besides.

To use the fish to its full alchemical potential, I believe the best method would be to grind the scales into powder, then knead them into a shape that can be easily swallowed. Whether or not the resulting product would measurably improve one’s intelligence remains to be seen, though.

A Familiar History

“That faerie almost spoiled the whole experience. I hope we’ve seen the last of her…”

The faerie that tormented Matsya was a forgotten familiar by the name of Statice. Kalika was no stranger to her antics, and he recounted the stories of Statice wielding bizarre tools in her many attempts to capture him. She seems to have no purpose but to engage in mischief, and her traps litter Aloalo.

Given that scholars from the city-state of Nym settled upon Aloalo after the Sixth Calamity, the presence of a faerie is hardly surprising. They were favored as familiars by Nym’s mages, but such minions disappear upon the death of their master, when the supply of aether sustaining them is cut off. The fact that Statice has endured for so long suggests that she draws upon a potent source of aether–perhaps the selfsame jewel which is responsible for the remarkable vitality of Aloalo.

As an aside, the techniques used to control these faeries would later be refined by modern arcanists who command Carbuncles.

Tracing the evolution of the art further back, we can see a connection to the wooden familiars left behind by the forgotten original settlers of Aloalo. The tapestry of history is vast and intricate, and these expeditions have done much to add new threads to the cloth.

The Remnants of Faith

“We arrived at a place that looked long abandoned but retained an unmistakable air of divinity. Whatever gods watched over Aloalo, this was surely their home.”

Matsya’s description called to mind Thavnair’s Purusa, and Kalika confirmed that it was indeed a sacred site for the people of Aloalo. It contained a ritual chamber where figures of the gods awaited to dispense their blessings, among them that of a sea turtle. As a fisher, Matsya is bonded to the sea, and Kalika suggested that he perform the proper rites before the turtle upon his next voyage. For Matsya’s sake, I shall record the instructions here.

First, standing before the turtle, one must chant, “O wayfarer of land and sea, hear me.” Then the supplicant must journey around the isle of gods twice, each time passing the sparrow then the whale before returning to the turtle. Bow before the wise traveler to earn its blessing.

Figures of the divinities could also be found throughout the ruins of old settlements, and I wonder whether their arrangement held special meaning. Regardless, it is plain that religion was of great importance to the people of Aloalo, much like it is to the Hannish.

A Lalafell or a Fish?

“I’ve never seen such a fish! It almost resembles you, Pasasun–quite adorable, if I say so myself.”

I respect Matsya and his opinions, but I must strenuously beg to differ. To simply look at the fish he brought back from Aloalo sends a chill down my spine. Birds like Kalika could be described as “adorable,” but a fish with the face of a man… well, we shall have to agree to disagree, and consider this a minor hitch in an otherwise harmonious friendship.

When I asked Kalika about this odd specimen, he said it was called a “lalaulusu” by Aloalo’s inhabitants. They had a legend of an unlucky lalafell who was cast into the ocean during a storm, whereupon they found themselves transformed into a fish.

Parents told this story to their children to discourage them from wandering near the shore during rough weather. While it was likely no more than a cautionary tale, I cannot help but hesitate to render the laulusu into alchemical materials.

Wellspring of Golden Memories

“I caught a fish with striking golds scales–it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen in Thavnair. This may be the most precious treasure of Aloalo Island!”

“Long ago, a fever raged among Aloalo’s infants. In a desperate bid to save their young, the islanders made soup with fish from the waters of the great shrine. The infants’ fevers broke, and all who partook of the soup grew into hale and hearty adults who were never again touched by sickness. Thenceforth it became custom to feed all newborns soup made from the golden coelacanth. Whatever inherent nutritional benefits the meat possesses seem to be enhanced by the fish’s proximity to the statue of the Speaker and the jewel it protects. Needless to say, the golden coelacanth holds high value as an alchemical specimen.

Although Matsya and I have known each other since childhood, the separate paths we took in life have afforded us scant opportunity to work together. Since the day he found Kalika washed up on the beach, however, we have never been closer– and the adorable bird has been a welcome addition to our fellowship. What is more, I have been able to advance my study of alchemy thanks to the rare fish Matsya has brought back.

I began this conservation record in the hopes that Matsya and any who would follow in his footsteps might benefit from it, but it has become a journal of sorts for this most joyous time in mylife. I am forever grateful to Matsya and Kalika both for setting these events in motion, and to WoL for keeping my dear friend safe from harm in his journeys.

EXTRA!

The Speaker

Kalika: I can tell you only of legends passed down through generations. Of biting frost that turned seas to ice, which drove the Speaker’s makers to go forth in search of a haven where light shone bright.

Those who came long after found Aloalo, where life had weathered the ancient rime. At the island’s heart was the Speaker, its jewel flawless and radiant. ‘Twas a wellspring of vitality, they believed, and all who settled upon Aloalo came to revere the ancient builders and their enduring legacy.

Under the Speaker’s auspices, the people of Aloalo lived in peace for thousands of years, until the day flame and ash rose from the water and forced them to flee.

[impossible-rat-babies]

— B A S I C S

name: eyrie kisne nicknames: none. they inherited the title "the ephemeral shepherd" after the end of the pandaemonium raids age: 150~ years old nameday: 22nd sun of the 4th astral moon (07/22) race: veena + rava viera gender: nonbinary orientation: do not particularly care profession: adventurer + craftsman

— P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C T

hair: reddish brown with streaks of pale blonde + a few grey hairs at their temples and near their ears. there are a few bald spots near the base of their ears from an intense trichotillomania flare up ~15 years ago eyes: warm dark brown skin: well worn and lightly tanned with copious amounts of sun spots, freckles and moles. a section of bleached white skin runs the length of their spin, spreading out across their shoulders and lower back. tattoos/scars: light brown tattoos of the same design as their maternal grandmother decorate their fingers and hands. their hands and forearms bleached to a pale white—almost marble like to the touch. they have too many scars to dare count them, but a notably large scar stretches from just below their sternum to right above their belly button from a reaper scythe through their chest.

— F A M I L Y

parents: their mother--yelva--is alive and well back in the forest. tending to her great grand children and her goats. their father, azmi, died in an accident during the later parts of eyrie’s wood warder training. siblings: two older sisters named lilja and brita, and one fraternal twin brother named odvirn, all of whom are alive grandparents: deceased/unknown in laws and other: none they are close with. they do have copious amounts of nieces and nephews from their sisters, but their brother has no living children. they also have seven children of their own. pets: cricket (a ferret familiar, unknowingly summoned) + flower (a carbuncle inherited upon the death of the first WoL in the coils of bahamut) + gingko (their chocobo who chose them once they finished their paladin training)

— S K I L L S

abilities: brd + smn + war/drk + ast. also trained in the tradition of the disgraced paladins of ishgard. they have some small talent in conjury, but refuse to pursue the matter further on account of “personal issues” hobbies: whittling, landscape drawing, playing various instruments (lute and pan pipes), gardening, sewing + embroidery + mending clothes

— T R A I T S

most positive traits: selfless, compassionate, loving, paternal

most negative traits: selfless, quiet, liar, shameful and guilty, vindictive, patronizing

— L I K E S

colours: russet brown, maroon, olive green, ivory, pale gold smells: oil pastels, aether, chamomile, blood textures: linen, feathers, homemade paper, oil, silky fur and rough wool drinks: mead, mulled wine, fermented sheep's milk

— O T H E R    D E T A I L S

smokes: briefly and socially some 25 years ago. they have some fleeting happy memories associated with the smell of garlean cigarettes. drinks: very occasionally and only socially with familiar company drugs: mild relaxants to help them sleep when the terrors get really bad + occasional pain meds to ease chronic pains mount issuance: "this note just says you can do what you want." been arrested: yes, several times by the brass blades in ul'dah after the calamity. mostly for petty crimes, but also inciting violence + bar fights + violence against members of the brass blades. (to which that was mostly violence in defense of the poor and the refugees the brass blades took for easy targets. they didn’t kill anyone though)

--

@redwayfarers and @galpalaven tagged me in this meme ages ago and i finally got around to doing it! im gonna tag: @fourteenthz, @gatheredfates, @hinganskies, @aethergazing and whomever else!

[dragons-bones]

FFXIV Write Entry #2: Drumming Song

Prompt: bark || Master Post || On AO3

--

“I think I’ve found it,” Synnove muttered to herself, examining a rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb made of tiny, glittering aetheric equations repeated over and over in a perfect tessellation, floating amongst a ribbon of other geometries.

Her new carbuncle, Tyr, was a lovely, sweet boy, gentle despite his enormous size, but he was…quiet. Unnaturally so: he made no physical sounds like the purring or chittering common of carbuncles, nor did he communicate via the aetheric harmonic that Galette uses with her. The lack of it has clearly frustrated the lad, and so Synnove had spent this first sennight of possessing a new summon on unspooling his physical form into a single line of code to examine each and every fragment of his full manifested array. The written array was perfect, so clearly something had gone pear-shaped during summoning.

And now, finally, she’d found it. This equation tessellating into the honeycomb, at a glance, seemed to be related to sound; Synnove jotted down the full equation in her notebook, as well as a sketch of a flat rendering of the shape it formed, to better study it later. Her current theory was that the sheer density of aether contained in Tyr’s topaz had caused some sort of interference and so far, the evidence supported it. That this was the only hiccup was a pleasant surprise.

For all that he couldn’t communicate in a traditional manner at the moment, Tyr was still aware and able to make himself known: the ribbon of his unspooled-self did an excited little shimmy. Synnove grinned as she began to pluck the honeycomb apart, pinching a dodecahedron here, smudging one with her thumb there.

As she worked, something rhythmic began to niggle at the back of her mind, thumpthumpthump, like someone rattling a door, growing steadily louder as the honeycomb. Her grin widened. “Patience, Tyr,” she crooned, and despite her growing excitement, she kept to her own methodical pace.

Finally, as the penultimate dodecahedron melted away, leaving but one behind:

--ama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!

“Hello, Tyr,” Synnove said, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. Tyr’s aetheric harmonic was the comforting thrum of gazelle-hide drums and tolling brass bells. “It’s nice to finally meet you!”

MAMA! MAMA MAMA MAMA HI HI HI!

Synnove shoved her chair back, and the long, glittering ribbon of golden light abruptly rolled itself up with an audible snap! As the roll completed, Tyr burst back into full materiality, and he landed with a wood-creaking THUD. For such an enormous carbuncle, he was fast, and in the blink of an eye he had rushed forward to shove his head into her stomach, his tails lashing as he tried to crawl into her lap, and chattering at a high pitch.

She aggressively cuddled him back, leaning down to plant a smacking kiss between his ears, and laughed when the action elicited in an adorable tippity-tap from Tyr’s paws. “All right, my boyo,” she said, drawing away and cupping his head in her hands, “want to give me a nice big bork hello?”

Yeah! Tyr chattered. He backed up a few steps and sat down, so excited he was visibly vibrating. His chest expanded and he opened his mouth and—

[the agonistic colliding of tectonic plates and the melting of corruption into coal into diamond and the igneous iron at the heart of the star and the tintinnabulation of limestone water into stalagmites and stalactites and the ever-wait as fire becomes stone and the ancient humming at the root of a mountain and the patient rumbling as crystal becomes Self]

—Synnove’s  eyes snapped open and she wheezed for breath as she stared up into Tyr’s worried face.

Mama, did I do it right?

Synnove was not sure what he had just done. Her scientific brain was furious about that. Her common sense brain told her scientific brain to shut the fuck up and reminded it that sometimes stupid mortals Did Not Need To Know Things. Synnove listened to common sense brain, and promptly let her memory go fuzzy and grey.

Instead, she reached up and patted his cheek. “Think so,” she croaked. “We’ll work on volume. And tone.”

Tyr promptly dropped down onto her in a full-body sprawl—she wheezed again—and began to purr. It was deep, almost soundlessly so, but it sunk down into her bones and caused every muscle in her body to relax and woah. All right, yes, that. That was good. And amazing.

Synnove wrapped her arms around her carbuncle, and decided this was probably as good a time as any for a nap.

PREVIOUS || NEXT

[holmesillustrations]

Left: “It's Nancy!” Crooked Man, Sidney Paget, The Strand Jul/Aug 1893 Characters: Henry Wood, Nancy Barclay, Miss Morrison

Right: “A very seedy hard felt hat.” Blue Carbuncle, Sidney Paget, The Strand Jan/Feb 1892 Characters: Holmes, Watson

[neriyon]

��� Basics ∙

Name: Hawu'li Puu Nickname(s): No one's really came up with anything (me included) Age: 23 Nameday: 17th Sun of the 4th Umbral Moon (17.8) Race: Keeper of the Moon Miqo'te Gender: Male Orientation: Gayyyy Profession: Warrior of Light / travelling healer

∙ Physical Aspects ∙

Hair: Lavender purple and pretty fluffy. The turquoise part of his bangs is dyed, and needs to be redone regularily. Eyes: Bright yellow Skin: White with pink undertone Tattoos/Scars: White, slightly curved "dots" next to his eyes, three on each side. No notable scars - he's very diligent in healing any big hurts after battle.

∙ Family ∙

Parents: - Mother, Hawu Puu. Matriarch of the Puu family. Alive and well, strictly leading her family back in Shroud. Hawu'li visits her, but rather rarely. - Never met his father, nor know anything about him. It's uncertain if he even knows he has a kid. Siblings: - 2 older brothers, Hawu'a and Hawu'to. Hawu'a lives back in Shroud and hunts for a living, while Hawu'to is a researcher in Old Sharlayan. - Grand total of 5 older and 2 younger sisters. Three of the older sisters left home after adulthood to start their own families, the rest of them live with their mother and help provide for the family. Grandparents: Mostly unknown. Hawu sometimes talked about her mother (Hawu'li's maternal grandmother), but she had passed away before Hawu'li was even born. Other: - Draevoux "Drae" Chevalier and Nana Chevalier, elezen couple who are both his (currently retired) co-wols and "roommates". - Varying lineup of partners. He's poly with multiple partners and I've yet to make a solid list of them all since they change all the time. Aymeric and G'raha are the two I mention most. Pets: Carby the Carbuncle. Hawu'li's uh, not that good with names. Carby is your avarage ruby carbuncle, but is around pretty much 24/7. Often refered to as Hawu'li's "emotional support carbuncle", since it's jobs include keeping him calm when he is left alone.

∙ Skills ∙

Abilities: Strong affinity with healing magic and the ability to hear the elementals, making him a formidable white mage. When situation calls for destruction rather than healing, he's also well versed in the art of summoning, and has been known to call upon demi-Bahamut when feeling truly desperate. Hobbies: Cooking, reading and singing. Also likes to mend stuff (patch holes, fix broken furniture) and read stories to kids (usually his sisters')

∙ Traits ∙

Most Positive Trait: Seemingly endless positivity. For someone who's job is to kill gods and see people get hurt on daily basis he's somehow still sure Things Will Be Better, and that deep down everyone has the potential to change for the better. Most Negative Trait: Separation anxiety. From some deepest parts of his soul comes a crippling fear of being left alone. At it's worst, he'll go into full blown panic attack in fifteen or so minutes after losing sight of others. At it's best (mostly after EW) he'll survive with only Carby as his company for almost half a day.

∙ Likes ∙

Colors: Purples, turquoise, most pastels and bright colors Smells: Freshly baked things, forest, lilies, apples baked with cinnamon Textures: Running fingers through silky hair. Wood, fur and silk. Rocks smoothed over by water. Drinks: Tea (any), milk, blackcurrant juice, mulled wine

∙ Other details ∙

Smokes: Nope Drinks: Only in company Drugs: Nuh-uh Mount Issuance: Koivu, his beloved lavender chocobo companion. Disinterested in almost everything, but happily follows any command given by his owner in exchange of some tasty treats. Been Arrested: Surprisingly, only once - in Ishgard, on suspicion of heresy along with Alphi and Tataru. (Drae took the msq spot of fighting for Tataru's freedom)

Seen this tag game around a lot lately, and I wanted in on the fun despite not being tagged. Took a lot longer to fill than I thought, so we'll see if I have the energy to fill this for other ocs too.

If you want to do it too, go for it! ♪(´▽｀) It takes a while, but is very fun to fill~

[axratsffxivwrite]

FFXIV Write Day 3 - Tempest (Fear and Fury)

The red sky burned above the Magna Glacies. Viola stood amidst the carnage, wind whipping at her stark-white hair, her loaned Bozjan armor stained with soot. Her glittering ruby carbuncle darted between scores of blasphemies, unleashing bursts of fire everywhere it went. Her fingers trailed over pages of her grimoire, calling upon enchanted glyphs and arcane geometries. 

Contingent soldiers met the abominations with blades, bows, and spells. For every blasphemy they killed, three men perished. Viola held back amongst the archers, flinging spell after spell into the fray. A twisted, winged creature swooped at her. She ducked as her carbuncle raised a barrier around her. Claws struck the arcane scales. An arrow flew past her shield and struck the monster through the back. It screeched, twisting in the air to seek out a new threat.

Viola raised her grimoire again. Her carbuncle led the charge with flame and fury. 

The screams of the dying echoed in her long Vieran ears. Panicked cries rang across the field. Those who lost heart succumbed to the transformation. The world was ending. Fitting, she thought, that the Garleans might go first. She had someone to find before they did. Someone too dear to lose. 

The winged blasphemy made another pass at her, shattering her barrier and colliding full-force with her. The force of the blow sent her sprawling, her grimoire flying from hand as her body skid across snow and ice. She rolled into a crouch, raising her head to acquire her target once more. 

Her grimoire lost to her, she called upon the old ways. She drew her rapier and turned it over in her hands, using its pommel as a focus. She was no red mage, no Eorzean thaumaturge, but she was a child of the wood. The aether of this realm would answer her call as surely as any other. 

She whipped the winds into a shining tempest, buffeting the winged beast from above. It screeched, plummeting to the snow as the winds drove it down. A hail of arrows followed suit, each driving deep into the blasphemy’s twisted flesh. It shrieked as one last bolt flew true and struck between its eyes. 

It burst into a blackened mist, replete of any aether or life. Nothing to bury. Nothing to return to the star. 

She approached the pit in the snow where the beast had died. Dread rose in her chest. No belongings left behind, nothing with which to identify the dead. 

He would not succumb to such despair. She told herself. A man such as he would sooner die. 

Yet still her heart ached. Her fingers wrapped around the red cloth tied to her belt. Fear clutched at the edges of her soul, threatening to drive its way into her heart. She could feel the pull, the panic. One deep breath. Two. He’s alive. She told herself, firmly. He’s alive.

She forced herself to believe it, as she had so many times before. The sinking sensation in her gut began to fade. 

She would not become a monster. She would find him. 

Yet her search could not continue until the battle was over. Resigned to fight on, she retrieved her grimoire from the snow. 

It felt as if there would be no end to the horde of shrieking beasts. Many rasped out their despair into the wind, until she could no longer differentiate the calls of allies from the cries of monsters. Others hissed and snarled like common beasts, their claws lashing at every target they could find. Each felt as a void in the world. Keen as her senses were, she could not feel an onze of life behind those empty eyes. It sent a chill deep into her core. 

Despite it all, she fought on. Even as her muscles ached, her aether depleted, she fought on. 

He needed her, after all. That damn fool of a man needed her.

Once upon a time, it had been the other way around. She had been so lost and confused, yet he had extended out a hand and guided her. He had given her a home and a purpose when her own people cast her aside. Through every loss, through every victory, he had always been there. 

Until now. 

Now she fought without him, without their clan. She fought alongside strangers and enemies – the Garleans would always be enemies to her, no matter the Contingent’s purpose – in a desperate bid to survive the Final Days. Only once the Garleans joined the fight did the tide finally seem to turn in their favor, yet every instinct she had screamed danger at the sight of them on the field. 

It took all her self-control not to turn on them instead of the blasphemies. As she cast spell after spell, as her carbuncle darted amongst the blasphemies, she wondered if they felt the same about her. 

Resolved nonetheless, Viola fought until her legs gave out beneath her, until exhaustion took what despair could not. She fell to a knee before a blasphemy’s fading form, her aether utterly spent. She raised her head as the reinforcements pressed on ahead, unable to summon the strength to follow. With the last vestiges of her energy, she dragged herself to her feet and began her slow retreat. 

High above, the sky still burned.